Source Creator: Onyx Path Publishing & White Wolf
Game line: Chronicles of Darkness game line
Venue: Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Ed
Post by: Jerad Sayler
The following is a compilation of information on the Task Force Valkyrie (TFV) hunter conspiracy from Hunter: The Vigil. The following events mentioned below are canon in our current Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen using Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition.
Access to this information In-Character requires Chronicle Storyteller approval with rationale on how the information might be obtained.
Weapon System Positive Control:
Task Force: VALKYRIE takes its operational security very seriously. On recruitment, all agents are implanted with a small RFID chip, usually secured in the meat of the hip or shoulder. All Advanced Armory devices, unless specifically noted otherwise, have a receiver programmed to recognize the frequency of this RFID at close range.
If the signal is not detected, the device hardlocks and will not function. While this keeps VALKYRIE’s weapons from falling into the hands of rogue hunters or, worse yet, the enemy, it can also lead to tragic losses. One strike team in Canada was completely wiped out when the coven of witches it tracked down cast a spell that disrupted electronic communications. The team’s weapons, no longer receiving the proper signal from their RFID chips, dutifully shut down and left the soldiers defenseless.
Certain Advanced Armory Merits are listed as “Renewable.” The nature of modern warfare is such that a soldier chews through supplies at a high rate: ammo is fired, grenades thrown, and so on. Renewable Merits represent these expendable but vital pieces of technology, which the Task Force supplies its agents on a regular basis. Each Renewable Merit’s description lists how often the top brass will supply soldiers with fresh ammo, usually once per chapter or once per story. Note that this resupply does not mean the hunter automatically receives a new Endowment; Task Force:VALKYRIE only replaces expended gear. If a sniper is normally issued two magazines of etheric rounds (represented by two dots of the Etheric Rounds Merit) but only expends one of them during the course of a session, he only receives one replacement mag at the start of the next session. Obviously, if a hunter does not begin a session in a situation where he can be resupplied, he won’t receive the replacements immediately.
Task Force: VALKYRIE expects detailed after-action reports from its agents especially when its special weapons are used. Hunters with the bright idea of selling off Advanced Armory gear and requisitioning replacements should remember that VALKYRIE controls prisons that make Fort Leavenworth look like Club Med.
Etheric Rounds
(• or •••••; Renewable)
Produced in top-secret, experimental laboratories around the country, these bullets have been bombarded with a cocktail
of exotic, high-energy particles that infuse peculiar pseudophysical properties into the lead. Etheric Rounds are delivered to field operatives in clear, plastic magazines (Task Force: VALKYRIE manufactures versions in every caliber and magazine style currently on the market) and emit a faint blue light from their tips. When fired, this light becomes as bright as a tracer round, making concealment all but impossible. The bullet is actually consumed by this light, which converts the metal into a pseudo-etheric state that VALKYRIE scientists believe to be a heretofore undiscovered “fifth state” of matter. Etheric Rounds, unlike most Advanced Armory items, can be used by anyone, even if they lack a Task Force: VALKYRIE RFID chip.
Etheric rounds allow firearm rounds to substantially harm ghost, spirits and incorporeal entities, even if they have temporary physical form. It is disruptive to their substance and causes these being serious pain and discomfort.
Etheric Rounds allow the hunter to inflict normal firearm damage against manifested ghosts, spirits and other incorporeal entities. They don’t react as Blessed items, and thus inflict lethal rather than aggravated damage. Etheric Rounds can be used against corporeal targets as well, but the attack suffers a -1 penalty, as the pseudo-etheric harmonics are less disruptive to living tissue.
The Etheric Rounds Merit is Renewable; for each dot the character has in this Merit, Task Force: VALKYRIE supplies him with one clip of Etheric Rounds for a specific weapon type (e.g. MP-5, Glock 19) every session. A character may purchase multiple instances of Etheric Rounds, each specifying a different weapon. For example, an assault team leader might have Etheric Rounds (AR-15)••• and Etheric Rounds (P90) ••; every session, he has three magazines’ worth of etheric ammo for his AR-15 and two magazines for his P90.
Sin-Eaters and Etheric Rounds
Got Geist? Want to know what Etheric Rounds do to Sin-Eaters? Because a geist literally merges with the Sin-Eater, this means that these Advanced Armory bullets do full and normal damage to the Sin-Eater’s living tissue. It also disrupts the Sin-Eater’s Synergy; if the Sin-Eater is forced to make a Synergy degeneration roll within 24 hours of having been shot by an Etheric Round, she suffers -1 to that roll.
Many of the creatures Task Force: VALKYRIE hunts display an unusual degree of sensitivity to psychic phenomena. Witches seem to be the most adept at this sort of thing, displaying an uncanny knack for poking their noses into supernatural affairs that should be invisible to mere mortals. As witches are also among the most difficult antagonists to identify, VALKYRIE scientists developed a sort of psychic booby trap to identify potential hostiles. Official rules of engagement state that the “witch buster” is to be used to flush out known quarry that has gone to ground, but field teams often engage is a game variously referred to as “wizard baiting” or “fishing for Potters,” in which a witch buster is set up in a
public but discreet location and anyone who drops by to have a look is tagged and monitored. Ever since a Glaswegian cell went a little off the reservation back in ’98 and just started killing everyone that poked around the witch buster, this tactic is expressly forbidden by VALKYRIE doctrine.
The witch buster is roughly the size and shape of a hockey puck, with a sticky adhesive backing that allows it to be mounted on walls or ceilings. Powered by an ordinary lithium-ion battery, the kind that can be purchased at any cell phone store, the witch buster slowly but persistently leaks a small amount of etheric energy — theoretically, not enough to be harmful (although quite a few field agents swear otherwise), but enough to register on a witch’s psychic radar.
Function: In game terms, the witch buster triggers a witch’s Unseen Sense Merit (or Peripheral Mage Sight)Because their Unseen Sense Merit registers any type of supernatural disturbance, mages are the most likely to perceive a witch buster, but any character with an Unseen Sense Merit relating to ghosts, spirits, or Twilight phenomena will sense a witch buster. Supernatural powers or spells that sense disturbances in Twilight or detect ghosts or spirits will also register the witch buster as an odd, not-immediately-explicable twinge. A witch buster has eight hours of battery life before it
must be recharged. Three successes on an extended Intelligence
+ Crafts roll, with each roll representing 10 minutes of work, allows a hunter to tap into a building’s electrical wiring
and hook the witch buster in, allowing it to operate as long as
the building has power.
Etheric Goggles (•• or ••••)
Ghosts, demons, and witches all have the ability to pass unseen by mortal senses. Even vampires, according to some stories, have the ability to send their minds out of their cold, dead bodies and explore the world in secret. With etheric goggles, Task Force: VALKYRIE can bring the fight to them. Etheric goggles operate on the same principle as the etheric tracker, utilizing chemically treated lenses to detect entities in Twilight. Until recently, they were standard kit for field agents, but since a rash of psychosis among agents who used them extensively in the early 2000s, top brass has restricted their use.
Etheric goggles look like slightly bulkier, more complicated versions of the night-vision goggles employed by the United States Armed Forces. In fact, etheric goggles serve as perfectly functional night-vision goggles, allowing the wearer to see perfectly — albeit in monochrome — in pitch darkness. Their primary use comes into play when the hunter flips a pair of oddly purplish lenses down over the infrared light source on the goggles’ brow, allowing the wearer to see objects and beings in full etheric state as clearly as if they were manifested physically.
A more trusted agent can requisition an advanced model which are sensitive enough to pick up the etheric energy left but incorporeal beings well enough to track it down. The process required to treat the lenses to render the Twilight visible creates weird distortions of the physical world and prolonged use can lead to hallucinations and psychosis.
Function: While the hunter is using the goggles to see Twilight objects, he suffers a -2 penalty to Perception checks made to notice anything in the physical world. For four dots an agent can requisition the Advanced Tracking Model. The trails it can see fade after 10 minutes per point of Power the spirit entity possesses. (In the case of beings that use the full nine Attribute spread, such as a Twilight-walking witch, use the highest of Strength, Intelligence or Presence.)
The Bleeder (••)
Resembling nothing so much as a jackhammer with a small satellite dish in place of the drill bit, the Bleeder is one of Task Force: VALKYRIE’s newest developments. The Bleeder is the latest in what VALKYRIE’s scientists refer to as “crowd-safe” weaponry, designed to target and eliminate supernatural threats, specifically Haemorphages and their servants, while presenting little threat to potential victims or bystanders. Only recently moved out of the laboratory, the Bleeder has begun field-testing with a number of field ops teams around the globe.
The Bleeder fires a focused microburst of energy in a tightly constrained beam in a split second. Through processes not fully understood even by the scientists who discovered them, this energy reacts violently with the quasi-biological functions of the Haemorphage's body fluids, with the net result that it evacuates the creature’s body, usually in a violent manner. Laboratory tests have recorded results ranging from a minor leakage of the tear ducts to vomiting. In some test cases, the blood actually shot out of the subject’s pores in a fine red mist. While not entirely eliminated, the weapon presents a minimal threat level to humans and natural animals, as they lack the critical metabiology of Haemorphagic blood.
Instead of inflicting damage to the target, the “Bleeder” causes a vampire, ghoul, or any creature that has vampiric blood in their system begins losing that supernatural blood. This blood leaves the creature’s body in rivulets or sprays of blood, with velocity and force that varies on a variety of factors. If the device is particularly effective it might cause open wounds in the skin. Blood vessels may explode; skin and muscle are torn by the force of the exsanguination.
The “Bleeder” does not have quite the same explosive interaction with non-vampiric blood, but the energy it pours out can cause premature breakdown of blood cells or the restriction of blood vessels. Against creatures without a stored pool of vampire blood, the weapon inflicts intense headaches and malaise: the effect lasts for about 30 seconds and is often accompanied by a nosebleed.
FIELD MODIFICATIONS: THE BLEEDER
The Bleeder was designed to work on vampires and other hemovores, and Task Force: VALKYRIE scientists have had their greatest successes on implementing the technology to disrupt vampiric feeding. While not nearly as reliable, a Bleeder can be field modified to bleed the vital energy that empowers other
supernatural creatures. Such a modification takes knowledge of the thaumabiological entity to be targeted and there is a possibility such modification will cause the device to slag down instead.
Equalizer Grenade (•••; Renewable)
The old phrase “monsters in human skin” has its element of truth, but there are things out there in the dark that hide behind only the thinnest veneer of humanity. Sometimes, when a Task Force: VALKYRIE strike team storms some unholy nightmare’s den, what looks like a few hillbillies and drifters turns into a wall of fur and muscle and savage sharp teeth. The Equalizer grenade helps to level the playing field.
Studies performed on captured monsters of various classifications have revealed a commonality amongst many: when a living creature changes its shape, no matter the method behind it, a surge of erratic brain activity buried deep in the sensory cortex immediately precedes the change. VALKYRIE scientists have speculated that this is the brain trying to process the sensory overload of radical body morphism, but the truth is countless vivisections have been unable to give any conclusive answers.
Nevertheless, VALKYRIE munitions experts were able to engineer the equalizer grenade from the test data. Operating on the same principles that cause certain patterns of brightly flashing lights to induce epileptic seizures, the equalizer grenade pulses in a pattern that causes focused microseizures in that portion of the brain that seems to govern shapeshifting. The grenade is harmless to humans, and in fact to anything not attempting to alter its form, but the microseizures fl ood neural channels with “white noise” that effectively blocks shapeshifting.
Mechanics: The grenade has a “Damage” of 4, but instead of inflicting Health damage, any living creature within five yards of the grenade whose Size is less than the total “damage” is unable to change its shape for five turns and must return to its natural shape. Remember that to calculate a grenade’s damage, you roll a number of dice equal to the Damage, in this case 4, and add the successes to the base Damage rating.
The Equalizer Grenade Merit is Renewable; once per story per instance of the Merit a hunter possesses, Task Force: VALKYRIE will resupply him with an Equalizer Grenade. If he can produce concrete intelligence that a particular quarry he’s pursuing is a shapeshifter and he has already used his resupply for the current story, he may roll Wits + Politics to cut through the red tape and acquire another. Success means he receives the resupply within the week; an exceptional success gets him the grenade in one day. This
emergency resupply can only be used once per story.
Interstices Calculation Expedient (ICE) (•)
VALKYRIE has long posited the existence of interstitial terrain (co-located planes of existence), but hasn’t been able to prove it—yes, some agents have experienced it, but the subjective experiences of individual hunters cannot be used as proof for anything. Now, they have a device that tracks and records instances of interstitial terrain. The device is portable, though not easily concealable (the screen itself is about as big as an iPhone or GPS device, but the housing for the tracker necessitates a backpack that weighs about 30 lbs).
