GURPS (4th ed.)-Horror-Exit 23.pdf

Exit 23

An adventure for use with GURPS Horror

Nathan Robertson Me Fecit Anno Domini MMVIIII

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Steve Jackson Games. This game aid is the original creation of Nathan Robertson and is released for free distribution, and not for resale,

under the permissions granted in the Steve Jackson Games Online Policy.

/ 1 /

Adventure Background

Don’t read this to the players! This is a brief background of what’s

happening in this adventure. We’ll let you know how to start the game

for the players on the next page.

Dumont trailed Riley from Galvin’s estate in Montana into the rugged

mountain country of the Idaho panhandle. But Dumont isn’t alone.

With spells learned from Galvin years ago, the cultists conjured a

winter-demon and created a vicious blizzard to close the highway and

trap Riley at a lonely rest stop in the middle of the night. This allowed

Dumont to catch up with Riley.

The Hoffmann Institute is an organization devoted to investigating and

understanding all kinds of paranormal phenomena. The Institute

operates from more than a dozen major offices around the world,

dispatching professional investigators to check out reports of ghosts,

hauntings, UFOs, mysterious creatures, real magic, and the activities of

secret organizations and conspiracies.

Overview

What does all of this have to do with the players? The answer is simple:

Their heroes are caught at the rest stop along with Riley and Dumont,

and it’s up to them to stop the sadistic cultist from killing everyone and

escaping with Galvin’s sinister artifact.

Several days ago, agents working for the Institute investigated an old

estate formerly owned by a reputed cult leader and diabolist named

Michel Galvin. Galvin disappeared about ten years ago, and distant

relatives finally sold his manor in order to wash their hands of the

whole business. Hoffmann agent Jonas Riley, who’d been keeping tabs

on the old Galvin place, heard of the upcoming estate sale and visited

the site to make sure that it was free of Michel Galvin’s sinister

influence before it was sold to some unsuspecting person.

The beginning of the adventure finds the heroes stranded in a rest stop

on I-90, near Exit 23 in Idaho. They’re on the road for various reasons

of their own; for example, Officer McDermott is patrolling this stretch

of highway, while Donna Truitt is just driving back to her home in

Seattle from whatever business she was engaged in before the start of

the adventure. Most of the heroes don’t know each other; they’re just

travelers stranded by a sudden snowstorm.

Riley and his team examined the place in detail, discovering a

secret laboratory or conjuration room hidden in the manor’s attic. The

room was mostly empty, but concealed in a secret drawer Riley found

an evil artifact—a snow globe with magical powers. Neither Riley nor

anyone else on his team knew what to make of Galvin’s globe, so Riley

took it to an Institute expert in Portland, Oregon, for a thorough

examination and safekeeping.

The adventure opens when the heroes discover that someone or

something has attacked several other travelers in another part of the

building, killing one person and seriously injuring another (Jonas Riley,

although the players don’t know who he is or what he’s doing there

when their heroes find him). The adventure should proceed through

seven distinct scenes, as shown below:

Unknown to Riley, other people besides the Hoffmann Institute have

been keeping an eye on Galvin’s mansion. Galvin’s circle of acolytes,

Les Trieze Corbins (The Thirteen Crows) still exists, and they still

watch Galvin’s place. They’d searched the grounds several times for the

globe but never found the secret drawer. When Riley discovered the

globe and removed it from the mansion, Les Trieze Corbins wanted it

back. They sent Jacob Dumont, one of their number, after Riley to

retrieve the globe.

Scene 1: A Grisly Discovery. The heroes learn that they’re not alone in

the rest stop and that something waits in the storm.

Scene 2: Danny Wood. The heroes interview the only witness to the

winter-demon’s attack and learn something about what they’re up

against.

Scene 3: Who Goes There? The winter-demon lashes out at anyone

who tries to track it into the storm and drives the heroes back inside.

White River Rest Stop

While truckers and locals know it better as the Exit 23 rest stop, the

name on the lobby identifies the place as the White River Station. It’s

located between the eastbound and westbound lanes, and there is a

turnoff here for a lonely mountain road that runs about ten miles to the

closest town, White River. At the moment, none of the roads is even

close to passable due to the accumulation of snow and the lack of

visibility.

Convenience Store: A small, cluttered shop loaded with knick-knacks,

caffeine pills, road maps, and souvenirs. The store is closed and the

lobby entrance is blocked by a roll-down grate. Anne Banks, the

cashier, is waiting out the storm in the donut shop. She’ll open the store

if anyone wants to buy something.

Storerooms: These are typical stockrooms filled with the supplies

needed by the rest stop businesses. All feature large sheet-metal doors

leading outside that are currently locked.

