A Rifts RPG Meta-Adventure
Game 5 of a Meta-Arc adventure that follows the Rifts canonical timeline.
Reference Materials: Rifts Mercenaries, (page 52), Adventure Ideas: Doctor Reid, I presume. Additional resources can be found in the Adventure Book, by referencing Angels of Mercy, a Hook, Line & Sinker on page 42. Additional material in Rifts Vampire Kingdoms, Dinosaur Swamps, and Rifts Madhaven.
Carlotta is leading the group to clear out Haunting Entities in Chihuahua Mexico.
Carlotta is taking a group of Psychics to what she’s learned to be a Haunted Mansion in the area once known as Chihuahua, some 370 miles south of Cuidad Juarez. With her as her attendants are two young human women, one a Mystic with unique talents to sense death and life, named Mireille Russum, and another, a Rogue Scholar and Psychic Healer named ‘Twose’. Both are training to become Vampire Hunters with the Rangers.
The reports she’s relying upon speak of children being lured away from their family home at night. Dozens of children have gone missing, but no evidence of their captors is left on the scene. Nor are the families affected in any way. The children all appear to be close in age, 8-13.
Recently, a grim discovery was made where the remains of 13 children had been found in a locked room of a semi-collapsed mansion. Locals report seeing ghostly images of children playing near the remains of the building at night, often singing and playing games. One of the investigators, who initially reported seeing the apparitions, speaks of particular songs they sing, recording the words. Days later, the same investigator is found in a stake of panic and shock. Something or someone has influenced his mind and turned him mad.
Madness has taken the town.
Since this event, others have been turned mad and greedy. The neighboring blocks around the initial body site are now cordoned off and officials are prevented from going in for further investigation. There’s been a noticeable uptick in violence, and crime in the area and local authorities are unable to handle it all.
Oberlin Moreno, a 16-year-old local goes on a rampage shortly after sunset. While households are settling in for dinner, Oberlin uses improvised Molotovs to set their homes on fire and as they rush out of their fiery homes, he stabs them. Seeing the carnage, people run from their homes to fight the fire, only to be ambushed by a knife-wielding Oberlin, crazed and possessed to slash at anyone who comes near.
The Angels of Mercy aren’t who they say they are.
Carlotta and her Rangers arrive in time to see a sea of emergency workers tending to the injured. A covered hover-cargo truck converted to an ambulance is dedicated to treating Oberlin, who’s been shot by one of the fathers with a handgun. Two of the EMS males pull his trolly into the hover-truck. Moments later, more people are gathered around the same hover truck.
Asking around, the Adventurers can see that the Emergency Workers are effective at triaging the injured and getting those in critical condition into the hover ambulances. They are assured by an EMS that everything is under control. As the first hover ambulances pull away, the Adventurers hear a woman screaming angrily. She is chasing a young boy, no older than 12 years old. The boy, Nestor, makes a straight line towards the Adventurers, hiding behind one of them as the woman, a highly attractive Elf (P.B.: 26) approaches the team. In his hysteria, he tells the Adventurers not to trust her, that they are all monsters.
She cautiously begins to explain that the poor child injured his head and is disoriented and delirious. They can see that the boy has a head injury and has a gauze bandage loosely wrapped around his head. The boy, Nestor, insists that they are monsters.
Using magic or psionics: Detect Evil, Presence Sense, or See Aura, the Adventurers, or one of the Rangers will sense that the EMS Workers are in fact, Vampires. The female Elf is a Master Vampire, she is joined by 6 Secondary Vampires, and there are 5 additional mortal servants enthralled by the Master Vampire. 2 Secondary Vampires and a human driver have left in the first Hover Ambulance.
A Gluttonous Entity is whispering madness in the ears of all who will listen.
The initial blitz attack by Oberlin was inspired by a Gluttonous Entity. The Glutton Entity is looking for victims to prey upon. It manipulates its victims through whisper campaigns that break them down and make them covetous. (Rifts Madhaven.)
I find victims who are weak and already jealous or covetous. Through their acts of violence, the Gluttonous Entity feeds and acquires objects and trinkets that it desires. It has amassed a small hoard over the decades it’s lived in Chihuahua. Its hoard is currently inside one of the collapsed houses found in town. It often roams the streets of Chihuahua seeking out new victims.
(Perception 14+: Observant psychics who choose to follow the entity on its movements, will notice that it avoids one particular building in town – the target Mansion that happens to be of interest to Carlotta.)
During the day, the mansion ruins are quiet. Researchers will be able to uncover the remains of another dozen children, locked in various rooms throughout the structure. The mansion itself once served as a restaurant before the coming collapse. Today, most of the structure has collapsed, with scattered areas maintaining partial structural integrity. Physical evidence researchers can find are children’s toys, dried blood splatter, blood, and hair-covered nails, beams of wood, and other improvised bludgeoning weapons, and the smell of decay.
The Haunting Children are playful, until they are not.
At night, the mansion is dominated by Haunting Children (Dinosaur Swamps.) These entities use various methods to attract the town’s children to play in the mansion and then lock them in rooms where they later die and ‘join’ them. The Haunting Children are devious and powerful in groups, using hypnotic chants to affect their victims. Unprotected researchers can easily be enthralled in their enchanting traps, being driven to either injure themselves or others.