Demon City Play Report: Session 1 (The Haunting Conversion)

 

So we sat – three players and me.

I brought out my cardboard black acrylic painted ref screen – and separated a tarot deck into the horror and player deck.

Here is the horror deck:

Horror Deck 1-6

Horror Deck 7-10 + The Hermit and The Tower

Player deck was all the other minor arcana - 1-10 three cards each and the fool.

I printed out my conversion of the haunting – and then we built characters.

My players are Z, S, and B.

I had already printed out section of Demon City – namely all the section of how to make a character.

We followed those, spending about an hour teasing it out and throwing from the character making deck – which I made with my Halloween tarot deck.

(S threw a bunch of imps!)

Z’s character is the camgirl known as _blxssom_, real name Cameron Sinkler.

She is a Victim – her dad, Stan Sinkler died about two weeks ago, seemingly leaping through the second story bedroom window of his room, and dying.
She and her father had moved in just a month before this incident – after living in an apartment complex nearby for years.

The cops were called, showed up, and Cameron has been camming with her phone and laptop from her hotel room a few blocks away, living in a hotel room while the cops did seemingly nothing – and after two weeks the cops have not really said or seemingly done anything still – so when the story starts she had called her friend and was going to go back to the house to get some of her stuff or see what’s going on.

Her capital-F friend is B’s character – Glib Goran, a bouncer at the club in town – Club Sepia – Which Cameron’s dad owned, so he knows Cameron through that connection.

He has the friend motive, and his occupation is a bouncer at Club Sepia.

The third character, S’s – is a bumbling detective named Dominique Iger, who is hungover and weird – but highly perceptive.

He has notepads, and not much else – other than a gun and a shitty car.

Here’s their character sheets!

So the character’s get built – I talk about where they are and the events that led up to this windy Tuesday morning – and then we all go to a grocery store in real life.
We all get back – it is cold outside and much nicer inside – and sit around the table, and begin playing.

Z’s character – Cameron – wakes up and goes out to meet her friend, Glib – it is 8:00 in the morning.

They get in Glib’s pickup truck and drive to the house.

They park, then circle the house, trying the side and front door – to no avail.

They see the tape where Stan’s body was – and can look up to the second floor at the window that remains broken – it looks like a board has been put up against the window to block the elements.

They try some ground floor windows – which are also locked, but some just seem jammed – it is an old house after all.

So Glib goes to his pickup and pulls a crowbar out – and pries open the side door – and Cameron and Glib enter.

The house is dark – I play music now, I was not before.

(Whole session, I would turn off music or urn it on for emphasis, music played was Lamentations by Basinski, and occasional sounds of doors opening or slamming)

They try a light-switch, no dice.

They look around, and find the keys to the house and the keys to 5 spots – main thing is that the car key in on there.

They poke around some more, and hear a bump upstairs, I play an actual bump sound.

They go to Cameron’s dad’s room, and the board has fallen off the window, it was propped up to keep out the elements.

They hear another bump next door, and in the next door room, the attic door had opened.

They go to Cameron’s room, and Cameron gets her backpack from her closet + some stuff she needs.

All this is because they never said they were closing the side door – so the air pressure is opening and closing doors in the house.

They poke up into attic, Glib first – I jump to S, turning off the music.

S’s character wakes up hungover – and gets up, still in his clothes.

He eats mustard crackers and tap water, then drives into work.

He gets to work, meets a coworker named Peralto and gets given the task to go find the girl whose dad committed suicide, then Iger drinks coffee and drives to the hotel where she has been staying.

Meanwhile, at the house - Glib pokes up into the attic – sees nothing but dusty sheets covering furniture, light streaming into the windows.

He walks around.

Then Cameron comes up – both fail perception, so they don’t notice the furniture drag marks in the dust.

They leave, look at dad’s room again and see papers, and some other stuff.

Seems ok, so they go to kitchen and look around – more and find some food in a pantry – also seeing that all the food in the fridge and freezer has been not cold for days.

They hear a crash, and go up: it is the bar that holds clothes in Cameron’s room, which was unbalanced after she removed her backpack and took some stuff, and has fallen off and scattered her clothes.

Then they poke around some more, look outside – see cables, and follow to mudroom – and move a shelf containing boots and find the breaker box. They flip it, and power is restored.

They cant make breakfast so they leave to go to hotel and retrieve Cameron’s stuff and get breakfast.

The cop is waiting in the lobby, but leaves right as the duo arrive and check out – the receptionist tells Cameron that a cop was looking for her – and the trio meet in the parking lot.

They talk, get Cameron’s stuff from her former hotel room, then head to the house.

They go in, and the light in the mudroom is off.

They go upstairs and look in room, realizing after some checks that the furniture is in a weird and completely different position than Cameron remembers it being in when her dad was alive.

Namely, the dresser is in the middle of the room, and there are skid marks like it moved fast towards the window.

then they hear a noise downstairs

s and z look at the documents

b heads downstairs

in the hallway – the haunt extends length of the hallway

creeped out, b goes into the kitchen – and the pantry had slammed open, that caused the noise

all because they left a door ajar when they entered the house

then, all the doors in the kitchen open and close and laughter issues forth -

calm check happens I think, then B runs, and hallway is longer than before

B runs more, hallway gets longer, but then B barely makes it before it extends more, and makes it to the stairs up

gets up, freaked out and get the other two to go downstairs – hallway is normal length

they go to the kitchen, cop first

the haunting pushes fridge over and tries to crush cop, cop don’t dodge, fails toughness and goes to to 0 toughness as he gets the whole fridge crushing him.

Then the bouncer moves the fridge

they hear the door to the hallways slam, so the go to the dining room, fireman carrying the cop

CLASH STUFF

the table tries to slam them, B holds it, but then a chair knocks over b

I think Z gets knocked over

then the light bulb explodes and the table flew at them again

an illusion of blood around S laying on floor appears – Z took adrenaline action to help up b

– this was after a couple rounds trying to get up where chairs hit them and bounced off – she used an adrenaline action and stood up with b

then the table tries to hit z, but she holds it off, even though it pushed her against the wall

they run, and run, then b and s get out side door, and it then closes trapping z inside

B tries to kick it open, it tries to open and put b off balance and cause him to fall back in – so I can do repeating room shenanigans

they b jumps in and pulls z outside

they take the cop to hospital 15 minutes away

both work out during downtime and regain calm for B, with a 9 I think

and Z gets a 10 and gains a toughness

she was on treadmill, he punched bags

thats it

Z was happy with how things went, S was saying that he likes the system and thinks he could run it, and B said this to S this morning:

“i wanna play again so bad
figure out how many bones you broke”

Will keep this going, thanks for reading!

Now I get to have them go around town and research, do odd jobs, maybe look for a ghost hunter – Not sure yet – gonna be funny when they go back to the house and are “prepared”
I only have used 4 out of the ten haunting effects – I am excited to use the pattern one, the extra room one, illusions, and animate some dead if that comes up.

When I finish running it - I will be taking all of what I learned to improve it and will be formatting it and making it into a PDF, with art - and layout.

Also, sorry for the alternations between PC names and player letters - I wrote this stream of consciousness and don't feel like making it super consistent - it is just how I remember it.