The heroes may explore the rest stop anytime they like. In fact, since

the adventure assumes that they’ve been here for a couple of hours

before the action starts, you can pretty much tell the players anything

they want to know about what’s where—their heroes have seen the

whole place by now.

The Donut Shop: A small shop with a counter, stools by the counter,

and a couple of small booths. The shop serves coffee, donuts, breakfast

sandwiches, and other light fare. Most of the people in the rest stop

have gathered here.

Restaurant: A McDonald’s that is closed for the night. A pull-down

grate covers the counter window, but the seating area is open.

Vestibule and Phones: The main entrance. There are two phones here,

neither of which is working.

Kitchen: The kitchen for the McDonald’s. It’s crowded with stoves,

fryers, and several large refrigerators.

Lobby: A large, open room featuring an information counter (never

staffed), two wall displays with flyers for local tourist attractions, and a

big wall map of Idaho.

Fuel Office: The cashier’s stand for the gas station. Ahmed Singh, the

cashier, has shut down the pumps and the office in order to join

everyone else in the donut shop.

Women’s Room: A typical rest room.

Men’s Room: A typical rest room.

Arcade: This alcove contains six coin-operated video games.

/ 2 /

Scene 4: Smoke ‘em Out: The cultist, Dumont, drives everyone in the

rest stop outside so that the demon can make short work of them. He

starts a fire that the heroes must extinguish, or they’ll have to abandon

the tenuous safety of the rest stop.

The snow must be at least fifteen inches deep on the highway, and the

weather’s showing no signs of breaking.

It’s close to midnight now, but you’ve been stranded since sundown in

a small interstate rest stop, waiting for the plows to come through so

that you can get back on the road. A half-dozen motorists share your

predicament, plus four or five rest stop employees who have stayed on

to serve coffee and food for the duration of the storm.

Scene 5: Firebug. The heroes discover that Dumont lit the fire, and

they capture him.

Scene 6: Les Trieze Corbins. The heroes question Dumont to learn

more about what they’re up against and why he’s after Riley.

Each of you has places to go and things to do, but for now you’re all

stuck here. No one’s driving anywhere tonight, and no one’s coming to

get you out. Some of you have passed the time with a paperback novel

or a magazine, while others have been chatting with the other

motorists.

Scene 7: Fire and Ice. The heroes determine that the only way to

survive the storm is to destroy the demon. Arming themselves with

improvised weapons, they lure the demon into a final confrontation.

Of course, the adventure may not follow this exact path. Your players

will think of dozens of things to try that don’t have anything to do with

the script. Your job as Gamemaster is to treat each of these

improvisations fairly and sensibly, using what you know about the plot

as a guideline for whether or not the player’s idea will work.

Ask the players to introduce their heroes for the game. Have the players

state their heroes’ names, describe their general appearance, and maybe

even say something about where their heroes were going when the

snowstorm set in.

Now you know how the story should go; you’re ready to play!

Answer any questions the players have about the situation or the people

around them. Here are a couple of the most likely questions you’ll get:

Players’ Introduction

When you’re ready to start playing, read or paraphrase the text in the

box below to the players. This lets them know where their heroes are

and what they’re doing when the adventure begins.

What does this place look like? It’s an interstate rest stop. You can use

the map to explain the general layout of the place. The heroes have

been stuck here long enough to look around a little.

Who else is here? In addition to the heroes, a number of supporting

characters are at the Exit 23 rest stop. You’ll play these characters as

the Gamemaster.

You’ve never seen a snowstorm like this. October in the Idaho

mountains can be bad, but for hours now it’s been a virtual white-out.

/ 3 /

Scene 1: A Grisly Discovery

When the heroes investigate the screams and sounds of struggle they

heard earlier, read or paraphrase the text below:

• A balding business executive of about 50, wearing a good suit

and a conservative overcoat (Jonas Riley).

• A short, stocky lady truck driver wearing a flannel shirt and a

sheepskin vest (Norma Thomson).

The last gust of wind seems to have knocked out power to the rest stop.

There’s just enough illumination from various emergency lights to

carefully move through the darkened building. Wind screams outside,

howling past an open door or broken window clattering shrilly

somewhere out of sight.

• A long-haired college student with John Lennon glasses, an

Army jacket, and a sketchbook filled with Gigeresque

drawings (John Black).

• A matronly waitress of about sixty years who runs the donut

shop (Mabel Adams).

At the rest room, a body is sprawled in the doorway. It’s the young

man in the Army jacket, and he’s quite dead. Several needle-sharp

icicles as long as swords impale the corpse, now surrounded by a

puddle of slick scarlet ice. He seems to have been stabbed through the

back as he left the rest room.

