Our Paranormal Chernobyl
Below are the compiled turns for the game, co-written by
the GM (me) and all the players. Or, if you want a quick overview,
you can read a much shorter Summary.
Behind
the Scenes entries are placeholders for scenes written by
me that were kept hidden from the players until after the game was
over. Why? Because they describe what the villains and NPCs were doing
while heroes were doing their thing.
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| C-Minus 5 Years |
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Prologue.
The start of the Chernobyl goes back five years, and here's where it all
began. (A Behind the
Scenes made public after the end of the adventure.) |
Monday:
|
| 6:30 pm |
1 |
Metagenetics by Moonlight: Maggie
has dinner and offers to help |
| 9:45 pm |
|
Don't Tell Me
Not to Live: Raj Pirhu's Story (A Behind the
Scenes story made public late in the game.) |
| 10:30 pm to 2:30 am |
2 |
Night of the Long Needles: Two
strange people do very strange things. |
Tuesday morning:
|
| 5:45 am |
3 |
Down from the Trees: Stranger
awakes. |
| 7:30 am |
4 |
Survival Traits: Crossfire gets a
rude awakening. |
|
5 |
The Evolution of Flight: Maggie
takes wing, and discusses them. |
| 8:15 am |
6 |
Inheritance: Family heirlooms that
Crossfire's not sure he wants. |
| 9:30 am |
7 |
The Migration Instinct: Ed arrives
to find trouble—and weird ass art—waiting for him. |
| 9:45 am |
|
Press Conference: The cops
come clean, and all players hear it (eventually). See the Event map for reference. |
|
8 |
Pedigree: Maggie is shown the
Sontag family secret. |
|
9 |
Adaption in a Changing Environment:
Crossfire wonders what his true target will be. |
| 10:00 am |
10 |
Field Observations: Ed gets to see
what kind of hearse you need for a twenty-ton corpse. |
|
11 |
Markers: Maggie learns about the
origins of the institute and meets a talking dog. |
| 10:15 am |
12 |
The Identification of Unique Forms:
Crossfire and the cops try to pick the good guys from the bad guys, Ed does a comedic riff
on pajama boys, and Stranger finds a purpose for his life. Then telepathic sparks fly as
Ed and Crossfire get pissed off at each other. |
| 10:25 am |
13 |
The Ascent of Man: Crossfire tours
the Institute, hits the roof, and the floor. But suddenly he's got bigger
problems—like the appearance of a naked 400-foot man. |
| 10:45 am |
14 |
Environmental Influences: Maggie
hears a paranormal scream and suits up! |
| 10:50 am |
15 |
Protective Coloration: Ed suits up
himself, and gets sucked into more meta weirdness. |
| 10:53 am |
16 |
The Descent of Man: Stranger and
Crossfire nearly collide, Ed connects telepathically with the giant, and Stranger gets
nailed by 26,000 metric tons of metahuman hammer. |
| 10:58 am |
17 |
Intercessions: Maggie, Crossfire,
and Ed try to figure out how to save Ignatius. |
| 11:15 am |
18 |
Exit Strategies: Iggy dives for
cover! |
| 11:20 am |
19 |
Blowing Smoke: In a neighborhood
Tavern, the group hashes over theories with Detectives Hammersmith and Waters. What are
those pellets for? Who and what are those plasticene medical technicians? And why did
Crossfire and Ed get a second round of drinks for free? |
Tuesday Afternoon
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| 11:45 pm |
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Nothing to Do
with Me (A Behind the
Scenes item made public after the end of the
adventure.) |
| 12:20 pm |
20 |
Then Whose Fault is It?
