Cold City, Episode 2: Age Before Beauty

A child is missing in East Berlin, and the RPA's assistance has been requested in the investigation. New agent, Otto Keck has been assigned to the team, and has accompanied Friend and Ziller to the home of the distraught parents. Frau Keller is beside herself with grief, her child Dieter has been missing for three days. The team questions her, gently, to discover that he was a good boy, and very quiet, who rarely got into trouble. He's friends with a girl who's family shares the flat with them, and a few other boys at school. She provides a picture, he's a small boy with blonde hair and blue eyes.

The team slits up to investigate leads, and calls Ko and Patton in for assistance. Friend and Ziller go to the child's school while Keck, Ko and Patton question the father at the factory. From the father, they discover Dieter had recently been in a fight with another young boy at school. Dieter's nose had been bloodied, and he had begged his father not to tell his mother. Dieter didn't want his mother worrying.

Meanwhile, Friend and Ziller interview the principle of the school, as well as Dieter's teacher to discover that many children have actually stopped attending school recently. It isn't uncommon for some children to drop out, they're told, some children go to work to help support their families, particularly the older ones. The teacher is concerned however at the increased numbers, and the age of the children, some very young. Friend and Ziller obtain the records of the children who have stopped attending school, and discover a disturbing trend: many had seen the school nurse, Josephine Metzinger, shortly before they stopped coming to school. Friend and Ziller discretely request that the principle make Frau Metzinger available for questioning, after alerting the other team members of what they've found.

Ko, Patton and Keck leave to meet the rest of the team at the school, but get re-directed to a domestic disturbance by HQ. A disturbance is occuring at the home of one of the missing children. The team arrives to find the Volkspolezei trying to keep the peace, while the father of the second missing child screams at an elderly, nearly naked man. The father screams "How dare you!" while the old man can only sob and mutter the word "Father". The mother sobs quietly in a corner of the apartment.

The team splits up to contain the situation, and learn anything they can. From the mother, they discover that her son has a winestain birthmark on his back. The old man, of course, has an identicle birthmark. He tells them that the last thing he remembers was having an asthma attack at school, and seeing the nurse. Then he woke up outside, cold and weak, but he found the strength to get home.

The principle of Deiter's school tells Friend and Ziller that it's the stranges thing: she told Frau Metzinger that the nice gentlemen from the RPA wanted to talk to her, but now the nurse can't be found anywhere. The agents get the nurse's address and race to the scene, notifying their partners over the radio as they go. Ko, Patton and Keck agree to meet them there.

Frau Metzinger's address is on a block that appears completely deserted. Three agents enter the building from the front, while two obtain access from an alley in the back. In the alley, they discover what looks like a homeless encampment, but all of the men are elderly and most are dead. One of the corpses is so old as to be nearly mummified. He wears a nice suit under a soviet issue long coat, and he still has his identification on him: Grigori Sudakov. A broken syringe juts from his neck.

More determined than ever, the agents break into the house. Patton kicks one door in, while Ko shoots the lock from the other. Within, they find little but dust, but tracks in the dust lead them to a hidden stair. The hidden stair leads them to a laboratory (or as Brendan pointed out, a la-BOR-a-tory, not a labra-tory). Frau Metzinger furiously taps out a message on a telegraph, surrounded by lab equipment and gurneys. One gurney holds a young man, in his mid thirties, connected to feeding tubes and IVs.

The team orders Metzinger to her knees, and Ziller attempts to interrogate. Feigning deafness, Metzinger lures Ziller close enough to attempt to stab him with a syringe filled with a bright blue fluid. The needle sinks in, but Keck is too quick, shooting Metzinger in the arm and preventing her from pushing down the plunger. Patton slams the old woman into the wall, pressing the syringe against her throat.

Meanwhile, Friend disconnects the young man from the equipment. He is emaciated, but alive, with blonde hair and blue eyes; Dieter aged into a man's body. Ko rushes to the telegraph to see a notbook nearby, filled with chemical formulae. One page, the last, has the word SUCCESS written broadly upon it.

Metzinger taunts Ziller, seeming to know him, though he doesn't know her. She tells him that he should pick a side, and when the Furher returns he will want to be on the right side. She then slams the syringe in Patton's hand into her neck, injecting the blue liquid into herself. She drops to the ground and begins to rapidly age and wither, laughing until she begins to scream.

The ticker tape next to Ko begins to move, a message is being received. "I know who you are. Stop. You will not stop me. Stop. The furher will return. Stop. Love and kisses, Uncle Joe."

Cold City: First Session Post Mortem

So, the plot was that sometime during the war the Nazi's summoned some Eldritch Horror from Beyond the Universe to Earth. Whatever they wanted to use it for, it was non-compliant and locked away, to be forgotten once the Reich fell. Four years after the end of the war it managed to escape and discover that it greatly enjoyed the touch of flesh, despite having none of its own. For months now, it has been murdering and skinning attractive people, then using their forms to seduce and have sex with unattractive people. Unfortunately for the monster, it is radioactive, and prolonged exposure to it leads to radiation poisoning and eventual death.