Interstitial Terrain: “Interstitial” effectively means between. Interstitial terrain, or interstitial spaces, are the places that fall between the cracks in our reality. (CofD refers to Interstitial Terrain as a Verge) TFV defines extra-dimensional cross-rips with the following criteria and the device is only able to detect the following:
• Terrain that is itself not temporary, but the way that reality’s fabric tears and opens a gateway to these places is temporary.
• Terrain that isn’t simply a doorway or other gate. It’s literally a place where the alternate reality intrudes atop our own, and is overlaid there.
• Generally, the terrain only appears where no or few people are present.
• Terrain that is always temporary. They appear for no more than 24 hours – some may appear only for minutes, even seconds.
• Anything can come out of that “bleed over,” and anything can go in. Once the overlap ends, that person is trapped in the alternate reality until they can find a place and time for the overlap to occur anew. If it occurs anew, of course.
Function: No action is necessary to calculate the location of nearby interstices, just turning the ICE on is enough to get started. It only tracks a half-mile radius, and only identifies instances of interstitial terrain that have appeared in an area within the last 24 hours. It identifies signature etheric traces, noting the residue. The screen features a GPS device, and the terrain is noted on the map via a blinking red pulse. With training an agent can tune in to focus on the resonance of a certain type of interstitial terrain to the exclusion of others.
(The ICE allows TFV to locate verges, loci, irises and other gateways to extra-dimensional places. While it works well to detect underworld and shadow terrain, many other places that do not map to physical landscape are not detectable past the gateway.)
The Gatekeeper Device - Suit (GDS) (•••)
It’s actually not a device: it’s a thin-skinned black bodysuit lined with tiny white filaments—and, because it’s been designed by Project FORT, the suit is also marked with a number of stitched-in occult, spiritual, and scientific symbols. It covers everything: even the agent’s face. The wearer sees via dark goggles sewn into the bodysuit mask. At present, only five suits of this type even exist. FORT does not have the resources or materials to make more.
Function: Wearing the suit (usually referred to as the GDS - Gatekeeper Device Suit as a less pompous slang) allows one to enter alternate realms (at this moment, that remains restricted to either the Shadow or the Underworld). Doing so is an act of will—the wearer must meditate, which charges the suit via biofeedback.
At that moment, the wearer will cross over. If she’s at an Avernian Gate (where the membrane between the world of the living and the Underworld is thin), she will cross over into the Underworld. If she is anywhere else, she crosses over into the Shadow. The suit has some notable drawbacks. First is that the suit can only be used once every 12 hours. Exiting the Shadow or the Underworld generally means waiting out the downtime between uses, unless alternate means of exit are discovered. Second, the suit causes a few unpleasant physical side effects, including:
• Itching - The itching of the skin is persistent and distracting (causing a persistent -1 penalty to all rolls. This penalty can removed for a scene by expending a Willpower point.)
• Vertigo - Serious vertigo only manifests when the wearer approaches the edge of a cliff of ledge. (If the character is near such an edge, she must succeed on a Wits + Dexterity roll lest she fall off that edge)
• Pallor - The character turns deeply pale, her veins showing through the flesh. This lasts for a full week after using the suit. (It has no direct effects, but could cause Social penalties in certain situations(Storyteller-determined))
Infrasound Emitter (Screamer Pistol) (•••)
A witch who can’t concentrate can’t work magic. Quantifying and diverting etheric energy is hard, and fucking with someone’s head is much easier. The screamer pistol generates a beam of ultra-low frequency sound (infrasound). At a distance, the low frequency sound leads to hallucinations and altered states of consciousness as the vibrations interfere with the target’s inner ear. Up close the effects are more impressive, wrecking the target’s ability to concentrate. In some extreme cases, the vibrations hit the resonant frequency of the human bowel, causing it to empty — sometimes called the “brown note.” Regardless, at close range no mage can keep the mental image of a spell ready through that.
The pistol doesn’t just work on mages. (While it affects higher brain functions, it’s still pretty useless against werewolves — something in the sounds causes them to go frothing mad, like dogs hearing a certain pitch.) Anything with a sense of balance and coherent thought processes gets the full blast at range, but only living creatures with human bodies suffer the most extreme effects.
((A Screamer Pistol is a ranged weapon, subject to all normal rules for ranged combat. Attacking with the Screamer Pistol is a Dexterity + Firearms roll with a +2 damage modifier to represent the weapon’s equipment bonus. As a focused beam of sound, the pistol doesn’t deal damage.))
There is a slim chance that if not configured or charged properly instead of firing a tight beam of sound the screamer will backfire, unleashing a burst of low-frequency sound without any focus. (Anyone within five feet, including the wielder, suffers the effects of a single success and is stunned for one turn and unable to call or concentrate on supernatural abilities.)
If the target is struck with the beam, the target suffers strange hallucinations, and cannot concentrate and utilize supernatural techniques and spells outside of innate natural abilities. (Compare the number of successes rolled to the target’s Composure. Each success above the victim’s Composure is one turn above the first in which the target cannot focus enough to use any supernatural powers. (If the successes are equal to or less than the target’s Composure, the victim still suffers that requisite one turn without powers.))
If the target is hit with the entire beam concentrated on his head or stomach they may voids his bowels. (Condition: Soiled: The target suffers a -3 penalty to all Social rolls for the remainder of the scene.)
Warning: The Screamer Pistol has no effect on creatures that don’t have higher cognitive functions. Werewolves fly into a frenzy against the wielder when targeted due to their enhanced hearing. This weapon should never be used against Therianthropes! The hunters of VALKYRIE have lost too many soldiers and agents to the juggernauts that are werewolves. As such, they’ve upped their game when it comes to bringing the fight against the Lupines.
Frequency Pulse Emitter (FPE) (••; Renewable)
Durability 2, Size 1, Structure 3
Canines can hear noises pitched in ultra-high frequencies that humans cannot. The scientists who designed the devices for TF:V created Frequency Pulse Emitters working with the same general principles applied to werewolves. A FPD (Frequency Pulse Emitter) (sometimes called Dog Whistles by TFV soldiers) is a modified flashbang grenade that emits an eardrum rupturing pulse of sound that can only be heard by canines and werewolves.
Function: A Frequency Pulse Emitter is used like any other grenade. The operator primes the grenade and tosses it towards the enemy. Frequency Pulse Emitter grenades have what is called a short fuse, meaning the grenade will go off within a few seconds of being primed. This gives an enemy little chance to pick up the grenade and throw it back at its former owner. Any Therianthropes within 10 yards of the Dog Whistle when it “explodes” suffers a shockwave of infrasound powerful enough to be felt as a pressure wave by those that cannot hear the noise. This tends to stun and disorient those who can hear it. Beings in an animal form or partially animal suffer much greater distress. The Dog Whistle grenades have been observed being effective against any creature with heightened or advanced senses.
Affected beings must make Stamina + Composure roll at a -3 penalty or gained the Tilt: Stunned. The penalty to resist being stunned is increased to -5 if the werewolf is in either wolf or near-wolf form. A Frequency Pulse Emitter has no effect on humans unless the character has increased their normal range of hearing in some manner. It may work on any creature (vampire, witch, etc.) assuming an animal-form or using heightened senses.
Urban Response Vehicle (URV) (•••••; Special)
Durability 8, Size 16, Structure 24, Acceleration 15, Safe Speed 110 (75 mph), Maximum Speed 176 (120 mph), Handling 1.
Though it’s difficult to drive an armored car through town and not draw attention, the fact is that some jobs and locations require a more forceful and timely response than others. Recently put into limited production, the Urban Response Vehicle (URV) provides Task Force: VALKYRIE members with light armored vehicle capability disguised as a standard full-sized van. As the name implies, the URV was designed for covert urban operations and would require some serious overhauling for use off-road.
Function: Standard features of the URV include onboard computer and GPS, bullet-proof glass, RFID locks (the normal locks are dummies), military winch, run-flat-tires (each blown tire only imposes a -1 penalty to Drive rolls and a 10% speed penalty), and police cruiser type search lights. It is equipped with air conditioning and internal oxygen supply (the URV can quickly be rigged to operate as air-tight), an overcharged engine, and enough juice from a mini-generator to power all of the features and any add-ons. The vehicle sports concealed armor plating that makes the URV nearly invulnerable to small arms fire and was designed to transport one driver, three passengers and one gunner.
The standard package also comes with a “popup” .50 caliber machine gun. To operate, the gunner seats himself in the gunner chair, pushes a button, the roof of the vehicle slides open and the .50 cal is elevated via hydraulic lift to a height even with the top of the URV. The machine gun uses both a swivel mount and pedals to achieve an 180 degree field of fire, which requires additional training (any gunner that fires the .50 cal, or replacement weapons, without a Heavy Weapons specialty for Firearms suffers the untrained penalty). The .50 cal comes with a casing catcher as standard. If purchased as an option, the pintle-mounted Bleeder unfolds from the front passenger side roof and unlocks a hatch that allows a standing passenger to operate the weapon.
The .50 cal has the following statistics:
Type Damage Ranges Capacity Size Special
HMG 4(8 again) 300/600/1200 50 5 Autofire
In addition to the onboard features, an URV can be further enhanced for field work (by investing in up to a maximum of 10 Merit dots worth of options). The following items from the Advanced Armory Endowment are available as options for the URV: Etheric Rounds (replaces standard .50 cal ammunition), Etheric Windows (functions exactly like Etheric Goggles, may be toggled on and off by voice command), pintle-mounted Bleeder (operated by passenger), Equalizer Grenade Launcher (co-axial mount on the .50 cal), Gungnir System (may be added to any weapon), vehicle-mounted Mjolnir Cannon (replaces standard .50 cal machine gun).
There are drawbacks of course, even with a casing catcher to gather up spent shells, firing a .50 cal machine gun downtown is apt to attract some attention. The machine gun is included as an “oh shit” weapon to help cover retreats and take down serious opposition when unwanted attention is preferable to the continued existence of a large and scary monster.
Hod Rounds (•; Renewable)
The field agents of Task Force: VALKYRIE are no greenhorns when it comes to dealing with the haemophagic ENEs colloquially known as “vampires.” Early in the young organization’s tenure the VALKYRIE hunters cut their teeth, so to speak, developing an arsenal to deal with the vampire menace. Strangely, R&D has tapered off over the years and hit stagnation. The official story has the conspiracy’s limited funding being routed for more immediately “worthwhile” endeavors.
When wooden bullets were found on Axis soldiers in WWII, they begat a number of military urban myths: poisonous splinters, shredding limbs, all sorts of nasty intel without visual confirmation. Facts are, wooden bullets were used most often as tracers for grenade launchers or as training bullets fired in desperation. Horror stories left over from WWII have created bugbear-like gremlins and foo-fighters out of a largely ineffectual ballistic. VALKYRIE, however, knows that gremlins and foo-fighters are all too real, and they’ve fought too many bugbears. The development of wooden rounds to deal with vampires was a no-brainer and versions have been field-tested and improved upon since the early 1900’s—well before WWII. The bullets are made of compressed fibers formed around a soft center of fresh mistletoe. The soft center heats up upon firing and builds up pressure within the hollow of the bullet, shredding on impact.
Technically, the bullets are cheap to manufacture, but VALKYRIE doesn’t use them with any frequency (and they’re so alarmingly low-tech that some claim use of Hod Rounds to be “embarrassing”). As such, it’s impossible to get more than two full clips of the stuff at a time. A special request form can be filed if an agent
feels he might need more than that for a raid or similarly large scale strike, but many hunters question where such requisition forms even go. A Task Force: VALKYRIE RFID chip is not needed to fire Hod Rounds.
Function: Use of Hod Rounds in a weapon reduces its efficiency in most cases (-2 penalty to shooting rolls). However, when used against vampires, Hod Rounds have a noticeable bonus of being able to stake the heart of a vampire with a reasonably well-placed shot.
Targeting the heart (usually either a -3 or -5 targeting penalty and requiring either five successes or three successes) doesn't take any targeting penalties due to the splintering of the wood in the rounds (just the -2 for using the rounds in the first place). Targeting shots like this do Lethal damage instead of Bashing to vampires and if three successes are rolled in a single shot the vampire is considered staked and lapses into Torpor immediately.
VALKYRIE agents often frown on low-tech, decidedly unadvanced Advanced Armory solutions like Hod Rounds. Having a handful of tarnished wooden bullets dropped into your palm doesn’t have the same potent resonance as being handed a rifle that fires uranium flechettes, right? Yes, Hod Rounds serve some utility and smart agents can see that. But that doesn’t stop agents from asking, why the mistletoe, exactly? Can’t you just make a Hod Round out of any type of wood?
The real answer is no, you can’t. Mistletoe felled Balder. In the lore you find mistletoe associated with death, the underworld and supernatural might. It’s also been bound up with supposed miracle cures. Wood from other trees doesn’t seem to work as well. Mythological significance goes the extra mile, here and the wooden rounds made from this special wood works on more than just vampires were other wood wouldn't. Of course, VALKYRIE requisition agents won’t tell you that. Any agent asking such loaded questions will meet with the fairly standard response: “Don’t ask questions.”
