Session 1: Oblivious Inc.
Some notes about the game:
In most RPG campaigns, the first session is awkward and feels silly and artificial; you all “meet at a tavern” and immediately band together and go on Adventure #1. We’ll be awkward for completely different reasons. Our characters already know each other, and they’re part of a Paranormal Geek-Out Club full of Huge Nerds: Oblivious Incorporated.
They like to get together every month or two and visit a haunted house, or a famous Satanic bookstore, or an abandoned mental hospital, or the scene of a Civil War battle… looking for creepy clues and puzzles, researching occultic nonsense, or just straight up using their infrared cameras and trying to film ghosts.
The setting is Madison, Wisconsin (and the region surrounding it) in modern day. The RPG system is the “New” World of Darkness (often abbreviated nWoD). The players have never roleplayed before, and the GM has never run a WoD game before. It should go great.
Our heroes:
Sammy Willim
Concept: Unrepentant Moron
Player: Drewbie
Biography:
Pretty dumb, collects social security due to “disability,” drives (and lives in) a trailer he’s converted to run on Denny’s grease.
Timothy Esperson
Concept: Timid IT Guy
Player: Gnorlin
Biography:
White hat hacker, graduated top of class at Indianhead Technical College (in Rice Lake), lives in Kenosha.
Dewey Dullar
Concept: True Believer (but can’t prove it)
Player: Sheil
Biography:
Sold a chicken farm, now owns a hobby farm and a nice truck in rural southern Wisconsin.
Albacore Masterson
Concept: Skeptical Observationalist
Player: Liuv
Biography:
Librarian’s assistant in Madison, hates the dark, hates people, likes proving everyone wrong.
Allison Keene
Concept: Oblivious Inc. Den Mother
Player: n/a
Biography:
Manages inventory for six hospitals in the Milwaukee area. Loves Settlers of Catan, hates the DCEU. Bit of a kleptomaniac, takes Xanax for social anxiety.
Session Summary
This “club” consists of mystery addicts and treasure hunters. They spend a frankly embarrassing amount of time looking for spirits and speculating about werewolves. Allison tends to be the dynamo at the group’s center when it comes to picking out places to visit, organizing trips, etc. It’s the one “Den Mother” activity she actually nails pretty well.
In the past year, Oblivious Inc. has been all around the Midwest:
- Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, MO
- Archer Avenue in Willow Springs, IL
- Bullock Hotel in Deadwood, SD
- Bachelor’s Grove Cemetary in Midlothian, IL
- Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, OH
The last time anyone saw or heard from Allison was six weeks ago, on the Bachelor’s Grove trip. Their Denny’s breakfast was especially greasy in the morning, certain more credulous members of the group swear they saw the “White Lady” in the evening, and a good time was had by all.
The trip to Ohio had already been planned, so when Allison couldn’t make it, the group went on ahead without her.
Now, a month has passed since Ohio, and it’s time for the last adventure Allison had a hand in planning before her absence: Gorman Funeral Home (“We Grieve With You”), an abandoned funeral parlor in a blighted neighborhood of Detroit called Delray.
Surprisingly enough, as the group settles in for their traditional Grand Slam (Michigan edition), Allison makes an appearance.
The outing begins innocuously enough. Allison alternates between excitement and blank-faced catatonia. The group makes their way to the funeral home, and finds it bizarrely devoid of the graffiti which graces every other surface for blocks around.
At first, the interior of the home is mundane. As the group pushes their way further in, they’re confronted with more and more abnormalities: an old box full of pictures which includes, unsettlingly, a few dead relatives of Sammy; a colony of ants forming shapes on the dirty floor, holding Albacore utterly in its thrall; a misspelled word that seems to worm its way into the minds of nearly everyone present.
At some point, Allison wanders off on her own. The group finds her in the basement, standing waist-deep in dark, salty water. She’s staring toward the middle of the room, and a slow current is causing various bits of detritus to circle gently. Something pale and rubbery stirs beneath the surface, moving against the current; as Sammy reaches to poke at it, it submerges, briefly tangling with Tim’s legs before disappearing.
Upstairs in the hallway, the rest of the group notices something:
That wasn’t there a minute ago.
After a scuffle, the floating entity collapses and bleeds enough salt water that the group realizes they’ve been fighting with a hazard suit full of basement scum. In the confusion, Allison disappears once again, and this time it seems to be more permanent.
There’s not much of me left in here.
Session Experience Tally
| Character | Player | XP | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sammy | Drewbie | 4 | |
| Timmy | Gnorlin | 4 | +1 (puzzle) |
| Albacore | Liuv | 4 | |
| Dewey | Sheil | 4 |