I thought of the creature more like an animal than a person, using the same hunting grounds over and over, unconcerned with being caught. We started in the middle of the investigation because there was some information that I decided the players had to start with, otherwise I feared it would take a few hours just to get to the Mockingbird. "Mystery" games can be surprisingly un-fun, especially if the players miss a lot of clues, either by bad rolls or just not thinking the way the GM expects them too. So it was useful to at least point them in a direction before letting them run wild.

The visit to the Mockingbird I expected, and had planned for the creature to be there at the same time. I was prepared for the agents to capture it there, but I was fairly relieved that they didn't. Chris handed me a huge out with his bribe to the police at the warehouse. With that, I had an immediate get out of jail free card in case we ran out of time. Which we did, a little, so I used the card and we had a fairly successful conclusion.

I didn't give the creature ample opportunity to explain it's own motivations, but then again, it's an Eldritch Horror from Beyond the Universe, and it should remain a little alien. I was prepared for the group to use the creature's radioactivity against it and use geiger counters to track it through the city, but lack of time prevented us from getting there. Over all it was good, thought I felt the end was a bit rushed.

Cold City, Episode 1: Radiation Kisses

The episode opens with a man and a woman in a dingy apartment having sex. Throughout the encounter, the woman keeps her sunglasses on. When the man reaches for her glasses, she playfully bats his hand away and they continue. Finished, the man falls asleep, but the woman dresses and leaves. An indeterminate time later, the man wakes up and retches, his eyes red and an obvious sweaty fever overtaking him.

German authorities have reported a number of mysterious deaths to the RPA. People have been dying of pneumonia and other symptoms of a suppressed immune system. It's February, 1950 in Berlin, so death by pneumonia isn't uncommon, but the German authorities became suspicious when a number of the corpses have appeared with redness and blisters on their mouths, hands and genitals. Additionally, a number of the deceased were known to frequent the same nightclub in the French sector of Berlin, The Mockingbird. Authorities have requested the RPA to investigate.

Oliver Friend and Rick Patton, only recently met, are in a tenement house in the American sector of Berlin. An apartment inside is known to be the home of Wilhelm Mott, a bartender at the Mockingbird who hasn't reported to work for days. The agents knock on the door, and Wilhelm answers, the same man from the prologue. He is obviously sick, sweating and pale, with a bright red and blistered rash around his mouth. Panicing at the sight of the agents, Wilhelm runs, only to be shot in the leg by Patton. Wilhelm dies as Friend questions him, his last words: "so beautiful, so beautiful, but I never saw her eyes".

Meanwhile, agents Grigori Sudakov, Pham Xuan Ko and Heinrich Ziller have been dispatched by the RPA to investigate a strange report from the East German Volkspolezei. Some school children have discovered what turns out to be flayed human bodies in a bombed out warehouse on the outskirts of Soviet controlled Berlin. Upon further investigation, the agents discover a pile of human skins, removed intact but for a single incision from nape of neck to tailbone. East German authorities burn the warehouse to the ground, "This was never here, and see that it never happens again" they tell the RPA agents. Sudakov leaves word (and bribes) that he should be contacted immediately should anyone in the area see someone approach the warehouse's remains.

At the Volkspolezei station, Heinrich interviews the children who discovered the bodies. They describe men and women they've seen enter and leave the warehouse, sometimes entering in pairs but always leaving alone. They also provide Ziller with a matchbook from the nightclub "The Mockingbird". The children are obviously distraught. Heinrich fears that the children will be emotionally scarred for life, and decides that the best course of action would be to kill the children and put them out of their misery. For the children, and for Germany. When he draws his service revolver, the children begin to scream, and Sudakov and Ko burst into the room, knocking Ziller out and carrying him away before the incident gets any worse.

All of our agents descended on The Mockingbird, filling each other in over the radio on the way. While questioning patrons and the entertainment, a handsome man in sunglasses entered the club and almost immediatly began hitting on a homely woman drinking alone. Some of our agents were immediately suspicious, and approached the man, who broke and ran. The agents attempted to physically restrain the man, but find him to be far to physically powerful. During the skuffle, his glasses are knocked aside and his face torn. Beneath his borrowed skin, the myserious man has a skull that seems to be made from glass with a faint green glow. The thing escapes into the night, and our agents recover and return to base.

Later, Sudakov receives word that his bribe has paid off, two men have entered the remains of the warehouse. Sudakov and Patton rush to the site, leaving word behind for their partners to join them. Arriving at the remains of the warehouse, they discover the alien thing in ragged skin, gently but hurridly pulling the skin from a recently murdered body. Sudakov and Patton engage the creature, keeping it busy until their companions can arrive. Combined firepower disables the creature, but doesn't kill it. A research crew arrives to load the unconcious creature into a led container and cart it away.