Huginn Visor (•• or •••)
Vampires seem to have no end of abilities to sway the minds and will of mankind at their disposal. There is one drawback, however, and that is a seeming need for eye contact—the window of the soul, so to speak—on the part of the vampire. That’s where the Huginn Visor comes in.
Incidentally a vampire's Dominate Discipline only requires the victim see the vampire's eyes and not the other way around. Majesty doesn't require eye contact at all, but again the victim must be able to see the vampire. Neither power will work through a digital recording, even a live feed. Obfuscate also clouds the mind but doesn't require either eye contact or seeing the vampire to function. In fact, the power is less effective if you can see the vampire.
The Visor is made of a dark, reflective glass that makes such eye contact nearly impossible. Civilian issue sunglasses prove ineffective against the powers of the enemy, so much so that an agent would not trust his cell’s integrity to simply wearing dark sunglasses. Doubly so considering the kinds of sensitive information Task Force: VALKYRIE agents are privy to. The solution lies in just the right combination of polarization and treatment with strange “chemicals.” Field agents used to joke the stuff comes from the wings Top Brass pulled off of faeries. They aren’t far off.
The primary style of Huginn visor is innocuous enough to be worn in the field, and lends weight to the image of the prototypical Man in Black. Little do civilians know just how important those dark glasses can be. There are two variants to the Huginn Visor - the sunglasses version and the contact len variant. The contacts are stealthier, not to mention with a swift swipe a vampire can knock a pair of glasses off an agent's head. However, the contact lens seem to be slightly less effective at blocking vampiric mental control.
The two-dot version is the sunglasses. A three-dot version actually represents a contact lens variant. However, the lenses are slightly less efficient (see below). The sunglasses apply a -3 penalty to a vampire's roll to mentally affect a person. The lenses apply a -2 penalty. Both damage an agent’s ability to see in poorly-lit areas—in such places, the wearer suffers -2 to all sight-based Perception rolls in those cases.
Odin Reticle (•••)
Prerequisite: Huginn Visor (••)
The Huginn Visor (two-dot sunglasses variant only) can be outfitted with a small LCD attachment called an Odin Reticle. This little display overlays one eye and its purpose is to pierce the supernatural stealth possessed by vampiric and other ENEs. Intel suggests vampires are not capable of achieving true invisibility; rather they cloud the minds of pedestrians to overlook them. Just in case, R&D didn’t take any chances. Applying the Odin Reticle over one eye, an agent becomes capable of piercing any ENEs’ attempts to evade detection through a variety of techniques. The ENE will appear apparent in the eyepiece by way of a process called Resonant Afterimage Processing (RAP).
Despite early successes, only a limited amount of Odin Reticle prototypes were made. Agents interested in field testing equipment should contact their superior officers for more information.
Function: The Odin Reticle snaps in place and remains largely concealed by the Huginn Visor. A thin cord runs back to the power source and processor that rests in the ear, no larger than a standard issue earpiece. (Hunters equipped with an Odin Reticle gain a bonus of +3 on any dice roll or Clash of Wills attempting to detect vampiric and other ENEs using stealth- and evasion-based powers.)
Logehamarr Personal Flamethrower (LPF) (•••••)
Fire is a great equalizer. It burns structures. It sears flesh. And some creatures, like nocturnal haemophages, are particularly susceptible to the element, possessed of an aversion that is both physical and supernatural. Said plainly, it burns them something unmerciful. All of this goes into making the Logehamarr Personal Flamethrower the ultimate offensive expression of Task Force: VALKYRIE. Flamethrowers are not a modern creation. The 5th century Byzantine army would pump “Greek fire” through brass tubes at enemy forces. Modern-day flamethrowers are more advanced but still function the same way. They have three components: the fuel reserve, the gun housing and the ignition system. The fuel reserve contains a fuel mixture that produces almost the same effects attributed to the “Greek fire” used centuries ago. The fuel reserve also holds a pressure tank that pushes the fuel through the system.
The gun housing controls the rate at which the fuel flows. The ignition system is at the end of the spray nozzle and ignites the fuel as it leaves the weapon. By strictest definition, flamethrowers do not shoot fire; they shoot liquid set aflame. This liquid can even be bounced off walls, so it can reach unseen areas. The Logehamarr Personal Flamethrower would appear to operate on the same principal as a traditional flamethrower, but the result is far different—especially when you consider the strange, green-hued flame that jets from the weapon’s tip.
Function: Traditionally, flamethrowers are used to attack fortifications and bunkers. The Logehamarr Personal Flamethrower has been modified with the design of being more effective as an antipersonnel weapon.
The Flamethrower attack is resolved via a Dexterity + Firearms attack as a long burst of autofire with base the user gains a +3 bonus to his attack roll, and may attack multiple targets if he’s willing to suffer the required penalties. Characters without a Heavy Weapons Specialty in Firearms take a –2 penalty to this roll. The burst of fuel emitted by a flamethrower is the size of a bonfire for the purposes of damage (Damage 2), and burns with the intensity of a gasoline fire when against mortal and other supernatural targets (+2 Damage bonus). So attacks effectively have a damage modifier of +3 Lethal Damage. Any character struck by a flamethrower attack is automatically set alight, and on the following and subsequent turns, he’ll continue to take as much damage as he took from the initial attack per turn until extinguished.
The flame affects vampires a bit differently—it does tend to induce fear frenzy as any flame does but even the sight of the strange green flame is enough to launch a vampire into an immediate fear frenzy. If the vampire can see the fire, then the vampire automatically enters a fear frenzy, and desperately tries to escape the scene. The prevailing theory is that supernatural beings mistake the green flame as Hellfire, even though the greenish color is just a byproduct of the chemical mixtures. TFV agents how no intention of correcting terrified foes.
Type Ranges Capacity Strength Size
Logehamarr 5/10/20 5 3 4
Tranq Rounds (• to •••••; Renewable)
Though the weapons available to Task Force: VALKYRIE are fine for putting big holes in things, sometimes the brass want a para-human serial killer (a slasher)alive — especially if he’s gained some measure of fame. Tranquilizer bullets are at the cutting-edge of ballistics technology. Ten years from now, they could be available in gun shops, but until the rounds can be mass produced, VALKYRIE keeps a close track on them. Each bullet is made of the same frangible polymer used in Glaser rounds, but containing a gel suspension of tranquilizers that are quickly absorbed through the skin and into the body.
Mechanics: Tranq Rounds do little appreciable damage. Against objects, they are useless. Against living targets, a successful roll deals only one point of lethal damage, no matter how many successes were scored on the attack. Every hit also delivers a potent tranquilizer that gives the target a -1 penalty to all rolls. Once the target’s penalties from the tranquilizer are equal to his Stamina, he must spend a point of Willpower or lose consciousness. If he remains active, each further hit with a Tranq Round requires another Willpower expenditure. The negative modifier wears off after 10 minutes, but a target rendered unconscious remains in that state for at least half an hour.
The Tranq Rounds Merit is Renewable; for each dot the character has in this Merit, Task Force: VALKYRIE supplies him with one clip of Tranq Rounds for a specific weapon type (e.g. MP-5, Glock 19) every session. A character may purchase multiple instances of Tranq Rounds, each specifying a different weapon.
_________________________________________________________________________________
The sun rose bright up over the small concrete bunker. Rolls of dust blew in across the driveway. Charlie Galveston — clad in the urban camo of his Special Forces gear — lay hunkered down in a ditch, his eye pressed to his rifle’s scope. His team lay a few feet away, their eyes to their rifles.
“What’s the story?” came an all-too-familiar voice — a man in a dark suit and dark sunglasses hopped down into the ditch. He was all smiles.
“Hey, Suit,” Galveston mumbled.
“Hey, SWAT,” the man in the suit — Agent Roger Crick — said, way too cheery for 7:00 in the morning.
“This ain’t your bag of tricks, Crick. We got a cult. They’re military minded. Loaded down for war. Got their slippery eel fuck leader in there, too, and he’s got a handful of hostages.”
“Right, right,” Crick said. “Billy ‘Carolina’ Castle. It true he can take a licking and keep on ticking?”
“That’s not him,” Galveston said, growing irritated. “That’s Wayne Krebbins you’re thinking of, and he’s not a cult leader, he’s a goddamn serial killer.”
“Oh, sure, sure, the slasher. Mister Castle can do…what, now?”
“I dunno. Hypnotize people or some crap. We’ve never confirmed it.”
“Right, yeah. You hoping to get a clean shot? Those windows are boarded up pretty nice.” Galveston pulled away from the scope. “The scope’s on requisition. Sees right through the wood. Listen, Crick, why don’t you head home? This isn’t your scene. You don’t like to get your hands dirty, and at
some point soon this is going to get messy.”
“I’ve a job to do.”
“Job? You don’t have to do a goddamn thing but leave me and my men
to do their work.”
“See that? In the distance?” Crick pointed. Galveston followed the finger and saw a tiny glinting object on the horizon, and behind it, a billowing plume of dust.
“What the hell?” Galveston asked.
“That’s the Channel 9 news van. Once they get here and get a sniff of what’s going on, someone’s going to broadcast something, and before you can say ‘Branch Davidians,’ you’re going to have an army of media, police and the FBI up your ass, including those headcases from VASCU. Do you want that? I don’t want that.”
Galveston’s throat tightened. “No. I don’t want that either.”
“Good!” Crick opened his jacket — and instead of a gun in a holster, he had three syringes that caught a band of light from the bright sun.
“Then let me do my job while you do yours. The news won’t be bothering you today, old friend.”
_________________________________________________________________________________
Game line: Chronicles of Darkness game line
Venue: Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Ed
Post by: Jerad Sayler
COMBINED JOINT TASK FORCE VALKYRIE (TFV)
ADVANCED ARMORY
The following is a compilation of information on the Task Force Valkyrie (TFV) hunter conspiracy from Hunter: The Vigil. The following events mentioned below are canon in our current Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen using Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition.
Access to this information In-Character requires Chronicle Storyteller approval with rationale on how the information might be obtained.
Sources:
- Hunter: The Vigil 1st Edition (HtV1.0) corebook
- Compacts & Conspiracies sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Compacts & Conspiracies sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Spirit Slayers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Night Stalkers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Slashers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Witchfinders sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Mortal Remains sourcebook for HtV2.0
- Mortal Remains: Tooth & Claw sourcebook for HtV2.0
- Night Stalkers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Slashers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Witchfinders sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Mortal Remains sourcebook for HtV2.0
- Mortal Remains: Tooth & Claw sourcebook for HtV2.0
TFV Document Repository:
Conspiracy Overview (Warning: Classified TS///SA///CJTFV)
Extra-Normal Entity (ENE) Classifications (Warning: Classified TS///SA///CJTFV)
Advanced Armory (Warning: Classified TS///SA///CJTFV)
USG Mission Partners (Warning: Classified TS///SA///CJTFV/MAJIC)
Report: CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (Warning: Classified TS///SA///CNG/SCS/EJV/DOM/DP7/BLH)
Report: DEEP SEVEN (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///DP7)
Report: BLUE HADES (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///BLH)
Report: GOD GAME BLACK (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///CBS/GG-RW/BLB)
Report: CODICIL BLACK SKULL (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///CBS)
Program: GOD GAME RAINBOW (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///GG-RW)
Program: BLOODY BARON (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///BLB)
Program: SCORPION STARE (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///SCS)
Report: DREAM OF MADNESS (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///DOM)
THE FOLLOWING IS CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET///SPECIAL ACCESS//
COMBINED JOINT TASK FORCE: VALKYRIE
The following requires US Government Clearance for Special Access ///CJTFV. If you do not have CJTFV access you are not cleared to read this document. Violating special access will result in criminal prosecution. The unauthorized disclosure of government secrets is High Treason and is punishable by up to 30 years in prison and death. This is your final warning.
The elite agents of Task Force: VALKYRIE don’t trust their lives to bizarre magical rites, weird relics, or freakish biological modification. As befits the best of the best of the United States Armed Forces, Task Force: VALKYRIE relies on cutting-edge technology and advanced warfare systems to eliminate its targets and keep humanity safe from the monsters. From bullets that rip through ghosts as easily as human flesh to rifles that spit lightning, the Advanced Armory of VALKYRIE agents gives them an edge over the creatures they hunt.
Each is a special program carefully designated and maintained as a weapon system by the USG and fully accounted for at all times. TFV will even send retrieval teams to collect damaged or lost weapons. Many agents have a hard time with the Norse mythology naming scheme and resort to pet names or acronyms instead.
Weapon System Positive Control:
Task Force: VALKYRIE takes its operational security very seriously. On recruitment, all agents are implanted with a small RFID chip, usually secured in the meat of the hip or shoulder. All Advanced Armory devices, unless specifically noted otherwise, have a receiver programmed to recognize the frequency of this RFID at close range.