(A Behind the
Scenes item made public after the end of the adventure.) |
| 12:20 pm |
20 |
Risks of Recurrence: Maggie and
Detective Hammersmith question Freya Sontag, Goran is exposed as a thief, and Maggie is
fired. |
|
21 |
Microscopy: In the Chicago PD
evidence lab, Crossfire takes apart one of the pellets and puts together a big piece of
the puzzle. |
| 12:40 pm |
22 |
Crossover: Stranger gets nabbed by
a giant flying ball, Maggie saves him, then tries to arrest him. Stranger isn't going for
it. |
| 12:50 pm |
23 |
Modes of Communication: Crossfire
and Ed are called to take down a rogue meta—and Crossfire has some secrets to pass to
Ed. |
|
24 |
Base Pairs: Stranger, Maggie, and
Q-Ball play hide and seek in the sewers—then duke it out in the sludge! |
|
25 |
Pender's Story: PRIMUS Special
Agent Laura Pender returns home to Chicago, and finds herself in charge of an
investigation that spookily echoes an unsolved case from her past. |
| 1:20 pm |
26 |
Hunting and Gathering: More hot PC
on PC action! It's Crossfire vs Ed vs Hungry Jack vs Agent Pender vs Everybody! |
| 1:25 pm |
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Goran Vrlick's Very Bad Day. (A Behind the
Scenes item made public after the end of the adventure.) |
|
27 |
Linkages. Maggie uncovers what's in
pellet #2, and discovers that pellet #1 is sending messages to Sweden. Say what? |
|
28 |
Unlinking. Jack expectorates, Ed
extricates, and Crossfire vacates. |
| 1:35 pm |
29 |
Wrap it Up, I'll Take It. Crossfire
gets lunch and heads back to the Evidence Lab. Then, after Pender gets all she's going to
get out of Jack, Ed drops the big meta like a sack of potatoes. |
| 2:00 pm |
30 |
I Want My MRI: Stranger
sneaks into Cook County General, runs across some friends of Crossfire's, and forcibly
schedules his own MRI scan to find out about those pesky pellets. |
| 2:40 pm |
31 |
The Raid: Crossfire teams up
with Maggie and Hammersmith, and raids the Sontag lab. Maggie figures out the nature of
the nefarious experiment. |
| 2:50 pm |
32 |
Special Deliveries: Giordano's
delivers the best pizza in the world, Ed delivers a tele-gram to Pender's brain, and
Pender delivers some news to Hammersmith. |
| 3:20 pm |
33 |
Scavenger Hunt. Maggie and
Crossfire join the Narcotics team in scanning downtown for pellet signals, looking for
trouble—and they find it. |
| 3:50 pm |
34 |
Hunting Scavengers. On their way to
meet the mayor, Pender and Ed hear what may be PRIMUS Agent Andrew Neel's last words. He's
found the missing PRIMUS agents, and the thing that killed and mutilated them is still
there… |
|
35 |
I Ain't Got No Body. In the middle
of a firefight between Crossfire, Maggie, and the plastic-skinned people, a new meta is
born—and it's got at least three parents. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... Goo!
|
| 4:00 pm |
36 |
It's What's on the Inside that Counts.
The nearly-bisected Stranger stomps JigSaw into the ground, Q-Ball is exposed, and Pender
and Ed rejoice in their own survival. But now they've got Stranger to deal with, and the
pounding horror that's been calling to Ed is still upstairs. |
|
37 |
What's a Goo like You…? As an
unconscious Crossfire is wheeled away, Maggie tries to help Goo figure out how it got into
a place like this, and the new meta begins to put the clues of its identity together. |
| 4:15 pm |
38 |
The Death Artist. In a gallery of
carnage, Ed, Pender, and Stranger find the only survivor in the schoolhouse, and Maggie
and Goo arrive in time to pick up the pieces. |
| 4:40 pm |
39 |
Before the Big Ball. Together for
the first time... Everyone! Under the shadow of the hovering Q-Ball, Maggie and Stranger
have a tense reunion, Ed tries to take a hike but instead takes a dive into Goo's
oh-so-messy mind and comes up with a missing PRIMUS agent, and Pender tries unsuccessfully
to have a private meeting with Q-Ball. |
| 4:55 pm |
40 |
The Inside Scoop. Q-Ball tells his
story, implicating PRIMUS in the Chernobyl Madness, and the crew tries to figure out what
to do next. Unfortunately, their next battle is decided for them… |
| 5:31 pm |
41 |
You Can't Keep a Good Man Down.
