World of Darkness: Kid Fears
DREAMATION WRITE UP, PART 2: Kid Fears
The last game we played was Kid Fears, gm'd by Glen Seymour on Sunday morning. It was loads of fun, and better than a shot of pure caffeine to the arm as a wake up call. Kid Fears was an unusual WoD game. It had an NC-17 rating, so none of the players was under 18, but none of the characters was over 8. There was nothing particularly X-rated nor especially dark, so my guess is that the gm wanted an older crowd.
We were in the same room as a TFOS game which had something to do with building a mecha. Our sound effects were often oddly appropriate for their game and vice versa.
None of us knew our stats. Our character sheets were about half a page long with a small, but important equipment list. He also drew us a map of our bedroom, showing important things like where the beds and lightswitch were. Once things got moving, we moved into action with teamwork that would not have shamed the most advanced supers or netrunners, and with triage and tactice that would have raised an approving eyebrow from many a drillmaster. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I played Sheri Bobbin, the oldest at 8. Kathy was my sister, and, although as it turned out, she didn't know it, I waws adopted, and our parents liked her best. But I was a protective sister, so that was okay, even if Kathy did tell weird stories. My equipment was 2 piece black & white flannel pajamas and a fuzzy soccerball - I was an athletic kid. Kathy had a stuffed animal, I think, and bunny slippers, which she took to bed with her. This was an important strategic point.
Frank was the spoiled rich kid who didn't want to share a bed, but he had to anyway. He shared with Josh's pc, Jonathan Arch, a dancer. His only equipment was a brown nightshirt.
Ken and Morgana O'Dell were brother and sister. He was the oldest, and he played the zither, though he didn't have one with him. Morgana liked pretty things, and the previous player had stamped a picture of a unicorn on the back of the character sheet. She was five, dressed in footy pajamas with duckies on them. Her other equipment was Mr. Bobo, renamed Mr. Booboo by the player, and a yellow ribbon, which may have been the only thing that didn't get used.
Then there was Larry whose last name I forget. He got a bed to himself since his twin brother wasn't there.
We were all there because our parents had come to a resort to celebrate the New Year, but we had to go to bed early. The housekeeper, Nana, told us a creepy story about the Michael, Boy Who Would Not Go to Sleep.
Larry: Uh-huh. I think I know how this one ends.
Actually, he didn't. Michael crept downstairs to see the housekeeper doing something with candles, and then was caught by his mother who put him to bed and went down to drink tea with the housekeeper.
Then his father came in and told him to pack because they were leaving. He left. Then the housekeeper came in, and she told him he could stay forever, if he wanted. She had made his parents very still, and there was a dark stain on the wood. There were a lot of stuffed animals around as well, and Michael stayed with her.
This story confused and disturbed all the kids, so Sherri asked her sister to tell them the -real- ending, and Kathy made up something about a princess and happily ever after.
Morgana: But what was the brown stain?
Kathy: Tea!
We still refused to go to sleep. Mrs. Odell agreed to stay up with us, and there followed first a round of "I want a drinK", and then the obvious "I have to go potty". She patiently dealt with all of this, closed the light, and slipped out the door.
All the players knew this would happen. We weren't really trying to delay the inevitable, just to stay in character as bratty kids. And once we fell asleep, the fun began.
We all had nightmares. Kathy dreamed she was an African tribal warrior who was shot by strange men with pale skins. Morgana dreamed that she was hurrying to meet a friend who was the most important person in the whole world, but he was beheaded just as she got there, holding a slip of paper that began "This pardon". Morgana was fanatical about being on time for everything.
Sheri dreamed that she was being chased by a large, misshapen man who cut off her head. I was out of the room when the gm described Ken's dream. Larry dreamed that he was carrying his cat (which had died shortly before). It was shot with an arrow, and he was shot with another arrow.
Frank dreamed that he was attacked by a vampire. Jonathan realized that there was a monster under the bed -- and he was not dreaming. He tried to convince it to eat Frank instead of him.