If the signal is not detected, the device hardlocks and will not function. While this keeps VALKYRIE’s weapons from falling into the hands of rogue hunters or, worse yet, the enemy, it can also lead to tragic losses. One strike team in Canada was completely wiped out when the coven of witches it tracked down cast a spell that disrupted electronic communications. The team’s weapons, no longer receiving the proper signal from their RFID chips, dutifully shut down and left the soldiers defenseless.
Certain Advanced Armory Merits are listed as “Renewable.” The nature of modern warfare is such that a soldier chews through supplies at a high rate: ammo is fired, grenades thrown, and so on. Renewable Merits represent these expendable but vital pieces of technology, which the Task Force supplies its agents on a regular basis. Each Renewable Merit’s description lists how often the top brass will supply soldiers with fresh ammo, usually once per chapter or once per story. Note that this resupply does not mean the hunter automatically receives a new Endowment; Task Force:VALKYRIE only replaces expended gear. If a sniper is normally issued two magazines of etheric rounds (represented by two dots of the Etheric Rounds Merit) but only expends one of them during the course of a session, he only receives one replacement mag at the start of the next session. Obviously, if a hunter does not begin a session in a situation where he can be resupplied, he won’t receive the replacements immediately.
Task Force: VALKYRIE expects detailed after-action reports from its agents especially when its special weapons are used. Hunters with the bright idea of selling off Advanced Armory gear and requisitioning replacements should remember that VALKYRIE controls prisons that make Fort Leavenworth look like Club Med.
Etheric Rounds (• or •••••; Renewable)
Produced in top-secret, experimental laboratories around the country, these bullets have been bombarded with a cocktail
of exotic, high-energy particles that infuse peculiar pseudophysical properties into the lead. Etheric Rounds are delivered to field operatives in clear, plastic magazines (Task Force: VALKYRIE manufactures versions in every caliber and magazine style currently on the market) and emit a faint blue light from their tips. When fired, this light becomes as bright as a tracer round, making concealment all but impossible. The bullet is actually consumed by this light, which converts the metal into a pseudo-etheric state that VALKYRIE scientists believe to be a heretofore undiscovered “fifth state” of matter. Etheric Rounds, unlike most Advanced Armory items, can be used by anyone, even if they lack a Task Force: VALKYRIE RFID chip.
Etheric rounds allow firearm rounds to substantially harm ghost, spirits and incorporeal entities, even if they have temporary physical form. It is disruptive to their substance and causes these being serious pain and discomfort.
Etheric Rounds allow the hunter to inflict normal firearm damage against manifested ghosts, spirits and other incorporeal entities. They don’t react as Blessed items, and thus inflict lethal rather than aggravated damage. Etheric Rounds can be used against corporeal targets as well, but the attack suffers a -1 penalty, as the pseudo-etheric harmonics are less disruptive to living tissue.
The Etheric Rounds Merit is Renewable; for each dot the character has in this Merit, Task Force: VALKYRIE supplies him with one clip of Etheric Rounds for a specific weapon type (e.g. MP-5, Glock 19) every session. A character may purchase multiple instances of Etheric Rounds, each specifying a different weapon. For example, an assault team leader might have Etheric Rounds (AR-15)••• and Etheric Rounds (P90) ••; every session, he has three magazines’ worth of etheric ammo for his AR-15 and two magazines for his P90.
Sin-Eaters and Etheric Rounds
Got Geist? Want to know what Etheric Rounds do to Sin-Eaters? Because a geist literally merges with the Sin-Eater, this means that these Advanced Armory bullets do full and normal damage to the Sin-Eater’s living tissue. It also disrupts the Sin-Eater’s Synergy; if the Sin-Eater is forced to make a Synergy degeneration roll within 24 hours of having been shot by an Etheric Round, she suffers -1 to that roll.
Witch Buster (•)
Many of the creatures Task Force: VALKYRIE hunts display an unusual degree of sensitivity to psychic phenomena. Witches seem to be the most adept at this sort of thing, displaying an uncanny knack for poking their noses into supernatural affairs that should be invisible to mere mortals. As witches are also among the most difficult antagonists to identify, VALKYRIE scientists developed a sort of psychic booby trap to identify potential hostiles. Official rules of engagement state that the “witch buster” is to be used to flush out known quarry that has gone to ground, but field teams often engage is a game variously referred to as “wizard baiting” or “fishing for Potters,” in which a witch buster is set up in apublic but discreet location and anyone who drops by to have a look is tagged and monitored. Ever since a Glaswegian cell went a little off the reservation back in ’98 and just started killing everyone that poked around the witch buster, this tactic is expressly forbidden by VALKYRIE doctrine.
The witch buster is roughly the size and shape of a hockey puck, with a sticky adhesive backing that allows it to be mounted on walls or ceilings. Powered by an ordinary lithium-ion battery, the kind that can be purchased at any cell phone store, the witch buster slowly but persistently leaks a small amount of etheric energy — theoretically, not enough to be harmful (although quite a few field agents swear otherwise), but enough to register on a witch’s psychic radar.
Function: In game terms, the witch buster triggers a witch’s Unseen Sense Merit (or Peripheral Mage Sight)Because their Unseen Sense Merit registers any type of supernatural disturbance, mages are the most likely to perceive a witch buster, but any character with an Unseen Sense Merit relating to ghosts, spirits, or Twilight phenomena will sense a witch buster. Supernatural powers or spells that sense disturbances in Twilight or detect ghosts or spirits will also register the witch buster as an odd, not-immediately-explicable twinge. A witch buster has eight hours of battery life before it
must be recharged. Three successes on an extended Intelligence
+ Crafts roll, with each roll representing 10 minutes of work, allows a hunter to tap into a building’s electrical wiring
and hook the witch buster in, allowing it to operate as long as
the building has power.
Etheric Goggles (•• or ••••)
Ghosts, demons, and witches all have the ability to pass unseen by mortal senses. Even vampires, according to some stories, have the ability to send their minds out of their cold, dead bodies and explore the world in secret. With etheric goggles, Task Force: VALKYRIE can bring the fight to them. Etheric goggles operate on the same principle as the etheric tracker, utilizing chemically treated lenses to detect entities in Twilight. Until recently, they were standard kit for field agents, but since a rash of psychosis among agents who used them extensively in the early 2000s, top brass has restricted their use.
 |
| EG Mark 3, "Cyclops" |
A more trusted agent can requisition an advanced model which are sensitive enough to pick up the etheric energy left but incorporeal beings well enough to track it down. The process required to treat the lenses to render the Twilight visible creates weird distortions of the physical world and prolonged use can lead to hallucinations and psychosis.
Function: While the hunter is using the goggles to see Twilight objects, he suffers a -2 penalty to Perception checks made to notice anything in the physical world. For four dots an agent can requisition the Advanced Tracking Model. The trails it can see fade after 10 minutes per point of Power the spirit entity possesses. (In the case of beings that use the full nine Attribute spread, such as a Twilight-walking witch, use the highest of Strength, Intelligence or Presence.)
The Bleeder (••)
Resembling nothing so much as a jackhammer with a small satellite dish in place of the drill bit, the Bleeder is one of Task Force: VALKYRIE’s newest developments. The Bleeder is the latest in what VALKYRIE’s scientists refer to as “crowd-safe” weaponry, designed to target and eliminate supernatural threats, specifically Haemorphages and their servants, while presenting little threat to potential victims or bystanders. Only recently moved out of the laboratory, the Bleeder has begun field-testing with a number of field ops teams around the globe.
The Bleeder fires a focused microburst of energy in a tightly constrained beam in a split second. Through processes not fully understood even by the scientists who discovered them, this energy reacts violently with the quasi-biological functions of the Haemorphage's body fluids, with the net result that it evacuates the creature’s body, usually in a violent manner. Laboratory tests have recorded results ranging from a minor leakage of the tear ducts to vomiting. In some test cases, the blood actually shot out of the subject’s pores in a fine red mist. While not entirely eliminated, the weapon presents a minimal threat level to humans and natural animals, as they lack the critical metabiology of Haemorphagic blood.
Instead of inflicting damage to the target, the “Bleeder” causes a vampire, ghoul, or any creature that has vampiric blood in their system begins losing that supernatural blood. This blood leaves the creature’s body in rivulets or sprays of blood, with velocity and force that varies on a variety of factors. If the device is particularly effective it might cause open wounds in the skin. Blood vessels may explode; skin and muscle are torn by the force of the exsanguination.
The “Bleeder” does not have quite the same explosive interaction with non-vampiric blood, but the energy it pours out can cause premature breakdown of blood cells or the restriction of blood vessels. Against creatures without a stored pool of vampire blood, the weapon inflicts intense headaches and malaise: the effect lasts for about 30 seconds and is often accompanied by a nosebleed.
FIELD MODIFICATIONS: THE BLEEDER
The Bleeder was designed to work on vampires and other hemovores, and Task Force: VALKYRIE scientists have had their greatest successes on implementing the technology to disrupt vampiric feeding. While not nearly as reliable, a Bleeder can be field modified to bleed the vital energy that empowers other
supernatural creatures. Such a modification takes knowledge of the thaumabiological entity to be targeted and there is a possibility such modification will cause the device to slag down instead.
Equalizer Grenade (•••; Renewable)
The old phrase “monsters in human skin” has its element of truth, but there are things out there in the dark that hide behind only the thinnest veneer of humanity. Sometimes, when a Task Force: VALKYRIE strike team storms some unholy nightmare’s den, what looks like a few hillbillies and drifters turns into a wall of fur and muscle and savage sharp teeth. The Equalizer grenade helps to level the playing field.
Studies performed on captured monsters of various classifications have revealed a commonality amongst many: when a living creature changes its shape, no matter the method behind it, a surge of erratic brain activity buried deep in the sensory cortex immediately precedes the change. VALKYRIE scientists have speculated that this is the brain trying to process the sensory overload of radical body morphism, but the truth is countless vivisections have been unable to give any conclusive answers.
 |
| Putting the flash in... flashbang-oh just forget it |
Mechanics: The grenade has a “Damage” of 4, but instead of inflicting Health damage, any living creature within five yards of the grenade whose Size is less than the total “damage” is unable to change its shape for five turns and must return to its natural shape. Remember that to calculate a grenade’s damage, you roll a number of dice equal to the Damage, in this case 4, and add the successes to the base Damage rating.
The Equalizer Grenade Merit is Renewable; once per story per instance of the Merit a hunter possesses, Task Force: VALKYRIE will resupply him with an Equalizer Grenade. If he can produce concrete intelligence that a particular quarry he’s pursuing is a shapeshifter and he has already used his resupply for the current story, he may roll Wits + Politics to cut through the red tape and acquire another. Success means he receives the resupply within the week; an exceptional success gets him the grenade in one day. This
emergency resupply can only be used once per story.
Equalizer grenades work against any living creature, regardless of the means by which it shapeshifts. A werewolf’s innate shapeshifting, a witch’s skin-changing spell, or a possessed woman’s flesh warped by the demon that controls her are equally susceptible. Haemorphages and other undead that are not animated by anything even vaguely resembling biology are resistant to the grenade’s effects. Treat an undead creature’s Size as two points higher when calculating the effect of an Equalizer grenade. An equalizer grenade can only be used once; the intensity of light required to trigger the microseizures slags the electronics and turns the battery into a useless lump.
Gungnir Multi-Function Targeting System (••• or ••••)
The Gungnir System (aka GFTS "Gee-Foot"), named for Odin’s never-missing spear, is the boon and the curse of many Task Force: VALKYRIE field teams. Integrated directly into the latest generation of standard armament (the three-dot version described here includes an integrated submachine gun; a four-dot version comes with an assault rifle), the Gungnir System is VALKYRIE top brass’ new initiative for the future of the agency, in one fell swoop improving target identification and all but eliminating collateral damage.
The truth, according to cynical agents who have field tested the device, is that target identification and guy who’s about to kill me identification aren’t necessarily the same thing, and the only way the Gungnir System is going to prevent collateral damage is by ensuring that bystanders are only accidentally killed by the bad guys. Many agents have referred to it as the M56 "Smart Gun" from the Aliens movie with similar problems of not being to see the Aliens around them because they didn't have body heat. It didn't work out great for the Marines in the movie.
Function: The integrated scope built into a weapon outfitted with the Gungnir System is a marvelous thing. A combination night vision scope, thermal imager, and Kirlian camera, it allows a soldier to engage targets in pitch blackness and easily distinguishes most monsters from humans: vampires, of course, are well below human body temperature, while werewolves and their ilk run hot as a byproduct of their increased metabolism. Witches, psychics and the possessed demonstrate an unusual Kirlian aura that identifies them as extra-normal.