Jigsaw awakes, and the group has to scramble to avoid another bloodbath. Crossfire makes a
timely reappearance, but the nightmare isn't over. One of the group goes down in a pool of
blood—and the attacker is one of their own! Warning: This chapter not suitable for
children. |
| 5:40 pm |
42 |
When You Gaze Into the Abyss... it
also gazes into you. Ed, in the sway of JigSaw's homicidal instincts, goes after the rest
of the team... and the team goes after him. |
Tuesday Night
|
| 6:10 pm |
43 |
Born Lucky. A dying Pender attends
the birth of a very strange child. |
|
44 |
Don't Rain on My Parade The team
figures its next move, and with the help of Barbra Streisand, Goo figures out one-third of
its identity crisis. Don't miss Chernobyl's big musical number! |
| 6:30 pm |
45 |
Flight Plans. As the team flies to
the hospital, they work out combat strategies—some of which turn out to be very
useful in the coming battle, and some of which... don't. |
|
46 |
Afterlife. A dead man awakes. A
PRIMUS agent dies. And Pender sacrifices herself to save a child. This is part one of the
toughest battle the team has fought so far: It's Everybody vs. B and K in the middle of a
hospital, and the heavy artillery is flying. |
| 6:36 pm |
47 |
Power Plays. In part two of the
battle, Fossil shapes himself into a weapon, only to be mistaken by Stranger as an avatar
of death. Maggie and Crossfire take on B. Pender sacrifices herself for yet
another innocent,
but inexplicably survives again. And Goo
goes to the heart of the matter and searches for a way to cut off the robots' power at its
source. |
| 6:38 pm |
48 |
The Man (and Woman) Behind the Curtain.
Victorious, the team bandages its wounded, consoles the victims, and
begins the interrogation of the humans behind the robots—and oh, what
sordid humans they are. Will Stranger and Goo let them out of the van
alive? |
| 7:00 pm |
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Seriously: Then Whose
Fault is It? (A Behind the
Scenes item made public after the end of the adventure.) |
| 7:05 pm |
49 |
Remind Me Never to Take
You to a Monkey Knife Fight Pender brings the baby to
Crossfire, hoping to heal the archer and shed some light on her own
miraculous recovery. Eli retrieves the bag that may hold all the secrets
of Chernobyl's Genesis. Meanwhile, Goo and Stranger try to shake loose a
few secrets from B and K's pilots. With the encouragement of a talking
rat, Stranger ratchets up the pace of the interrogation with the world's
most extreme handshake. |
| 7:30 pm |
50 |
The Strongest one There
I-i-i-s. Everyone Vs. Stranger. Need I say more? |
| 7:50 pm |
51 |
Voices in the Dark.
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off
this mortal coil? Ed and Crossfire receive messages from beyond the grave, Stranger is boxed
up, and now Maggie, Goo, and Pender are left to figure everything
out. |
| 8:20 pm |
52 |
Slings and Arrows
Crossfire suffers outrageous fortune: he finally faces in combat the Black
Knight, the armored warrior who killed his parents, and Blake is crippled
and confined to a wheelchair. Shall he take arms against a sea of
troubles? Are you kidding? Also, Pender and Maggie hatch their own plan to
protect the baby, Maggie gets a strangely convenient call from the missing
scientist Goran, and we finally get to find out what Crossfire's Uncle
Darius has been up to all this time. |
| 8:45 pm |
53 |
Finders Keepers, Losers
Weepers Pender goes to pick up the baby, Maggie and Goo go to pick up
Goran, and Iggy the 400-hundred foot tall naked lab experiment goes to
pick up Ed and Stranger—PRIMUS goon squad or no PRIMUS goon squad.
Crossfire is knocked out, arrested, and rescued, all in the space of ten
seconds. And finally, Ed picks up the interrogation of Reinhardt-Mapes
where Stranger left off, pulling answers from the man's dirty little
mind. |
| 9:15 pm |
54 |
900 Miles to New Orleans
Ed and Stranger work out their differences deep under Chicago, while the
rest of the group heads south in the Q-Ball, bringing Goran, Lily, and the
baby to Maggie's fortified lab, were everyone will be safe and sound. Sure
they will. |
Wednesday Morning
|
| 2:00 am |
55 |
What Lies Beneath
The mastermind behind the paranormal Chernobyl is revealed, and Maggie,
Pender, and Goo, are in the fight of their lives! |
9:15 pm to
2:30 am |
56 |
Argonauts
Like the cavalry, here comes Ed, Stranger, and… Argo the Talking Dog!
Now, if only they can get through all those armored doors. |
| 2:30 am |
57 |
The Mother of All Battles
Everyone versus the Sontag, the shapeshifter's mother. The casualties
mount, and everything comes down to one woman's final decision. |
| 2:45 am |
58 |
Safe Haven and Rotten
Apples The fate of Lily and the child are in their hands.
Who can they trust, and where do they go from here? |
One Year Later
|
| 2:45 am |
59 |
Epilogue |
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