Drawn to each other like moths to flame, Viaturges Jesus McCormick and Donnie Ferrara were a match made in hell. The country, the world is a big place and there are roads all over. They could have gone anywhere and never seen each other ever again. But they couldn’t help themselves.
Childhood friends, their bitter rivalry was born of shared first love. An ancient Pontiac Firebird they rescued from a scrapyard and lovingly restored over three summers as teenagers. Joint ownership of something so special to both their hearts was a recipe for disaster. Hormones and teenage jealousy sparked the beginning of a life-long feud built on the flimsiest pretext. If you asked either of them how it started they’d have given you completely different stories, both lies of misremembered self-deception as much as bitterness. It hardly matters how it started, only that it couldn't seem to end.
Sole ownership of that car became the defining life goal for both young men and the basis on which they both separately fell into Viaturgy, the magick of cars and the open road. It traded back and forth between them for nine years: stolen, won in races, and sold out of heartbroken desperation. Then Jesus went through the House of Renunciation and came out as free of earthly desire as a Bodhisattva. He went to return the Firebird to Donnie and make peace. Given that his last repossession had been particularly savage, Donnie cracked his skull with a tire iron without letting him explain.
Dumped in the desert, Jesus died two days later just in sight of the highway. Circling carrion birds drew the authorities and he was buried as a John Doe. He still outlived Donnie. On his way back to civilization Jesus’s murderer had a momentary lapse. A corner taken too fast and an oncoming truck saw him through a guard rail and into a burning wreck. It could've happened to anyone.
This sad story would amount to little more than a warning against shortsighted anger, greed and grudges (and the wisdom of calling ahead to let your worst enemy know you’re coming in peace), were it not for the fact they’re still both around.
Jesus has become something like a revenant hitchhiker. Possessed by the purpose bestowed upon him by his time in the House he wants to return to his hometown, find Donnie’s grave and make the amends he meant to all those years ago. If he ever succeeds it’ll put them both to rest. Anyone can find him but only once, he appears in the same spot that the last person who picked him up left him if you’re headed in the right direction. If you can take him far enough his soft words will solve your deepest emotional troubles.
Donnie, on the other hand, has become something altogether more sinister and dangerous.
Possessiveness incarnate, the Road-Shoggoth is what is left of him. A tarry, oil slick behemoth that blends perfectly with the highway. Its attacks start out as deniable bad luck, a traffic snarl or bad conditions on precarious road. Something to put you on edge. Then it escalates, a minor accident or a vehicular malfunction (spiking a fuel line or radiator with a black tendril as you drive over it). Then it tries to wreck you, ideally this will happen by your own mistake out of a situation it creates (if it can kill someone this way Jesus goes all the way back to where he died in the desert to start his journey over) but the road suddenly rearing up and trying to fling you into a tree isn’t out of the question. Donnie was never patient. The entire ordeal has been described as a lot like the movie Duel if the truck were mostly invisible.
Jesus knows what Donnie is and can explain what’s going on, but he won’t think to remark on it until someone else brings it up. You can drop him off sooner if you want but the Road-Shoggoth will chase you down until someone else takes Jesus. Or until you abandon your car.
That's one point that may help potential victims survive. The Road-Shoggoth can’t see people, only vehicles. That won’t stop it from crushing you if you happen to be in the way when it lumbers over to smash the wreck of your SUV flat, but it does provide an avenue to escape its wrath. It does mean giving up on Jesus’s once-in-a-lifetime healing, but that might be your only hope.
Jesus McCormick, Hitching into the Sun
Reconcile 99%: Jesus can fix something that’s wrong with you. He’s not very smart or eloquent and most of his metaphors involve cars but there’s something wholesome and true and sublime about the way he speaks. If you can take him a full leg of his journey then his parting words are like a salve. GMs discretion on exactly what it does but after an ordeal like the Road-Shoggoth clearing out the failed notches on a gauge or giving you the insight to boost a damaged relationship by the roll (maxing out at its base value +10%) isn’t out of order. If you don’t manage a full leg then that’s too bad, he only appears to each person once.