For an upgraded version (additional merit dot), the scope can even have an Etheric Goggle functionality built into it, allowing the agent to target ghosts and spirits. An LED overlay tags any known supernatural entity with its Task Force: VALKYRIE designation. In addition to its target identification features, the scope is a top-of-the-line sighting system. (Penalties for medium range fire are negated entirely, and long-range penalties are halved. The hunter also ignores any penalty for fighting blind when using the Gungnir System.)
The scope is tied directly into a fire control computer programmed to recognize the unique signatures (thermal, etheric, or Kirlian) of every supernatural creature of which Task Force: VALKYRIE has records. If the gun is pointed at a target that does not fit any target profile, the safety is automatically engaged and the gun will not fire. In theory, this means that it is impossible for a VALKYRIE soldier to accidentally shoot a bystander during an engagement.
In practice, it means that the weapon tends to refuse to fire at a monster’s mortal servants, cultists, slashers and even the odd inanimate object. A cell operating under the cover of the Gulf War was wiped out by a nest of ghûls because the desert
sun baked the stone walls of the creatures’ lair to a temperature close to 98.6, causing the computers to assume the hunters were surrounded by human onlookers and refuse to fire.
FIELD MODIFICATIONS: The GFTS
The majority of agents issued a Gungnir System weapon quickly learn of a field modification that strips out the safety controls while leaving the scope and target recognition software intact. Task Force: VALKYRIE comes down hard on agents discovered to have modified their weapons in this manner, with court martial the least severe reprimand.
Victim-Detonated Sun Bomb (VDSB) (•••)
Ever since Murnau’s Nosferatu, the knowledge that Haemorphages are destroyed by the light of the sun has entered the pop culture lexicon, along with wooden stakes, crosses and garlic (never mind that, as far as Task Force: VALKYRIE has been able to determine, two of those are complete nonsense). While VALKYRIE’s scientists have not yet found the key component of sunlight that causes such deleterious effects on the bloodsuckers, they have developed the next best thing.
Function: The VDSB (Victim-Detonated Sun Bomb, also just called a Sun Mine or Sun Bomb) is an explosive device that is rigged to trigger via an infrared sensor and thermal imager; when an object with a core temperature of less than 94ºF breaks the infrared beam, the device is triggered. Instead of an explosion, the VDSB (which looks like a generic satchel charge but contains far more complex innards) uses a combination of full-spectrum phosphorescent lights and focusing mirrors to create a blinding flash that is, from an electromagnetic standpoint, identical to sunlight. While the light doesn’t actually harm vampires, it can cause a surge of panic that overwhelms their rational mind and leads them to make tactical errors.
Against humans and monsters not afraid of sunlight, the VDSB is treated as an ordinary explosive. It has a “Damage” of 4, but damage is only rolled to determine whether or not the target is Stunned. Remember that to calculate an explosive’s damage, you roll a number of dice equal to the Damage, in this case 4, and add the successes to the base Damage rating.
Blind characters and creatures without eyes are unaffected. When a vampire or other creature vulnerable to bright light is caught within the area of a VDSB, the effects are far more pronounced. The vampire’s player must immediately make an extended Resolve + Composure roll, with each roll representing one turn. Each turn in which the vampire’s player rolls at least one success, he maintains his composure for one further turn. If at any time the vampire fails to gain any successes on a roll, he flies into a frenzy of fear in which his only objective is to flee from the source of the light. He will attack anyone who gets in his way, but otherwise just tries to get away. If the vampire accumulates five successes on the extended roll, he shakes off the flight instinct and can act normally.
FIELD MODIFICATIONS: The VDSB
A VDSB can only be used once before it must be refitted; the intensity of the flash burns out the light sources in a single use. Unlike the Equalizer grenade, a VDSB can be refitted in the field with a minimum of fuss. Refitting a Sig mine requires full spectrum lights available from most science-novelty or pet stores.
Etheric Tracker (••••)
Monsters, whatever their stripe, tend to be elusive. Whether it’s a vampire’s ability to cloud men’s minds, a witch’s teleportation spell, or a werewolf’s really damn disconcerting way of just disappearing sometimes, if Task Force: VALKYRIE can’t find it, they can’t very well tag it or kill it. The etheric tracker is one step toward nullifying that advantage. By marking a target with a small “tag” that has been bombarded with exotic, high-energy particles similar to those underlying the creation of etheric rounds, Task Force: VALKYRIE can track its quarry even through realms beyond mortal ken.
Function: The etheric tracker consists of two parts: the main unit is roughly the size and shape of a large pistol (Size 1), which uses precisely aligned electromagnets to fire a tracking pellet at considerable velocity, embedding it below the target’s skin. The pellets themselves are roughly the size of a grain of sand, and are small enough that the target may not even notice it, especially in a high-intensity situation. Even if it is noticed, the sensation is comparable to the bite of a small insect.
A handheld scanner, the second part of the tracker, picks up the pseudo etheric radiation given off by the pellet and displays a location on an LCD screen. Earlier models only showed approximate distance and direction; current field models integrate a GPS locator and street maps of the area, allowing the team to pinpoint the precise location of its quarry.
Since the tracker actually follows the etheric signature of the pellet and not a radio frequency or other, more earthly signatures, it can follow creatures even when they slip into an invisible, intangible state. Likewise, the pellet’s pseudo-etheric nature allows it to anchor in the resonant structure of a manifested ghost or spirit as well as the flesh of a corporeal entity.
The current model cannot track a target that fully departs this plane of existence, but Task Force: VALKYRIE researchers are
hard at work on cracking that puzzle as well. An etheric tracker has an effective range of only half a mile, but this range is not
hampered by buildings or other obstructions. A single pellet can be tracked for 24 hours before its etheric resonance fades.
Special: An Etheric Tracker comes with a full magazine of pellets, which resembles a magazine for a semiautomatic pistol filled with blue sand. The sheer number of pellets means the Etheric Tracker’s ammunition is effectively unlimited. Should an agent lose his supply of etheric pellets, a call to his home office and usually can get him a replacement within one week, provided he can get to a population center or military base.
Munin Serum (••••, Renewable)
No matter how black the black ops or how covert the covert strike team, on occasion, witnesses to Task Force: VALKYRIE operations survive the initial fracas. Sometimes it’s a bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time, sometimes it’s the newly freed victim of a possessing entity or the liberated thrall of a warlock. Sometimes, those witnesses start to ask awkward questions. Since secrecy is one of the organization’s paramount directives, the silence of these witnesses must be guaranteed. In the old days, that meant a couple of ounces of lead in the back of the head; nowadays, VALKYRIE operatives prefer to use less messy alternatives.
Munin serum — or, as it’s more colloquially known, “memory cleanser” or “Brain-O” — is a cocktail of narcotics, psychedelics and memory-inhibitor drugs that can completely suppress the last six hours of a subject’s memory. Extensive application of the drug can lead to addiction, illness and even death. New VALKYRIE recruits are frightened with campfire tales of agents who injected themselves with Munin serum to forget the horrific things they’d seen, only to end up wasted, cancer-ravaged addicts desperately jonesing for a taste of the high they can never quite remember.
Function: Munin serum must be administered by injection directly into the spinal column just below the cervical vertebrae. The process is excruciatingly painful and subjects are usually sedated before being treated. If an agent wishes to administer Munin serum
to an unwilling target things are going to be ugly and include lots of screaming.
Each dose affects one hour of the subject’s memory; a single syringe of the serum contains six doses. (Each pack of the Munin Syndrome Merit buys the hunter one syringe.) When the serum is injected, if not enough doses are used or if the subject is particular resistant to drugs the target is left woozy and disoriented, as though she had taken a potent hallucinogen. If the serum is successfully administered then target's memory is wiped out for an amount of time corresponding to the number of doses injected. The subject experiences the memory loss as a similar sensation to an alcohol-induced blackout. Some refer to it as “lost time.”
Mjolnir Cannon (MC) (•••• or ••••• )
When facing off against the unnamed horrors of the night, Task Force: VALKYRIE agents find it comforting to know they are armed with such stalwarts of high technology as “ray guns.” The Mjolnir Cannon is a Directed Energy Weapon(DEW)that may not be quite on par with Hollywood’s offerings, but it packs a wallop that can put down rioting humans and fanged monstrosities with equal ease. This weapon, which resembles an exceptionally bulky assault rifle (Size 3), operates by firing an intense, high-frequency laser beam that ionizes the air, creating a channel of extremely conductive plasma (a Laser-Induced Plasma Channel or DEW-LIPC). The ionizing air itself actually acts as a focusing lense for the laser beam. The gun then sends an electrical charge into this channel, and the ionized air carries the charge to its target and delivers a long-range, high-impact blast that carries heat, explosive sonic pressure and electrical charge. The LIPC aspect of the weapon makes it accurate and prevents the lightning from grounding out before it hits its mark, something that a traditional Tesla Coil would not be able to accomplish. The Mjolnir Cannon inflicts damage from electricity on its target with effects identical to being struck by natural lightning. If the target is hit successfully, the electrical charge and plasma following the laser, it deals its full potency to the target.
WE HAVE FREAKING LASER GUNS!
The weapons and devices found as a part of Advanced Armory may seem far-fetched or lingering too long in the realm of sci-fi. The reality, however, is that the items listed here are far less fictional than we might believe. Despite how incredulous agents are when they come face to face with the MC, they get over it quick after they fire it for the first time. Ever see a show like Future weapons or talk to somebody who’s been designing weapons for the last 10 years? Plasma cannons exist. Sonic weapons are real. Stuff exists in the hands of the military that is nowhere near public — and that’s the kind of stuff that Task Force: VALKYRIE gets its hands on. The fact of the matter is that the technology of using a Laser-Induced Plasma Channel (LIPC) has been in the public news as by the US Army as early as 2012 (Google that) but TFV has been using them since 2008. Agents are obsessed with this weapon, even though very few have ever seen one. Its mythical, like the BFG from the Doom video game franchise. And who can blame them? We have freaking laser guns, well, man-made-lighting guns!
Improvements: They have undergone several upgrades on an annual basis and are perhaps TFVs most expensive weapon that a normal agent might get their hands on (approximately $2M each). The current versions are capable to producing the invisible rapid-pulsing laser beam at that when combined with the electrical charge are around a megaWatt (MW) of juice for the hand-held version and up to 3 MWs for the vehicle mounted version. Both versions zap a target with a million volts of electricity in the span of milliseconds as the lightning follows the beam. If the zap wasn't measured in a milliseconds or sustained outside of safety parameters it would cook the target to death. The three settings in the standard cannon are accomplished by simply increasing the duration of the beam to transferring a dozen milliamps(mAs, 200mAs will stop the heart) to several amperes(As). Agents are cautioned that regardless of the setting, use of the MC has a small chance of killing the target, much like stun guns sometimes do. They shouldn't be used indiscriminately at any setting because taking a lightning strike to the body traveling horizontally to the ground is a lot more dangerous than the way the lightning would conduct through the spine (and missing the heart)if struck through the head like most victims of natural lightning strikes.
MCs are incredibly expensive to upkeep and Agents don't usually get to hang on to them after a given operation. There is just not enough of these to go around so they need to be circulated to where they are most needed at any given time.
Function: The Mjolnir Cannon does have its flaws. There is a low chance (but not all that low) of the gun backfiring, delivering its full charge to the wielder instead of the target. The gun is not usually damaged by backfires because of its built-in shielding. Thankfully, most of its settings are specifically non-lethal in nature. Hunter cells that have an MC on a consistent basis have developed ad hoc grounding plates and wires to both jeeps and personnel.
Carried Functionality: The man-portable version of the Mjolnir Cannon can be set to one of three settings, inflicting either a low or medium or high energy blast. A Mjolnir Cannon has a battery rated for 16 shots before depletion. The more damaging settings consume more power; inflicting medium setting counts as 2 shots, high setting takes 3 and lethal takes 4. Rifle The Mjolnir Cannon has an optimal range of 100 yards, has an effective of 200 yards and a maximum range of 400 yards. range of 100/200/400.
Mounted Functionality:A larger, vehicle-mounted version of the Mjolnir Cannon also exists, though it is seldom issued to urban strike teams, due to its lack of concealment, but in rural areas or regions already gripped by war, it can provide vital tactical support. The vehicle-mounted version works just like its smaller cousin, with the following exceptions: the weapon has two additional settings extra-high and instant kill mode. The range of the vehicle-mounted cannon has targeting lasers and more power, capable of delivering lighting bolts at very long ranges. The optimal range is 300 yards, effective range of 600 yards and a maximum range of 1200 yards. Its battery holds the capacity for 50 shots. The very high uses 8 shots, while instant kill counts as 16.
While the MC is a potent tool on the battlefield, it can interact dangerously when actual lightning is brought into the mix. The plasma channel created by the cannon attracts lightning; whenever the weapon is used in a thunderstorm, any missed strikes could cause an errant natural bolt finding the plasma channel and following it back to the hapless hunter. tion of electromagnetic fields will play havoc with the beam. The laser's effective range is most hampered by rain, dramatically reducing its ability to hit a target and increasing the chance of erratic strikes. So basically a thunderstorm is the worst to use it both for the rain and the lightning. Probably shouldn't put two of them two close together either... also don't cross the streams.
