BY RICHARD FICHERA

Introduction

This is a KULT scenario for a single character. As an

adventure, it is quite open-ended, leaving the final resolution, if

there is one, completely up to the GM and the player. It can also be

used to develop a character that will then continue onto other

adventures.

The Character

The character is a nurse (which I'll call "Sarah" for ease of

reference) who works in the emergency ward of a local hospital.

Her long hours and the pressure of her job keeps her single, and she

rarely dates, usually too tired to bother, or with too few hours to get

serious with a romantic encounter.

She has a taciturn personality because of her constant exposure

to death and her horror at what we humans inflict upon each other.

She sometimes suffers fits of depression but can usually find a weak

smile when treating children or the elderly. She truly cares about

human suffering.

She suffers from insomnia due to rotating work shifts and the

constant disruption of her schedule as she is usually on call. These

bouts of sleeplessness provide her with long, dimly-remembered

hours in front of the television, and it is not uncommon for her to

wake up to static and white noise several hours after the television

stations have signed off.

Then something happens, or maybe nothing. Sometimes we

have no explanation for the things that occur in our lives.

The Truth

Television was originally invented by a team of Lictors

working for Chesed. It was created as a media sedative to both

pacify us and feed us more of the Lie so that we would not try to

break out of the Illusion. On rare occasion, televisions were also

used to stop time so that the Lictors could travel about openly

working alterations in the Illusion, patch tears in the Veil, change

the direction of political movements, or "inspire" someone to create

or invent something essential to the Archon's plan.

Since Chesed's disappearance, various Archons have tried to

take over the media, particularly Tiphareth, but none have had any

great measure of success. There are those few individuals however,

due to some quirk of their minds, can see through television to

Reality, can still feel Chesed's influence through that glass screen as

it relays its electronic entertainment and despair. The character in

this story is being driven toward such a mental break where she will

see through the Illusions that the television presents. The journey

may enlighten or destroy her, depending upon the capacity of the

player to understand what is happening.

At the Hospital

As the GM, you should try to play the scenes at the hospital.

Invent a half dozen cases for the player to work with during her

shift: a knife or gunshot wound to a gang member or a victim of a

drive-by shooting, an old man who has fallen in the tub and broken

a bone, a small child that has swallowed something poisonous (or

was fed something poisonous by a stranger), someone who had a

serious accident in the kitchen and scalded or cut themselves, or

maybe a heart attack victim. The cases should be random, but

appropriate for an emergency room. Some will survive--most will

not. You should provide the details and let the player work out each

case with the help of appropriate NPC hospital staff. You have

been successful if the player begins to experience some of the strain,

helplessness, and depression that the character feels. The player

should be slightly relieved that the shift is over and that it's time for

the character to go home.

The Illusion

Sarah's life is running as roughly as ever...maybe a little worse.

Gang battles in the neighborhood are up and bloodier than usual.

Children are being gunned down in the subsequent shootings.

Some pervert is breaking into the houses of the elderly and raping

both women and men with equal desire. Few clues are left behind

since he doesn't penetrate his victims himself but prefers using a

baseball bat to administer his affections. Those who protest are

given a few "love taps" to soften them up. Between these two

problems, calls in the emergency room are up and Sarah is busier

than usual.

On an evening after an exhausting double shift, Sarah sits

down in front of the television with some half-cold fast food. After

only a couple of bites, the television starts having reception

problems. A montage of images, some of which Sarah recognizes

as her family members, flickers across the screen. She begins to

hear voices of forgotten friends, the sounds of emotional times with

her father and mother, scenes from the hospital that have touched

her deeply. This will continue for about 10 minutes.

If during this time, Sarah gets up and touches the television,

she notices light suddenly flowing through her apartment windows.

When she checks out the window, she will find that the sun is

rising. The last five hours seem to have passed without her being

aware of them. She feels neither tired nor fully rested.

From now on, whenever Sarah sees a television that is turned

on, she will begin to see images of her life and the lives of her loved

ones flash on the screen dodging between the stream of normal

programming. No one else will see these images. She will feel a

strange compulsion to put her hands on the flickering screen (roll

against CHA). If she gives in to this impulse, time will be

dramatically altered. Each time this occurs, the time shift will

become more erratic. Time shifts can be forwards or backwards.

Some Examples

Here are some ideas for time shifts that Sarah could encounter:

1) Sarah finds herself kneeling in front of her television at

home. Everything looks the same as it did before; the time on the

clock has not changed by more than a minute or two.

