AS ANGELS BURN

by Benny Seabeach

Rough scenario:

PCs is harassed on the street by a crazy beggar who screams and rants about "the END of the WORLD...". The things that separates him from a bunch of similar characters is his seemingly clean face and a halo of soft golden light around him. He appears on several occasions to harass the players, and finally they should have gotten a feeling that the beggar is a holy man of some sort. If they question him they will get quizzical "answers" like:

" Are not we ALL holy men" or " In spirit all men are EQUAL to GOD".

After a long time they should deduce that he is an angel running from demons that chase him. ( Clues to characters could include simple dream about the beggar (who hasn't dreamt strange dreams ) or if one of the characters is a deeply religious person, she/he could "recognize" his face in some description of or painting of angels.) This belief that he is hunted is partially right, he is hunted by "demons", but he himself is nothing but a schizophrenic person with high MB, hence the golden aura. He himself believes that he is an seraphim from Chokma (or another lost Archon, depending on campaign) sent to Earth (he has no real sense of the Illusion) to deliver man from evil, but is instead found to be fighting Satan himself (mixed up Christianity) and therefore he is running a losing battle (he has invented Satan in order to explain why he has to run from seemingly petty humans). This is totally out of the blue since the people chasing him belong to a Christian sect who think he is an angel, but a fallen one, since he did not recognize his devotees and has lost his heavenly powers.

The beggar has some ability to see through the Illusion but as often as that might happen he also see what he wants to see, e.g. hallucinations. The players are supposed to side with the beggar and help him to find a way back to heaven, in this case heaven for the beggar is his childhood home where he lived before the problems, which brought him where he is, began. He has of course forgotten that it was his childhood home and now thinks that it is a gateway to heaven for seraphim like himself. He has also forgotten where the house is. The house should be inhabited by someone the PCs know or simply abandoned. The sect is trying to stop them by the easiest way possible: killing the beggar, they will not try to kill the PCs unless threatened. It should be extremely difficult find out anything about the sect.

After that the PC's and the beggar has located the house, the beggar says he has to perform a ritual to open the gateway ( the ritual is clearly new age, white candles and incense and dolphin sounds, well you get the picture..). After the ritual the PC's begin to feel very uneasy to say the least, their skins tingles all over and small spasms race up and down their legs and arms. Soon thereafter the beggar sinks down, giving one final gasp of surprise and is dead. The surprised gasp is due to the fact that the spirit of the beggar actually left the body and the body died, which he subconsciously did NOT expect.

Aftermath

After the scene at the house they probably get rid of the body, either by giving it to the sect (very improbable) or burying/burning/sinking it. Now when the beggar/angel is dead the sect will send a note to the PCs saying that they are sorry for them trying to kill beggar (and perhaps the PC's) but that they had to since the beggar was a fallen angel released upon Earth by Satan to wreak havoc. And some "evidence" (everything believed to be real by the sect, perhaps rap sheet from the police about the beggar including some horrible deed done in the past when becoming schizophrenic) is accompanied with the note. This should at least get the PCs to waver in their belief in the beggar as an angel sprung from heaven. A week later the PCs one by one wake up staring into the eyes/eye cavities (depending on the way PCs disposed of the body) of the dead beggar leaning over them and whispering:

- There is no heaven. There is no hell. Mark my word, this is the end.

After those gruesome words has been rasped out he steps into a shadow and is gone. Those PC's not to become philosophers after this should be rewarded for extreme ignorance

Finito.

Alternative ending

If the sect gets its hands on the corpse of the beggar they will bury it in sacred ground (it won't matter..). When a week has passed and before the PC's get that little special visit, this will happen. The beggar takes his body in possession again and claws his way up to the air. He has become one mean hate machine filled with the hunger of Christian flesh...) He begins to unerringly pick of the sectists one by one at a meeting they have nearby their "cemetery". The sect compromises of approx. 30 people including children and seniors. After the carnage he will visit the PC's, in the way described above.

Next day the news will feature a long report of the remote house where 30 people where found slaughtered in the most gruesome ways (e.g the sectists meeting house). People had been found crucified all over the place, burned in microwaves with their heads smashed through the hatch, chopped up and grinded down and stuffed down the throat of the minister until he burst, and severed limbs lay strewn all over the lawn. Not even the children were spared, but they were not as severely mutilated as the rest of the sect.

Q: Is the body of the beggar stumbling through the streets? Has he accepted death and subsequently left the body to rot? What repercussions did this have on the PC's lives? What picture of the beggar are they inclined to believe in? Do they become paranoid, if not already so?

A: Well, who knows, I certainly don't! Just a short incomplete scenario for your pleasure......

Thanks to Matthew Boroson for sending this my way.

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