Any supernatural creature with control of the elements, especially electricity should not be engaged with the MC. It a little know fact is that hitting a Promethean with this weapon is incredibly bad. The trouble is the best way to definitively identify a Promethean is to shoot it with the cannon. Don't do it. If you do, run!
Mjolnir Cannon Power settings:
1. Low: 3 Bashing Damage Modifier, One charge
2. Medium: 5 Bashing Damage Modifier, Two charges
3. High: 7 Bashing Damage Modifier, Three charges
4. Very High (Mounted Only): 9 Bashing Damage Modifier, 8 charges
5. Lethal: 3 Lethal Damage Modifier, Four charges
6. Instant Kill (Mounted Only): 4 Lethal Damage Modifier, 16 charges
Damage = Successes + Modifier))
The real advantage of the MC is not its damage modifiers and its non-lethal usage but in the Tilts it can consistently apply to a target. When the target it hit and damage exceeds the being's Stamina or Resistance then you can choose to also apply one of the following Tilts: Knocked Down, Beaten Down (if applicable)or stunned. On an Exceptional Success you apply all three conditions as well as Insensate if five rounds or until hit. This ability to stack a lot of Tilts on a target allows for the large amount of Bashing damage to wrack up and hopefully knock the target unconscious.
Gleipnir Restraints (••)
In Norse mythology, the Gleipnir was the bond used to restrain Fenris Wolf. Since the great wolf was capable of breaking any chains used to hold him, Odin commissioned the Gleipnir from the dwarves — a thin ribbon made from six impossible things. As far as anyone knows, the device sometimes issued to TFV operatives going up against Prometheans, or any other superhumanly strong creature,
isn’t made from dwarven magic. Instead, it sets up a “kinetic feedback loop.” The harder a subject struggles against it, the more it restricts movement. The most difficult thing about the Gleipnir is usually getting the subject properly restrained in the first place.
The Gleipnir, much like its namesake, is considerably lighter and thinner than one would expect. It resembles a thin strip of black plastic with a fingerprint panel on each end that’s coded to a specific agent.
Using the Gleipnir requires the hunter to use a Restrain move while grappling a target. If the target is successfully restrained, the Gleipnir uses the creature’s force against it. Breaking free of the Gleipnir requires a number of successes on a Strength + Athletics roll equal to twice the creature’s Strength rating. Any effects that increase this rating also get figured in. Successes cannot be accumulated.
Compound Rounds (• to •••••, Renewable)
Most monsters have a physical vulnerability to a fairly common substance; it can often be hard for a hunter to know which weapon he should be using against a given supernatural. When something tall, dark, and furry moves in the shadows, a hunter only has seconds to determine if he’s facing a wolf-beast Changeling, a lycanthrope, a shapeshifting witch, or a vampire wearing a wolf-form — and grab the right tool for the job. Compound Rounds save lives by incorporating trace amounts of the elements most commonly dangerous to supernatural creatures into a single bullet. This ammunition saves hunters precious time, and gives them the confidence they are neutralizing their target — regardless of its specific nature — in the most efficient manner possible.
Function: Compound Rounds contain small amounts of just about any substance rumored to affect supernatural creatures: cold iron, gold, silver, salt, a variety of wood slivers, holy water (in break-on-impact globules), communion wafer crumbs, mustard seed, and a smattering of various dried plants like wolfsbane, rose petals, clover, and St. John’s Wort. This combination grants 9-Agains on attacks with these bullets, and always inflicts lethal damage, even on creatures who normally only take bashing damage from bullets.
The Compound Rounds Merit is Renewable, using the same Special rules as for Etheric Rounds. Like Etheric Rounds, Compound Rounds can be used by those who do not possess a Task Force: VALKYRIE RFID chip.
Gungnir Multi-Function Targeting System (••• or ••••)
The Gungnir System (aka GFTS "Gee-Foot"), named for Odin’s never-missing spear, is the boon and the curse of many Task Force: VALKYRIE field teams. Integrated directly into the latest generation of standard armament (the three-dot version described here includes an integrated submachine gun; a four-dot version comes with an assault rifle), the Gungnir System is VALKYRIE top brass’ new initiative for the future of the agency, in one fell swoop improving target identification and all but eliminating collateral damage.
Function: The integrated scope built into a weapon outfitted with the Gungnir System is a marvelous thing. A combination night vision scope, thermal imager, and Kirlian camera, it allows a soldier to engage targets in pitch blackness and easily distinguishes most monsters from humans: vampires, of course, are well below human body temperature, while werewolves and their ilk run hot as a byproduct of their increased metabolism. Witches, psychics and the possessed demonstrate an unusual Kirlian aura that identifies them as extra-normal.
For an upgraded version (additional merit dot), the scope can even have an Etheric Goggle functionality built into it, allowing the agent to target ghosts and spirits. An LED overlay tags any known supernatural entity with its Task Force: VALKYRIE designation. In addition to its target identification features, the scope is a top-of-the-line sighting system. (Penalties for medium range fire are negated entirely, and long-range penalties are halved. The hunter also ignores any penalty for fighting blind when using the Gungnir System.)
The scope is tied directly into a fire control computer programmed to recognize the unique signatures (thermal, etheric, or Kirlian) of every supernatural creature of which Task Force: VALKYRIE has records. If the gun is pointed at a target that does not fit any target profile, the safety is automatically engaged and the gun will not fire. In theory, this means that it is impossible for a VALKYRIE soldier to accidentally shoot a bystander during an engagement.
In practice, it means that the weapon tends to refuse to fire at a monster’s mortal servants, cultists, slashers and even the odd inanimate object. A cell operating under the cover of the Gulf War was wiped out by a nest of ghûls because the desert
sun baked the stone walls of the creatures’ lair to a temperature close to 98.6, causing the computers to assume the hunters were surrounded by human onlookers and refuse to fire.
FIELD MODIFICATIONS: The GFTS
The majority of agents issued a Gungnir System weapon quickly learn of a field modification that strips out the safety controls while leaving the scope and target recognition software intact. Task Force: VALKYRIE comes down hard on agents discovered to have modified their weapons in this manner, with court martial the least severe reprimand.
Victim-Detonated Sun Bomb (VDSB) (•••)
Ever since Murnau’s Nosferatu, the knowledge that Haemorphages are destroyed by the light of the sun has entered the pop culture lexicon, along with wooden stakes, crosses and garlic (never mind that, as far as Task Force: VALKYRIE has been able to determine, two of those are complete nonsense). While VALKYRIE’s scientists have not yet found the key component of sunlight that causes such deleterious effects on the bloodsuckers, they have developed the next best thing.
Function: The VDSB (Victim-Detonated Sun Bomb, also just called a Sun Mine or Sun Bomb) is an explosive device that is rigged to trigger via an infrared sensor and thermal imager; when an object with a core temperature of less than 94ºF breaks the infrared beam, the device is triggered. Instead of an explosion, the VDSB (which looks like a generic satchel charge but contains far more complex innards) uses a combination of full-spectrum phosphorescent lights and focusing mirrors to create a blinding flash that is, from an electromagnetic standpoint, identical to sunlight. While the light doesn’t actually harm vampires, it can cause a surge of panic that overwhelms their rational mind and leads them to make tactical errors.
Blind characters and creatures without eyes are unaffected. When a vampire or other creature vulnerable to bright light is caught within the area of a VDSB, the effects are far more pronounced. The vampire’s player must immediately make an extended Resolve + Composure roll, with each roll representing one turn. Each turn in which the vampire’s player rolls at least one success, he maintains his composure for one further turn. If at any time the vampire fails to gain any successes on a roll, he flies into a frenzy of fear in which his only objective is to flee from the source of the light. He will attack anyone who gets in his way, but otherwise just tries to get away. If the vampire accumulates five successes on the extended roll, he shakes off the flight instinct and can act normally.
FIELD MODIFICATIONS: The VDSB
A VDSB can only be used once before it must be refitted; the intensity of the flash burns out the light sources in a single use. Unlike the Equalizer grenade, a VDSB can be refitted in the field with a minimum of fuss. Refitting a Sig mine requires full spectrum lights available from most science-novelty or pet stores.
Etheric Tracker (••••)
Monsters, whatever their stripe, tend to be elusive. Whether it’s a vampire’s ability to cloud men’s minds, a witch’s teleportation spell, or a werewolf’s really damn disconcerting way of just disappearing sometimes, if Task Force: VALKYRIE can’t find it, they can’t very well tag it or kill it. The etheric tracker is one step toward nullifying that advantage. By marking a target with a small “tag” that has been bombarded with exotic, high-energy particles similar to those underlying the creation of etheric rounds, Task Force: VALKYRIE can track its quarry even through realms beyond mortal ken.
Function: The etheric tracker consists of two parts: the main unit is roughly the size and shape of a large pistol (Size 1), which uses precisely aligned electromagnets to fire a tracking pellet at considerable velocity, embedding it below the target’s skin. The pellets themselves are roughly the size of a grain of sand, and are small enough that the target may not even notice it, especially in a high-intensity situation. Even if it is noticed, the sensation is comparable to the bite of a small insect.
A handheld scanner, the second part of the tracker, picks up the pseudo etheric radiation given off by the pellet and displays a location on an LCD screen. Earlier models only showed approximate distance and direction; current field models integrate a GPS locator and street maps of the area, allowing the team to pinpoint the precise location of its quarry.
The current model cannot track a target that fully departs this plane of existence, but Task Force: VALKYRIE researchers are
hard at work on cracking that puzzle as well. An etheric tracker has an effective range of only half a mile, but this range is not
hampered by buildings or other obstructions. A single pellet can be tracked for 24 hours before its etheric resonance fades.
Special: An Etheric Tracker comes with a full magazine of pellets, which resembles a magazine for a semiautomatic pistol filled with blue sand. The sheer number of pellets means the Etheric Tracker’s ammunition is effectively unlimited. Should an agent lose his supply of etheric pellets, a call to his home office and usually can get him a replacement within one week, provided he can get to a population center or military base.
Munin Serum (••••, Renewable)
No matter how black the black ops or how covert the covert strike team, on occasion, witnesses to Task Force: VALKYRIE operations survive the initial fracas. Sometimes it’s a bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time, sometimes it’s the newly freed victim of a possessing entity or the liberated thrall of a warlock. Sometimes, those witnesses start to ask awkward questions. Since secrecy is one of the organization’s paramount directives, the silence of these witnesses must be guaranteed. In the old days, that meant a couple of ounces of lead in the back of the head; nowadays, VALKYRIE operatives prefer to use less messy alternatives.
Function: Munin serum must be administered by injection directly into the spinal column just below the cervical vertebrae. The process is excruciatingly painful and subjects are usually sedated before being treated. If an agent wishes to administer Munin serum
to an unwilling target things are going to be ugly and include lots of screaming.
Each dose affects one hour of the subject’s memory; a single syringe of the serum contains six doses. (Each pack of the Munin Syndrome Merit buys the hunter one syringe.) When the serum is injected, if not enough doses are used or if the subject is particular resistant to drugs the target is left woozy and disoriented, as though she had taken a potent hallucinogen. If the serum is successfully administered then target's memory is wiped out for an amount of time corresponding to the number of doses injected. The subject experiences the memory loss as a similar sensation to an alcohol-induced blackout. Some refer to it as “lost time.”
Mjolnir Cannon (MC) (•••• or ••••• )
WE HAVE FREAKING LASER GUNS!
Improvements: They have undergone several upgrades on an annual basis and are perhaps TFVs most expensive weapon that a normal agent might get their hands on (approximately $2M each). The current versions are capable to producing the invisible rapid-pulsing laser beam at that when combined with the electrical charge are around a megaWatt (MW) of juice for the hand-held version and up to 3 MWs for the vehicle mounted version. Both versions zap a target with a million volts of electricity in the span of milliseconds as the lightning follows the beam. If the zap wasn't measured in a milliseconds or sustained outside of safety parameters it would cook the target to death. The three settings in the standard cannon are accomplished by simply increasing the duration of the beam to transferring a dozen milliamps(mAs, 200mAs will stop the heart) to several amperes(As). Agents are cautioned that regardless of the setting, use of the MC has a small chance of killing the target, much like stun guns sometimes do. They shouldn't be used indiscriminately at any setting because taking a lightning strike to the body traveling horizontally to the ground is a lot more dangerous than the way the lightning would conduct through the spine (and missing the heart)if struck through the head like most victims of natural lightning strikes.
MCs are incredibly expensive to upkeep and Agents don't usually get to hang on to them after a given operation. There is just not enough of these to go around so they need to be circulated to where they are most needed at any given time.