Road-Shoggoth, Forty Miles of Bad Road
Wound Threshold: Bucketloads. Say 150, if being plowed into by a car doing 90 miles an hour only did hand-to-hand damage. Any other attacks, short of the kind of explosives used for quarrying, aren’t going to cut it.
Lonely Road 60%: Substitutes for Secrecy, Substitutes for Pursuit. The Road-Shoggoth can be anywhere Jesus is, provided it’s paved in asphalt. The only warning is a sudden shift in road conditions. It might look soaked in bone dry conditions or the inverse, it might ripple ominously like a heat mirage. This identity is used for creating road hazards and other mischief.
THWOMP! 50%: Substitutes for Struggle (if a landslide had a Struggle score). The Road-Shoggoth is powerful but imprecise when it comes to direct aggression, oppose this with a Pursuit roll from an aware driver. Success puts them in a car wreck as per pg. 71-72 of Book 1: Play. A driver can use speed to punch their way out of trouble, every full 30 mph over 60 gives a +10% shift to their Pursuit roll (max. +30%), but going faster means you wreck harder.
Donnie, on the other hand, has become something altogether more sinister and dangerous.
Possessiveness incarnate, the Road-Shoggoth is what is left of him. A tarry, oil slick behemoth that blends perfectly with the highway. Its attacks start out as deniable bad luck, a traffic snarl or bad conditions on precarious road. Something to put you on edge. Then it escalates, a minor accident or a vehicular malfunction (spiking a fuel line or radiator with a black tendril as you drive over it). Then it tries to wreck you, ideally this will happen by your own mistake out of a situation it creates (if it can kill someone this way Jesus goes all the way back to where he died in the desert to start his journey over) but the road suddenly rearing up and trying to fling you into a tree isn’t out of the question. Donnie was never patient. The entire ordeal has been described as a lot like the movie Duel if the truck were mostly invisible.
Jesus knows what Donnie is and can explain what’s going on, but he won’t think to remark on it until someone else brings it up. You can drop him off sooner if you want but the Road-Shoggoth will chase you down until someone else takes Jesus. Or until you abandon your car.
That's one point that may help potential victims survive. The Road-Shoggoth can’t see people, only vehicles. That won’t stop it from crushing you if you happen to be in the way when it lumbers over to smash the wreck of your SUV flat, but it does provide an avenue to escape its wrath. It does mean giving up on Jesus’s once-in-a-lifetime healing, but that might be your only hope.
Jesus McCormick, Hitching into the Sun
Reconcile 99%: Jesus can fix something that’s wrong with you. He’s not very smart or eloquent and most of his metaphors involve cars but there’s something wholesome and true and sublime about the way he speaks. If you can take him a full leg of his journey then his parting words are like a salve. GMs discretion on exactly what it does but after an ordeal like the Road-Shoggoth clearing out the failed notches on a gauge or giving you the insight to boost a damaged relationship by the roll (maxing out at its base value +10%) isn’t out of order. If you don’t manage a full leg then that’s too bad, he only appears to each person once.
Road-Shoggoth, Forty Miles of Bad Road
Wound Threshold: Bucketloads. Say 150, if being plowed into by a car doing 90 miles an hour only did hand-to-hand damage. Any other attacks, short of the kind of explosives used for quarrying, aren’t going to cut it.
Lonely Road 60%: Substitutes for Secrecy, Substitutes for Pursuit. The Road-Shoggoth can be anywhere Jesus is, provided it’s paved in asphalt. The only warning is a sudden shift in road conditions. It might look soaked in bone dry conditions or the inverse, it might ripple ominously like a heat mirage. This identity is used for creating road hazards and other mischief.
THWOMP! 50%: Substitutes for Struggle (if a landslide had a Struggle score). The Road-Shoggoth is powerful but imprecise when it comes to direct aggression, oppose this with a Pursuit roll from an aware driver. Success puts them in a car wreck as per pg. 71-72 of Book 1: Play. A driver can use speed to punch their way out of trouble, every full 30 mph over 60 gives a +10% shift to their Pursuit roll (max. +30%), but going faster means you wreck harder.
No comments:
Post a Comment