When she eventually goes into her bedroom, she notices that

there are five messages on her answering machine, although she

can't recall the phone ringing. When she listens to the messages,

she discovers that they are from her supervisor at the hospital and a

couple of her friends wondering why she has not shown up for

work. The last call is from her supervisor who is very agitated and

is threatening to fire her if she does not report soon. Three days

have passed.

2) Sarah sees a display of televisions in a department store.

Her mind becomes a blur amidst the duplicated images. When she

regains consciousness, it is several hours later and the store has

closed. Moving around the store, she sets off the motion sensor

alarms. The police show up five minutes later.

3) Sarah wakes up in front of her television and realizes that it

is time to go to work again. When she gets into work, she asks

about picking up her paycheck. She is told that paychecks come out

tomorrow, on the fifteenth of the month as always. But Sarah feels

sure today should be the fifteenth. She experiences several

instances of deja-vu, as the same cases and injuries come into the

emergency room. She cannot remember them directly, but when a

patient comes in, she realizes that she is reliving the experience.

Next Stop: Reality

Sarah's only hope is to surrender to the power that is altering

her reference to time. She has the capability to remain conscious of

the time slips with practice. To do so, she must voluntarily lay her

palms on the television screen (before making the CHA roll) to

reach for the flickering images. When this happens, she gains three

points in the Lore of Time and Space. This does not give her spell

abilities, just an intuitive knowledge of the Lore. Spell abilities

would have to be developed separately under the discretion of the

GM.

When Sarah fails her Lore roll, she finds herself tumbling

through the white vastness of the television static. Shapes and

images of all kinds roll past her. Voices, both known and

unknown, echo through the chaotic expanse. After a time she will

find herself back at the television where her journey started. Time

will shift randomly.

When Sarah succeeds with her Lore roll, she involuntarily

performs a modified version of Time and Space Walk. Since Sarah

does not have any training or experience with this spell, she will

naturally find herself in distant locations and times very quickly.

The GM may wish to reduce the effects of the spell for purposes of

game balance. For example, one hundred yards could equal 10

miles, instead of 1000 miles. Each hour that Sarah is traveling

could be equal to one day instead of 100 years. In addition, Sarah

has no control over whether time flows forwards or backwards.

There is an equal chance of either. So if Sarah walks into the

Realm of Time and Space and walks 100 yards, she will see the

world slip past her in fast forward motion. When she stops

walking, she will be across town, 10 miles away from her

apartment 12 hours earlier or later in time (depending on which way

time went). If she then spends half an hour getting back, a total of

24 hours will have slipped. It could be the next day or the previous

day. It will take some quick thinking and planning on the part of

the GM to anticipate where Sarah will go during her travels and

"when" she will end up when she returns.

When Sarah's Lore rating reaches 20, she will be drawn

through the Realm of Time and Space to Chesed's deserted citadel,

close to the top, overlooking the city of Metropolis from several

miles up. The GM may develop the adventure in many possible

ways from this point. Also, once her Lore rating reaches 20, the

GM should increasing Sarah's Lore rating by only one point for

each voluntary trip she makes.

Epilogues?

It is possible to slowly transform Sarah during her travels

through Time and Space. For example, when she arrives at

Chesed's citadel, she may have various body modifications--claws,

body armor, tentacles, etc, that make her a more natural inhabitant

of Metropolis. Maybe these affect her mental balance, maybe not.

Or maybe she looks unchanged but she now has superhuman STR,

AGL, or CON, or some other types of powers that make her

situation survivable, or she carries an artifact that protects her.

Maybe she is an incarnate of one of the forgotten gods. Or possibly,

she occupies a completely non-human body, that she is actually a

denizen of Reality, but the Illusion has blinded her into thinking

that she is human. She has somehow forgotten her true heritage.

Maybe her consciousness has been transferred to the body of

another entity, like a reversed form of Possession. Maybe she

becomes a ruthless predator on the streets of Metropolis, and yet

back in the Emergency room, the incoming wounded look strangely

familiar, or strangely appetizing. Again, this could affect her

mental balance or haunt her dreams, repulse and disgust, cause new

disadvantages. A skillful GM could convince the player of all of

these possibilities at various points during the game. Then again,

maybe she just dies a brutal death in Chesed's tower and the game

ends.