• A big, beefy truck driver in a cheap parka and a black ball cap

(Jacob Dumont).

• A teenage kid with long hair and an apron who does the

shortorder cooking in the restaurant (Danny Wood, the

witness in Scene 1).

Inside the men’s room, you find another body—the executive. Like the

guy at the door, he’s transfixed by several icicles, but while you watch,

he groans and stirs. "Help me," he gasps. "So . . . cold . . ."

• A pretty teenage girl who runs the register in the convenience

store (Anne Banks).

The dead man is John Black. He’s beyond any help the heroes can give.

The executive is Jonas Riley. He’s been badly injured, impaled through

the thigh, upper arm, and side, but by pure chance the icicles missed

killing him.

• A young man with South Asian or Indian features who runs

the gas station (Ahmed Singh).

Why can’t I just keep driving? Your players may hail from someplace

like Georgia or Florida, and they might find it hard to believe that a

snowstorm could close a major highway. If any hero tries it, he or she

gets about a mile so down the highway and drives into a ditch. It takes a

long, cold walk to get back to the rest stop, and then you can continue

with the adventure.

This is a challenge scene, with the following challenges for the heroes

to resolve: help Riley; make some deductions about what happened

from the first look at the scene; search the scene for hidden clues; and

search the surrounding areas. Ask the players what their heroes do, but

suggest some of these options if necessary.

Okay, so what do we do now? Tell your players to wait a minute while

you finish the introduction, and then they can tell you what their heroes

are doing.

Helping Riley

Riley’s game statistics don’t really matter in this adventure. He’s

sustained several points of mortal damage in the attack, which means

that he’ll be unconscious and helpless for the balance of the adventure.

It also means that he dies if he doesn’t get help. To stabilize Riley and

keep him from dying, a hero must succeed in a skill check using either

First Aid or Physician .

You’re sitting in the donut shop, nursing a cup of coffee, when the

lights flicker. "Oh, great," mutters Mabel, the counter waitress—and

then the lights go out altogether. Somewhere on the other side of the

rest stop you hear a door slam open, followed by a vicious blast of

freezing cold air that somehow finds its way over to where you sit. The

wind howls like something alive, scratching and clawing at you with

an icy grasp.

Ask the players which of their heroes tries to help Riley. Add a -1

penalty to reflect the difficulty of working on Riley’s injuries in the

dark, but ignore the penalty if the heroes provide some light for the

doctor to work with.

Without even thinking about it, you abruptly realize that something is

horribly, terribly wrong. Then you hear an awful racket from the

direction of the rest rooms—violent blows, choking cries, breaking

glass, and finally one more highpitched scream that makes your blood

run cold.

If the skill check succeeds, she succeeds in stabilizing Riley and

preventing his death for now. If the skill check fails, Riley’s condition

worsens. The hero may make one more skill check at a -2 penalty to

stabilize the agent, and if this fails, Riley dies. (It’s not critical to the

adventure for Riley to survive.)

The wind howls again, more doors slam . . . and then the room

becomes still again, except for the distant whistling of the storm

outside.

Depending on which heroes the players chose to play, there may not be

any heroes present who know first aid or medicine. Remember, you can

allow a hero to make an untrained skill check to help Riley (IQ-4 for

First Aid , IQ-7 for Physician ). The hero will probably fail, since this is

a very difficult roll, but at least he can try.

"What in heaven was that?" Mabel says in the darkness.

What do you do?

Checking Out the Scene

If any player tells you that her hero is just looking around or trying to

figure out what happened here, ask for a Perception check or a Search

skill check for the hero. The result of this skill check indicates which of

the clues noted below the hero notices. Any hero who looks around the

scene sees that the stalls are empty, a trash can stands against one wall,

and a condom dispenser hangs on the other wall. The mirror behind the

sink has been holed and broken, and ice standing in the sink seems to

have frozen right out of the faucet.

If any player thinks to ask, tell him or her that the following characters

are not in the donut shop at the moment: the executive, the cook, and

the guy in the Army jacket. (The gas station and convenience store

cashiers shut down their stations and joined everyone in the donut

shop.) People have been coming and going all night, so it’s not unusual

that several aren’t here right now.

If your players don’t know what else to do, encourage them to

investigate the screams from the rest rooms. Proceed to Scene 1.

/ 4 /

Scene 2: Danny Wood

Danny Wood was playing games in the arcade when the winterdemon

attacked John Black and Jonas Riley in the room right next door. When

the heroes check out the hallway outside the rest room, read the text

below to the players:

With a sucessful skill check, the hero notices that a fine layer of frost

covers the entire room. This was not present the last time one of the

heroes visited the facility; the rest room is much, much colder than it

should be. (Most heroes notice this.) The hero may also note that no

icicles large enough to kill someone have formed anywhere on the

building, and certainly not in the rest room.