Function: The Mjolnir Cannon does have its flaws. There is a low chance (but not all that low) of the gun backfiring, delivering its full charge to the wielder instead of the target. The gun is not usually damaged by backfires because of its built-in shielding. Thankfully, most of its settings are specifically non-lethal in nature. Hunter cells that have an MC on a consistent basis have developed ad hoc grounding plates and wires to both jeeps and personnel.
Carried Functionality: The man-portable version of the Mjolnir Cannon can be set to one of three settings, inflicting either a low or medium or high energy blast. A Mjolnir Cannon has a battery rated for 16 shots before depletion. The more damaging settings consume more power; inflicting medium setting counts as 2 shots, high setting takes 3 and lethal takes 4. Rifle The Mjolnir Cannon has an optimal range of 100 yards, has an effective of 200 yards and a maximum range of 400 yards. range of 100/200/400.
Mounted Functionality:A larger, vehicle-mounted version of the Mjolnir Cannon also exists, though it is seldom issued to urban strike teams, due to its lack of concealment, but in rural areas or regions already gripped by war, it can provide vital tactical support. The vehicle-mounted version works just like its smaller cousin, with the following exceptions: the weapon has two additional settings extra-high and instant kill mode. The range of the vehicle-mounted cannon has targeting lasers and more power, capable of delivering lighting bolts at very long ranges. The optimal range is 300 yards, effective range of 600 yards and a maximum range of 1200 yards. Its battery holds the capacity for 50 shots. The very high uses 8 shots, while instant kill counts as 16.
While the MC is a potent tool on the battlefield, it can interact dangerously when actual lightning is brought into the mix. The plasma channel created by the cannon attracts lightning; whenever the weapon is used in a thunderstorm, any missed strikes could cause an errant natural bolt finding the plasma channel and following it back to the hapless hunter. tion of electromagnetic fields will play havoc with the beam. The laser's effective range is most hampered by rain, dramatically reducing its ability to hit a target and increasing the chance of erratic strikes. So basically a thunderstorm is the worst to use it both for the rain and the lightning. Probably shouldn't put two of them two close together either... also don't cross the streams.
Any supernatural creature with control of the elements, especially electricity should not be engaged with the MC. It a little know fact is that hitting a Promethean with this weapon is incredibly bad. The trouble is the best way to definitively identify a Promethean is to shoot it with the cannon. Don't do it. If you do, run!
Mjolnir Cannon Power settings:
1. Low: 3 Bashing Damage Modifier, One charge
2. Medium: 5 Bashing Damage Modifier, Two charges
3. High: 7 Bashing Damage Modifier, Three charges
4. Very High (Mounted Only): 9 Bashing Damage Modifier, 8 charges
5. Lethal: 3 Lethal Damage Modifier, Four charges
6. Instant Kill (Mounted Only): 4 Lethal Damage Modifier, 16 charges
Damage = Successes + Modifier))
The real advantage of the MC is not its damage modifiers and its non-lethal usage but in the Tilts it can consistently apply to a target. When the target it hit and damage exceeds the being's Stamina or Resistance then you can choose to also apply one of the following Tilts: Knocked Down, Beaten Down (if applicable)or stunned. On an Exceptional Success you apply all three conditions as well as Insensate if five rounds or until hit. This ability to stack a lot of Tilts on a target allows for the large amount of Bashing damage to wrack up and hopefully knock the target unconscious.
Gleipnir Restraints (••)
In Norse mythology, the Gleipnir was the bond used to restrain Fenris Wolf. Since the great wolf was capable of breaking any chains used to hold him, Odin commissioned the Gleipnir from the dwarves — a thin ribbon made from six impossible things. As far as anyone knows, the device sometimes issued to TFV operatives going up against Prometheans, or any other superhumanly strong creature,
isn’t made from dwarven magic. Instead, it sets up a “kinetic feedback loop.” The harder a subject struggles against it, the more it restricts movement. The most difficult thing about the Gleipnir is usually getting the subject properly restrained in the first place.
Using the Gleipnir requires the hunter to use a Restrain move while grappling a target. If the target is successfully restrained, the Gleipnir uses the creature’s force against it. Breaking free of the Gleipnir requires a number of successes on a Strength + Athletics roll equal to twice the creature’s Strength rating. Any effects that increase this rating also get figured in. Successes cannot be accumulated.
Compound Rounds (• to •••••, Renewable)
Most monsters have a physical vulnerability to a fairly common substance; it can often be hard for a hunter to know which weapon he should be using against a given supernatural. When something tall, dark, and furry moves in the shadows, a hunter only has seconds to determine if he’s facing a wolf-beast Changeling, a lycanthrope, a shapeshifting witch, or a vampire wearing a wolf-form — and grab the right tool for the job. Compound Rounds save lives by incorporating trace amounts of the elements most commonly dangerous to supernatural creatures into a single bullet. This ammunition saves hunters precious time, and gives them the confidence they are neutralizing their target — regardless of its specific nature — in the most efficient manner possible.
The Compound Rounds Merit is Renewable, using the same Special rules as for Etheric Rounds. Like Etheric Rounds, Compound Rounds can be used by those who do not possess a Task Force: VALKYRIE RFID chip.
Interstices Calculation Expedient (ICE) (•)
VALKYRIE has long posited the existence of interstitial terrain (co-located planes of existence), but hasn’t been able to prove it—yes, some agents have experienced it, but the subjective experiences of individual hunters cannot be used as proof for anything. Now, they have a device that tracks and records instances of interstitial terrain. The device is portable, though not easily concealable (the screen itself is about as big as an iPhone or GPS device, but the housing for the tracker necessitates a backpack that weighs about 30 lbs).
Interstitial Terrain: “Interstitial” effectively means between. Interstitial terrain, or interstitial spaces, are the places that fall between the cracks in our reality. (CofD refers to Interstitial Terrain as a Verge) TFV defines extra-dimensional cross-rips with the following criteria and the device is only able to detect the following:
• Terrain that isn’t simply a doorway or other gate. It’s literally a place where the alternate reality intrudes atop our own, and is overlaid there.
• Generally, the terrain only appears where no or few people are present.
• Terrain that is always temporary. They appear for no more than 24 hours – some may appear only for minutes, even seconds.
• Anything can come out of that “bleed over,” and anything can go in. Once the overlap ends, that person is trapped in the alternate reality until they can find a place and time for the overlap to occur anew. If it occurs anew, of course.
Function: No action is necessary to calculate the location of nearby interstices, just turning the ICE on is enough to get started. It only tracks a half-mile radius, and only identifies instances of interstitial terrain that have appeared in an area within the last 24 hours. It identifies signature etheric traces, noting the residue. The screen features a GPS device, and the terrain is noted on the map via a blinking red pulse. With training an agent can tune in to focus on the resonance of a certain type of interstitial terrain to the exclusion of others.
(The ICE allows TFV to locate verges, loci, irises and other gateways to extra-dimensional places. While it works well to detect underworld and shadow terrain, many other places that do not map to physical landscape are not detectable past the gateway.)
The Gatekeeper Device - Suit (GDS) (•••)
It’s actually not a device: it’s a thin-skinned black bodysuit lined with tiny white filaments—and, because it’s been designed by Project FORT, the suit is also marked with a number of stitched-in occult, spiritual, and scientific symbols. It covers everything: even the agent’s face. The wearer sees via dark goggles sewn into the bodysuit mask. At present, only five suits of this type even exist. FORT does not have the resources or materials to make more.
Function: Wearing the suit (usually referred to as the GDS - Gatekeeper Device Suit as a less pompous slang) allows one to enter alternate realms (at this moment, that remains restricted to either the Shadow or the Underworld). Doing so is an act of will—the wearer must meditate, which charges the suit via biofeedback.At that moment, the wearer will cross over. If she’s at an Avernian Gate (where the membrane between the world of the living and the Underworld is thin), she will cross over into the Underworld. If she is anywhere else, she crosses over into the Shadow. The suit has some notable drawbacks. First is that the suit can only be used once every 12 hours. Exiting the Shadow or the Underworld generally means waiting out the downtime between uses, unless alternate means of exit are discovered. Second, the suit causes a few unpleasant physical side effects, including:
• Itching - The itching of the skin is persistent and distracting (causing a persistent -1 penalty to all rolls. This penalty can removed for a scene by expending a Willpower point.)
• Vertigo - Serious vertigo only manifests when the wearer approaches the edge of a cliff of ledge. (If the character is near such an edge, she must succeed on a Wits + Dexterity roll lest she fall off that edge)
• Pallor - The character turns deeply pale, her veins showing through the flesh. This lasts for a full week after using the suit. (It has no direct effects, but could cause Social penalties in certain situations(Storyteller-determined))
Infrasound Emitter (Screamer Pistol) (•••)
A witch who can’t concentrate can’t work magic. Quantifying and diverting etheric energy is hard, and fucking with someone’s head is much easier. The screamer pistol generates a beam of ultra-low frequency sound (infrasound). At a distance, the low frequency sound leads to hallucinations and altered states of consciousness as the vibrations interfere with the target’s inner ear. Up close the effects are more impressive, wrecking the target’s ability to concentrate. In some extreme cases, the vibrations hit the resonant frequency of the human bowel, causing it to empty — sometimes called the “brown note.” Regardless, at close range no mage can keep the mental image of a spell ready through that.
((A Screamer Pistol is a ranged weapon, subject to all normal rules for ranged combat. Attacking with the Screamer Pistol is a Dexterity + Firearms roll with a +2 damage modifier to represent the weapon’s equipment bonus. As a focused beam of sound, the pistol doesn’t deal damage.))
There is a slim chance that if not configured or charged properly instead of firing a tight beam of sound the screamer will backfire, unleashing a burst of low-frequency sound without any focus. (Anyone within five feet, including the wielder, suffers the effects of a single success and is stunned for one turn and unable to call or concentrate on supernatural abilities.)
If the target is struck with the beam, the target suffers strange hallucinations, and cannot concentrate and utilize supernatural techniques and spells outside of innate natural abilities. (Compare the number of successes rolled to the target’s Composure. Each success above the victim’s Composure is one turn above the first in which the target cannot focus enough to use any supernatural powers. (If the successes are equal to or less than the target’s Composure, the victim still suffers that requisite one turn without powers.))
If the target is hit with the entire beam concentrated on his head or stomach they may voids his bowels. (Condition: Soiled: The target suffers a -3 penalty to all Social rolls for the remainder of the scene.)
Warning: The Screamer Pistol has no effect on creatures that don’t have higher cognitive functions. Werewolves fly into a frenzy against the wielder when targeted due to their enhanced hearing. This weapon should never be used against Therianthropes! The hunters of VALKYRIE have lost too many soldiers and agents to the juggernauts that are werewolves. As such, they’ve upped their game when it comes to bringing the fight against the Lupines.
Frequency Pulse Emitter (FPE) (••; Renewable)
Durability 2, Size 1, Structure 3
Canines can hear noises pitched in ultra-high frequencies that humans cannot. The scientists who designed the devices for TF:V created Frequency Pulse Emitters working with the same general principles applied to werewolves. A FPD (Frequency Pulse Emitter) (sometimes called Dog Whistles by TFV soldiers) is a modified flashbang grenade that emits an eardrum rupturing pulse of sound that can only be heard by canines and werewolves.
Affected beings must make Stamina + Composure roll at a -3 penalty or gained the Tilt: Stunned. The penalty to resist being stunned is increased to -5 if the werewolf is in either wolf or near-wolf form. A Frequency Pulse Emitter has no effect on humans unless the character has increased their normal range of hearing in some manner. It may work on any creature (vampire, witch, etc.) assuming an animal-form or using heightened senses.
Urban Response Vehicle (URV) (•••••; Special)
Durability 8, Size 16, Structure 24, Acceleration 15, Safe Speed 110 (75 mph), Maximum Speed 176 (120 mph), Handling 1.
Though it’s difficult to drive an armored car through town and not draw attention, the fact is that some jobs and locations require a more forceful and timely response than others. Recently put into limited production, the Urban Response Vehicle (URV) provides Task Force: VALKYRIE members with light armored vehicle capability disguised as a standard full-sized van. As the name implies, the URV was designed for covert urban operations and would require some serious overhauling for use off-road.
The standard package also comes with a “popup” .50 caliber machine gun. To operate, the gunner seats himself in the gunner chair, pushes a button, the roof of the vehicle slides open and the .50 cal is elevated via hydraulic lift to a height even with the top of the URV. The machine gun uses both a swivel mount and pedals to achieve an 180 degree field of fire, which requires additional training (any gunner that fires the .50 cal, or replacement weapons, without a Heavy Weapons specialty for Firearms suffers the untrained penalty). The .50 cal comes with a casing catcher as standard. If purchased as an option, the pintle-mounted Bleeder unfolds from the front passenger side roof and unlocks a hatch that allows a standing passenger to operate the weapon.
