Civil War Purgatory

By Saajan Patel

	A Civil/Revolutionary war mansion that had a lot of terrible things happen
at it during the time of the war.  Those who were killed at the mansion for some reason
have their souls trapped there.  The souls of their murderers are now in the bodies of
some hapless college students who are going to a Catholic School and participating in 
a service program that the college  runs over a summer.  The house is where they
are going to do some "service".

	The souls of the victims are the southern blacks of the civil war. Each of
their minds were shattered by the events that took place in this house, rituals meant
to contact a Razide of Thaumiel in order to strike a pact that would allow them to defeat
the Union and allow the continuation of slavery. The magic left the poor slaves in a
state of dementia, and unfortunately this insanity is part of the chains that bind them
to the hotel. Eventually, as the slaves try to draw upon the life of the students to
escape, the students will enter into the Realm of Madness that the slaves have brought
upon the place. 

	Rooms open into beautiful, imaginary landscapes of slaves who dream about the
"promised land"  or the "mother country" that they have heard stories about.
Unfortunately, these will twist into places of unending slavery and eventually return
to the point in their lives when they died, to the ritual that made them see into
Inferno. Their Purgatory is caused by their feelings of sub-humanity that was
cast upon them, their hopelessness and guilt of that
hopelessness. It is a
endless plantation, where they are all deformed, and as they learned by the slaver
priests, they are lesser beasts. The white masters appear beautiful, like angels,
commanding the slaves to work. 

	If the PCs can convince the slaves of their own humanity, and free them of
their shame of not being white, then the souls can break the chain of guilt, but
the chain of insanity,pain/pleasure of the ritual, and finally the powerful fear of
the Inferno that lies beyond binds them here.

          The Confederates themselves are bound by their anger, and their
inability to complete their pact with Thaumiel, whom they thought was Satan/Jesus. 
In their desperation to find victory, a witch/hooker among them convinced them to
perform the rituals of torture/molestation which would help "purge" the devil in
the slaves, which was causing their regiment to lose.

Though they may have said they were doing the work of Jesus, they knew in their
hearts what they were doing was "Satanic", but at this point they didn't care. The
Razide called up made itself look like Jesus, except for the smile, and something
in the eyes. It them make promises of more rituals, of summoning Nepharites of Thaumiel
(Jesus's "hosts of angels") that now run the purgatories of the slaves and soldiers. It
forces them into political promises as well. In return, it gives them a weapon, one that
they will never use.

	3 days later, Union forces sacked the place and burned it down as they marched
over Confederate territory. The witch, the soldiers, they all died. Yet they're still
here. The Confederates have gone insane. Their weapon backfired. Their minds have created
ideas that it was somehow the fault of the slaves that all this happened, some force
from their ancient African religion called up the devil. Their delusions, their
purgatories, the lingering forces of the ritual still affect the rooms. Their delusions
show the poor slaves turned into demonic monsters,
back in Africa(as they
see it), conjuring demons and monsters. Their purgatories are varying and twisting.
Some feel guilt for having black mistresses, and are sexually tortured into madness.
Others feel the lash upon themselves. In the end, they all meet inside a beautiful
Southern church on Sundays, with "Jesus" extolling about the virtues of Slavery
and how the Bible commends it. The "angels" are the choir, singing strange demonic
words with their beautiful voices However, all the Confederates see hell's shadows outside
the window waiting for them and evil faces pressing onto the wall, trying to come inside,
while the slave souls are chained to the pews,weeping. 

	The Confederate souls will possess the bodies of the PCs in order to kill the
slaves who they believe performed the ritual. The witch has become an assistant
to the Razide, who is "Jesus". While the Razide maintains the structure of the magical
storm that takes place here, the witch lives on as the manager of the restored building,
now a hotel. She also directs the outward power of the storm, which Thaumiel uses to
manipulate the politics and powers of the South, both human and Lictor/Razide. Killing
her will weaken the storm, as she was one of the key stones to the  events.

	Killing the Razide is almost impossible, unless the Illusion can be
heavily reinforced. In the storm of souls, both slaves and Confederates BELIEVE
the Razide to be Jesus, thereby making him a God in their fantasy landscape. The best way
to proceed is to release the souls from their purgatories, kill the witch, and then
finally try to get the Razide before it escapes. Of course, once the PCs are drawn into
the storm, then along with the delusional realms and purgatories, they are living in the
memories of the souls, winding down to the moment when everything went wrong, when the
last slaves died, the Union soldiers burned alive, Hell was raised, and the
weapon backfired.

	What is the weapon? This I couldn't really decide on. It could be the building
itself, it could be the "blood" of "Christ", it could just be some magical spell.
I like the idea of the building becoming a honeycomb type thing beyond the Illusion,
breeding some kind of creature to serve as weapon.

	Well, that's my basic plot line for it. Needs lots of work, but I hope
it seems decent.

     Thanks to Matthew Boroson for sending this one my way.