With a critical success, she realizes that Riley’s attacker most likely hit

him from the front, probably as he stood near the sink, judging by the

blood splatters on the wall. The hero also notices that Riley’s coat

hangs on a hook on the wall, but no other personal belongings from

either victim are in sight.

The corridor just outside the rest room is dark and cold. At the end of

the hallway, a door leading outside swings in the vicious, gusting

wind, banging loudly against the wall. Fingers of swirling snow

already dust the floor near the open door.

To your right, the building’s arcade is a dark cavern, with the normal

chatter of video action silenced by the loss of power. Suddenly, there’s

a small rustling from somewhere inside, like something moving around

in there.

Hidden Clues

Heroes who search the scene in detail for anything of interest may

attempt a Search skill check.

What do you do?

A success allows a hero to find Riley’s valise stashed in the trash can

underneath a layer of paper debris. It contains some papers (summed up

in the sidebar below) and the snow globe. If the player indicates that his

hero is specifically checking the trash can, he automatically finds this.

(Riley stashed it here when the demon burst in, suspecting that he—or,

more specifically, the globe—was the target.)

Play this up as a situation that may be dangerous—as far as the heroes

know, the murderer could be hiding in here. Of course, it’s only Danny

Wood, hiding in the back of the room. But the heroes must go into the

dark arcade (or at least call out) without knowing exactly what’s in

here. A good horror game involves an occasional tension-building scene

that doesn’t actually endanger anybody.

A critical success allows the hero to find a footprint in the puddle of

blood surrounding John Black’s body. It seems to be the print of a large

wolf or maybe a small bear.

When the heroes identify themselves, challenge the occupant of the

room, or just go in and look around, continue with the text below:

Searching the Area

When the winter-demon attacked Riley and Black, Danny Wood was

playing video games in the arcade next door. He got a good look at the

creature, which scared him out of his wits. He’s currently hiding behind

an Asteroids game at the back of the arcade.

Slowly and carefully, someone dressed in a fast-food uniform and

apron stands up from behind a video game. It’s the kid from the

McDonald’s, and he’s obviously scared out his wits. "Please tell me it’s

gone," he says in a weak voice. "I don’t know what it was, but I was

sure it was gonna kill me."

To find Danny, the heroes need to look around the corridor, lobby, and

arcade—in other words, they need to look around outside the rest room

as well as inside it. If a player tells you that his hero is examining the

hallway, skip ahead to Scene 2.

He looks around, panic growing in his eyes, and then starts for the

door. "Man, I gotta get out of here!"

This is an encounter scene. Danny Wood is the only conscious witness

to the killing, but he flees outside to his car and tries to drive away if

the heroes don’t calm him down and find out what happened.

If the players don’t think to look around the area, you can cheat a little

bit by telling the players that the heroes hear a clunk or scraping sound

in the arcade.

Keeping Him Here

The first step is to prevent Danny from running off. Ask the players if

the heroes let him leave. The heroes can restrain him physically (a hand

on the shoulder is enough to stop him), or they can try to calm him

down.

The Snow Globe and Riley’s Notes

Jonas Riley’s briefcase is stashed in the trash can in the men’s room. If

the heroes find the briefcase and examine its contents, they’ll find the

snow globe and Riley’s notes about the device and how he found it.

Calm Him Down: A successful Influence roll or Fast-Talk skill check

calms Danny.

The snow globe is a simple glass sphere about 10 centimeters (4 inches)

in diameter. At the moment, it contains a small representation of the rest

stop where the heroes are sheltering against the storm, and the tiny

flakes flurry downward without ever settling—you don’t have to shake

the globe to make the snow fall.

Threaten Him: A successful Influence roll or Intimidation skill check

scares Danny enough to keep him here. Add a +2 bonus if an obvious

authority figure (Officer McDermott or anybody flashing a gun) makes

the attempt.

The globe is remarkably resistant to breakage and won’t crack if

dropped, thrown against a wall, or struck a good hard blow. (There is a

way to destroy the globe, though the heroes shouldn’t discover it at this

point. See Scene 7.)

Get Him Talking: A successful Influence roll or Public Speaking skill

check gets Danny talking about what he saw and distracts him.

“It’s Out There”: If any hero points out that the killer is outside now,

Danny abandons the notion of going for his car. No skill check is

necessary.

Riley’s notes about the snow globe take about half an hour to read. If

any hero takes the time to study them, take that player aside and sum up

the information that appears in the “Adventure Background” heading.

Omit any mention of Jacob Dumont, since Riley doesn’t know that

Dumont followed him.

/ 5 /

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