The .50 cal has the following statistics:
Type Damage Ranges Capacity Size Special
HMG 4(8 again) 300/600/1200 50 5 Autofire
In addition to the onboard features, an URV can be further enhanced for field work (by investing in up to a maximum of 10 Merit dots worth of options). The following items from the Advanced Armory Endowment are available as options for the URV: Etheric Rounds (replaces standard .50 cal ammunition), Etheric Windows (functions exactly like Etheric Goggles, may be toggled on and off by voice command), pintle-mounted Bleeder (operated by passenger), Equalizer Grenade Launcher (co-axial mount on the .50 cal), Gungnir System (may be added to any weapon), vehicle-mounted Mjolnir Cannon (replaces standard .50 cal machine gun).
There are drawbacks of course, even with a casing catcher to gather up spent shells, firing a .50 cal machine gun downtown is apt to attract some attention. The machine gun is included as an “oh shit” weapon to help cover retreats and take down serious opposition when unwanted attention is preferable to the continued existence of a large and scary monster.
Hod Rounds (•; Renewable)
The field agents of Task Force: VALKYRIE are no greenhorns when it comes to dealing with the haemophagic ENEs colloquially known as “vampires.” Early in the young organization’s tenure the VALKYRIE hunters cut their teeth, so to speak, developing an arsenal to deal with the vampire menace. Strangely, R&D has tapered off over the years and hit stagnation. The official story has the conspiracy’s limited funding being routed for more immediately “worthwhile” endeavors.
When wooden bullets were found on Axis soldiers in WWII, they begat a number of military urban myths: poisonous splinters, shredding limbs, all sorts of nasty intel without visual confirmation. Facts are, wooden bullets were used most often as tracers for grenade launchers or as training bullets fired in desperation. Horror stories left over from WWII have created bugbear-like gremlins and foo-fighters out of a largely ineffectual ballistic. VALKYRIE, however, knows that gremlins and foo-fighters are all too real, and they’ve fought too many bugbears. The development of wooden rounds to deal with vampires was a no-brainer and versions have been field-tested and improved upon since the early 1900’s—well before WWII. The bullets are made of compressed fibers formed around a soft center of fresh mistletoe. The soft center heats up upon firing and builds up pressure within the hollow of the bullet, shredding on impact.Technically, the bullets are cheap to manufacture, but VALKYRIE doesn’t use them with any frequency (and they’re so alarmingly low-tech that some claim use of Hod Rounds to be “embarrassing”). As such, it’s impossible to get more than two full clips of the stuff at a time. A special request form can be filed if an agent
feels he might need more than that for a raid or similarly large scale strike, but many hunters question where such requisition forms even go. A Task Force: VALKYRIE RFID chip is not needed to fire Hod Rounds.
Function: Use of Hod Rounds in a weapon reduces its efficiency in most cases (-2 penalty to shooting rolls). However, when used against vampires, Hod Rounds have a noticeable bonus of being able to stake the heart of a vampire with a reasonably well-placed shot.
Targeting the heart (usually either a -3 or -5 targeting penalty and requiring either five successes or three successes) doesn't take any targeting penalties due to the splintering of the wood in the rounds (just the -2 for using the rounds in the first place). Targeting shots like this do Lethal damage instead of Bashing to vampires and if three successes are rolled in a single shot the vampire is considered staked and lapses into Torpor immediately.
VALKYRIE agents often frown on low-tech, decidedly unadvanced Advanced Armory solutions like Hod Rounds. Having a handful of tarnished wooden bullets dropped into your palm doesn’t have the same potent resonance as being handed a rifle that fires uranium flechettes, right? Yes, Hod Rounds serve some utility and smart agents can see that. But that doesn’t stop agents from asking, why the mistletoe, exactly? Can’t you just make a Hod Round out of any type of wood?
The real answer is no, you can’t. Mistletoe felled Balder. In the lore you find mistletoe associated with death, the underworld and supernatural might. It’s also been bound up with supposed miracle cures. Wood from other trees doesn’t seem to work as well. Mythological significance goes the extra mile, here and the wooden rounds made from this special wood works on more than just vampires were other wood wouldn't. Of course, VALKYRIE requisition agents won’t tell you that. Any agent asking such loaded questions will meet with the fairly standard response: “Don’t ask questions.”
Huginn Visor (•• or •••)
Vampires seem to have no end of abilities to sway the minds and will of mankind at their disposal. There is one drawback, however, and that is a seeming need for eye contact—the window of the soul, so to speak—on the part of the vampire. That’s where the Huginn Visor comes in.
Incidentally a vampire's Dominate Discipline only requires the victim see the vampire's eyes and not the other way around. Majesty doesn't require eye contact at all, but again the victim must be able to see the vampire. Neither power will work through a digital recording, even a live feed. Obfuscate also clouds the mind but doesn't require either eye contact or seeing the vampire to function. In fact, the power is less effective if you can see the vampire.
The Visor is made of a dark, reflective glass that makes such eye contact nearly impossible. Civilian issue sunglasses prove ineffective against the powers of the enemy, so much so that an agent would not trust his cell’s integrity to simply wearing dark sunglasses. Doubly so considering the kinds of sensitive information Task Force: VALKYRIE agents are privy to. The solution lies in just the right combination of polarization and treatment with strange “chemicals.” Field agents used to joke the stuff comes from the wings Top Brass pulled off of faeries. They aren’t far off.
The two-dot version is the sunglasses. A three-dot version actually represents a contact lens variant. However, the lenses are slightly less efficient (see below). The sunglasses apply a -3 penalty to a vampire's roll to mentally affect a person. The lenses apply a -2 penalty. Both damage an agent’s ability to see in poorly-lit areas—in such places, the wearer suffers -2 to all sight-based Perception rolls in those cases.
Odin Reticle (•••)
Prerequisite: Huginn Visor (••)
The Huginn Visor (two-dot sunglasses variant only) can be outfitted with a small LCD attachment called an Odin Reticle. This little display overlays one eye and its purpose is to pierce the supernatural stealth possessed by vampiric and other ENEs. Intel suggests vampires are not capable of achieving true invisibility; rather they cloud the minds of pedestrians to overlook them. Just in case, R&D didn’t take any chances. Applying the Odin Reticle over one eye, an agent becomes capable of piercing any ENEs’ attempts to evade detection through a variety of techniques. The ENE will appear apparent in the eyepiece by way of a process called Resonant Afterimage Processing (RAP).Despite early successes, only a limited amount of Odin Reticle prototypes were made. Agents interested in field testing equipment should contact their superior officers for more information.
Function: The Odin Reticle snaps in place and remains largely concealed by the Huginn Visor. A thin cord runs back to the power source and processor that rests in the ear, no larger than a standard issue earpiece. (Hunters equipped with an Odin Reticle gain a bonus of +3 on any dice roll or Clash of Wills attempting to detect vampiric and other ENEs using stealth- and evasion-based powers.)
Logehamarr Personal Flamethrower (LPF) (•••••)
Fire is a great equalizer. It burns structures. It sears flesh. And some creatures, like nocturnal haemophages, are particularly susceptible to the element, possessed of an aversion that is both physical and supernatural. Said plainly, it burns them something unmerciful. All of this goes into making the Logehamarr Personal Flamethrower the ultimate offensive expression of Task Force: VALKYRIE. Flamethrowers are not a modern creation. The 5th century Byzantine army would pump “Greek fire” through brass tubes at enemy forces. Modern-day flamethrowers are more advanced but still function the same way. They have three components: the fuel reserve, the gun housing and the ignition system. The fuel reserve contains a fuel mixture that produces almost the same effects attributed to the “Greek fire” used centuries ago. The fuel reserve also holds a pressure tank that pushes the fuel through the system.
Function: Traditionally, flamethrowers are used to attack fortifications and bunkers. The Logehamarr Personal Flamethrower has been modified with the design of being more effective as an antipersonnel weapon.
The Flamethrower attack is resolved via a Dexterity + Firearms attack as a long burst of autofire with base the user gains a +3 bonus to his attack roll, and may attack multiple targets if he’s willing to suffer the required penalties. Characters without a Heavy Weapons Specialty in Firearms take a –2 penalty to this roll. The burst of fuel emitted by a flamethrower is the size of a bonfire for the purposes of damage (Damage 2), and burns with the intensity of a gasoline fire when against mortal and other supernatural targets (+2 Damage bonus). So attacks effectively have a damage modifier of +3 Lethal Damage. Any character struck by a flamethrower attack is automatically set alight, and on the following and subsequent turns, he’ll continue to take as much damage as he took from the initial attack per turn until extinguished.
The flame affects vampires a bit differently—it does tend to induce fear frenzy as any flame does but even the sight of the strange green flame is enough to launch a vampire into an immediate fear frenzy. If the vampire can see the fire, then the vampire automatically enters a fear frenzy, and desperately tries to escape the scene. The prevailing theory is that supernatural beings mistake the green flame as Hellfire, even though the greenish color is just a byproduct of the chemical mixtures. TFV agents how no intention of correcting terrified foes.
Type Ranges Capacity Strength Size
Logehamarr 5/10/20 5 3 4
Tranq Rounds (• to •••••; Renewable)
Though the weapons available to Task Force: VALKYRIE are fine for putting big holes in things, sometimes the brass want a para-human serial killer (a slasher)alive — especially if he’s gained some measure of fame. Tranquilizer bullets are at the cutting-edge of ballistics technology. Ten years from now, they could be available in gun shops, but until the rounds can be mass produced, VALKYRIE keeps a close track on them. Each bullet is made of the same frangible polymer used in Glaser rounds, but containing a gel suspension of tranquilizers that are quickly absorbed through the skin and into the body.
Mechanics: Tranq Rounds do little appreciable damage. Against objects, they are useless. Against living targets, a successful roll deals only one point of lethal damage, no matter how many successes were scored on the attack. Every hit also delivers a potent tranquilizer that gives the target a -1 penalty to all rolls. Once the target’s penalties from the tranquilizer are equal to his Stamina, he must spend a point of Willpower or lose consciousness. If he remains active, each further hit with a Tranq Round requires another Willpower expenditure. The negative modifier wears off after 10 minutes, but a target rendered unconscious remains in that state for at least half an hour.The Tranq Rounds Merit is Renewable; for each dot the character has in this Merit, Task Force: VALKYRIE supplies him with one clip of Tranq Rounds for a specific weapon type (e.g. MP-5, Glock 19) every session. A character may purchase multiple instances of Tranq Rounds, each specifying a different weapon.
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| Troopers of JSOC Esoteric Ops Division, Codename: Black Watch |
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The sun rose bright up over the small concrete bunker. Rolls of dust blew in across the driveway. Charlie Galveston — clad in the urban camo of his Special Forces gear — lay hunkered down in a ditch, his eye pressed to his rifle’s scope. His team lay a few feet away, their eyes to their rifles.
“What’s the story?” came an all-too-familiar voice — a man in a dark suit and dark sunglasses hopped down into the ditch. He was all smiles.
“Hey, Suit,” Galveston mumbled.
“Hey, SWAT,” the man in the suit — Agent Roger Crick — said, way too cheery for 7:00 in the morning.
“This ain’t your bag of tricks, Crick. We got a cult. They’re military minded. Loaded down for war. Got their slippery eel fuck leader in there, too, and he’s got a handful of hostages.”
“Right, right,” Crick said. “Billy ‘Carolina’ Castle. It true he can take a licking and keep on ticking?”
“That’s not him,” Galveston said, growing irritated. “That’s Wayne Krebbins you’re thinking of, and he’s not a cult leader, he’s a goddamn serial killer.”
“Oh, sure, sure, the slasher. Mister Castle can do…what, now?”
“I dunno. Hypnotize people or some crap. We’ve never confirmed it.”
“Right, yeah. You hoping to get a clean shot? Those windows are boarded up pretty nice.” Galveston pulled away from the scope. “The scope’s on requisition. Sees right through the wood. Listen, Crick, why don’t you head home? This isn’t your scene. You don’t like to get your hands dirty, and at
some point soon this is going to get messy.”
“I’ve a job to do.”
“Job? You don’t have to do a goddamn thing but leave me and my men
to do their work.”
“See that? In the distance?” Crick pointed. Galveston followed the finger and saw a tiny glinting object on the horizon, and behind it, a billowing plume of dust.
“What the hell?” Galveston asked.
“That’s the Channel 9 news van. Once they get here and get a sniff of what’s going on, someone’s going to broadcast something, and before you can say ‘Branch Davidians,’ you’re going to have an army of media, police and the FBI up your ass, including those headcases from VASCU. Do you want that? I don’t want that.”
Galveston’s throat tightened. “No. I don’t want that either.”
“Good!” Crick opened his jacket — and instead of a gun in a holster, he had three syringes that caught a band of light from the bright sun.
“Then let me do my job while you do yours. The news won’t be bothering you today, old friend.”
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