School Days
Aspiring Cultists The players are all young students in grade six at Justin Geoffrey Junior High in Muskratonic. Everyone one of them is a fan of the pokéthulhu show on TV's Lovecraft Network. They all have the official shining dodecahedrons and Pok�nomicons (gotten through mail order!) Unfortunately they have never seen a real live pokéthulhu or even met anyone who has. What can they do? They meet for regular meetings of the school fan club at lunch but all the members are equally hopeless. [NB: When players are generating their characters they should be told that the fighting abilities of their pokéthulhus are limited by their pokéthulhu Lore ability!] The Spelling Bee The scene opens upon a spelling bee. The teacher Ms. Jolie is quizzing the students. [Young students at Justin Geoffrey Junior High never have to worry about getting used to any different teachers as all the teachers are of course called Ms. Jolie. Strange no?] The players may either guess at the correct spelling themselves or attempt a challenging role on their Grade Level ability. The spelling bee works in the traditional manner. Here's the words she uses.
The villain of the scene is young "Banger" Jones (even the teachers call him Banger, his parents may remember his Christian name but even they call him Banger). Banger enters after everyone has had one chance to spell a word correctly. A chill comes over the classroom as they hear him approaching (a water glass vibrates ala Jurassic Park). A huge, misshapen shadow appears in the door's frosted glass and in walks Banger Jones! A girl screams and faints and Banger's buddies greet him jovially.
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| One thing Banger does care about is being made to feel stupid. Unfortunately
Teacher Jolie has to work exceptionally hard not to make him look stupid so she's always
on edge and nervous. The only reason she scheduled a spelling bee for today is that
Banger was supposed to be in juvenile court on a charge of Grand Theft auto.
Unfortunately for class harmony charges were dismissed when the witnesses failed to show
up. His buddies are thrilled to see him and egg him on to take part in the spelling
bee. Banger's not bright enough to realize what they're doing so he agrees.
He fails miserably to spell any word correctly and when Teacher Jolie tries to lie and say
he's correct one of his buddies is quick to disagree. One of the party is asked to
spell a word next and no matter what they do Banger ends up assuming that they were making
him look stupid! Now Banger is mad and he needs vengeance! Just wait until
recess! (Teacher Jolie takes a personal day). Rumble in the Schoolyard No matter how sneaky they try and be the party fails to avoid Banger and his buddies. Teacher Jolie chases everyone outside to "play" and won't allow anyone to stay in. Once everyone is outside the rest of the school senses that Banger and his gang are up to no good and everyone scatters. All the blinds are drawn on the windows (including the principle's office and the party is all alone with Banger. Banger would prefer to trash the party one by one but if they insist on trying to gang up on him he'll take them all on! Banger uses his ridiculous Phys Ed score to pummel each player one at a time. Once they are unconscious he deposits them upside down in the handy garbage cans. Not much of a rumble really. The first person so trashed regains consciousness just as Banger and his goons walk away and hears Banger telling the boys that "That was so much fun I'm a gonna trash them geeks tomorrow too!" A Chance for Revenge? Once the party has regained consciousness they can sit around and compare their bruises and how filthy their clothes are. Crazy old Howard the school's janitor comes out and starts cleaning up. (You know the type, gaunt, stooped, lantern jaw, crazed rolling eyes). He's sweeping up and laughing at the party and muttering under his breath. It's pretty obvious that he's going on about them and they can hear the occassional word, "revenge, pokéthulhu, bastards." He ignores any comments or questions directed at him. If they want to get a better idea of what he's talking about it'll take a Challenging Shoplifting roll to get close enough to hear him. Everyone gets one chance to roll. "Stupid kids, tryin' to beat up on guys twice their size. In my day we'd have sicked our pokéthulhu on 'em. That'd teach 'em. Dumb kids these days couldin find a pokéthulhu to save their lives. Don't know nuttin' about the ol' gully." This is all they can get from the crazy old coot. After reccess they all file in and everyone gives them sympathetic and ashamed glances. Nurse Patience, the school nurse writes them each notes excusing them from school for the rest of the day. The party can do what they want with the rest of the day. Where can they go to find out about the ol' gully? Why to the public library of course! At the Library The lovely and helpful Librarian Lumli is thrilled to show them how to use the card index. Easy Grade level roles are required to find maps of the area. They locate the maps but are disheartened to learn that there are over 20 gullies within bicycle distance from town. What to do? Which gully was it. Obviously any gully inhabited by pokéthulhu would have dread rumours associted with it. If they're too direct in asking Librarian Lumli she gets all furtive and won't help them. In fact she will kick them out and close the library. If they can think up some excuse for doing this sort of research she will suggest that they check out the newsclippings file at the Starry Wisdom Historical Society. At the Starry Wisdom Historical Society At the Starry Wisdom Town Historical Society they will find Archivist Annie. She isn't particularily pleased to see a bunch of twelve year olds and would much prefer sending them back to the library. If they can think of a good reason why they should have access to the newsclippings she will show them how it works. The gully they want (imdicated in a whole heck of a lot of newspaper articles as the site of mysterious disappearances is the Bala Gulch. Either the historical society of the town library will have a map providing directions, Down in the Gully Crazy old Howard was right there are wild pokéthulhu in the gully. As you approach you can hear the slurping sounds as they suck the marrow out of the bones of the doomed cultists and adults who preceded you. In the gully are: a Pikathulu, a Scuttle, an Olaus Worm, a Tam Jenkin, a Tsathurtle, and a Nine Tentacled Ftaghn. The pokéthulhu are moving around in the gully singly. They're all well-fed (the players will come across the scattered clothes of a troop of Boy Scouts who foolishly ignored the rumours). The players will have to sneak around using their shoplifting skill to avoid detection. Since the bloated pokéthulhu are feeling rather satiated the roll is only Somewhat Tricky. Since the pokéthulhu don't really like each other much they will only be encountered individually. They can attempt to track a specific type of pokéthulhu, i.e. squamous, etc. by a Difficult (1 die) roll versus their pokéthulhu lore. Each player has the chance to capture one of the pokéthulhu using the normal rules. Remember that you can only store one pokéthulhu per shining dodecahedron and players have to defeat them themselves. They can use baseball bats to get a 3 die attack.
* I added this aspect because it was too good to ignore. So You've Got a pokéthulhu? Now What? So the players now have their very own pokéthulhu. Now what? Will they rush right out to challenge Banger Jones and his buddies or will they train them up a bit in power first? Training follows the standard procedure and thank goodness it's Spring Break next week! This gives them nine days to train and they shouldn't have any trouble getting their pokéthulhu up to speed. Bashing Banger Getting Banger to fight them is too darned easy. They can meet again in the central quad during recess. Banger laughs at their silly little pokéthulhu. He's sure they're only dogs wearing costumes, decomposing, non-Euclidian costumes in some cases, but just costumes. He's actually tough enough to beat one or two but there's no reason why if the pokéthulhu are losing that the players can't sick all of them on him at once. Banger's buddies bugger off as soon as they see the pokethulhu and are of no help. Once Banger is down on the ground his soul is as good as gone. (The players won't be able to stop their pokéthulhu anyway). Weird ol' Howard will clean up the mess and see to the paperwork (the school division has a standard form for mysterious disappearances and no one checks the garbage too closely!) No one misses Banger anyway. Post Banger After Banger's gone things get better for the school and the characters and now they have bigger plans to make! On to the Eibon League! Written by Oliver Bernuetz June 18, 2003 Updated June 26, 2003. |
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