Monster: Push him off the bed.
Jonathan: Come up here and get him.
That's when the rest of us woke up.
Morgana: What does p- p- pardon mean?
Ken: Like when you say you're sorry, so it's okay. You knoe, "Pardon me."
Morgana: But they killed him anyway!
Frank (seeing a dark shape looming over him): Vampire! (bats at it)
Jonathan (the dark shape): There's a monster under the bed!
Things got a bit confusing here. Also, this is where the equipment became important. As Glen said, everyone knows that the best defense against monsters is cloth. So, Morgana could walk around just fine in her footie pajamas, and Kathy could hop in her bunny slippers, which, you'll remember, she took to bed with her. But the rest of us had problems.
Morgana turned the light on. Then, it went off, and we all screamed, especially those of us who glimpsed a retreating tentacle.
Sheri, somewhat confused, but remembering the rules of monsters that Kathy taught her, put a pillow on the floor. Then she put her bare foot on the pillow. She managed to pull it back onto the bed before the monster could pull her down, but not before she felt its touch.
Somehow, Ken and Larry wound up on the floor, being grabbed by the monster. Now, it was under Jonathan's bed, the one closest to the window. Next to that bed was the one Kathy and Sheri shared, I think, followed by Larry's bed. Morgana and Ken had the bed closest to the door.
Sheri jumped onto Larry's bed to help him, while Morgana tried to help Ken. Jonathan and Frank jumped up and down on their bed, hoping to distract the monster. When that didn't work, Jonatha tried dancing, with no more success. Kathy tried to hop over to Larry's bed with her bunny slippers, but she fell down. Sheri got her on the bed and the two tried to help Larry.
Larry tried to claw at the monster, just like the velacoraptors from Jurassic Park. As we later learned, he managed to grow claws, but he kept missing the monster. Eventually, he tried biting the monster with velocoraptor teeth, and that worked.
Frank and Jonathan jumped over to Ken's bed, I think, and lots of pillows were thrown at the monster who kept dragging Ken under bed after bed. Ken had an inspiration.
Ken: Morgana, remember the chocolate bar on my bed? Throw it down to the monster!
Lisa: That's right! It doesn't have footie pajamas!
Ken: Come on, monster, wouldn't you rather have a candy bar than a delicious child?
(dice roll)
GM: Uh-oh. That part about the delicious child gives it an extra burst of energy.
Morgana: I throw the chocolate bar down!
GM: Morgana, do you remember to unwrap it first?
Morgana: Kenny didn't say to unwrap it!
GM: Effectively, the candy bar -does- have footie pajamas.
Kenny was dragged under the last bed about the time the TFOS crowd started singing Kumbaya. The monster started munching. Kenny started screaming and the South Park line ("They killed Kenny") got seriously overused. Then Kenny had another desparate idea: Morgana should get the rocking chair and put it on the monster's tentacle, just like she'd done to the cat's tail.
Morgana did this while the rest of us threw a sheet to Ken, who couldn't hold on to it. It took Morgana a long time to push that big rocking chair the whole way. Jonathan helped her steady it while she rocked back and forth. We also lured the monster into exposing another tentacle. Jonathan held out his bare foot in a tantalizing way (gm's description, not mine).
Jonathan: Oh, monster! Come and get it!
Everyone on the bed grabbed the tentacle, and Larry and Sheri started biting it, Larry being far more sucessful.
Sheri: See! We can eat you too!
Just then, the window shattered, and we all screamed. A dark, scary man grabbed the monster and pulled it through the window. We let go of the tentacle, and Morgana moved the rocking chair of the one that had Ken, and we thanked the scary man, not sure if he was a friend or not.
We managed to get the light back on after that, and Ken was bleeding. Jonathan wanted to put a tourniquet on the wound.
Sheri: But don't tie it too tight or the leg will fall off!
Jonathan: What's too tight?
Sheri: Um, it - Um, if the leg falls off, it's too tight.
Morgana (crying): My brother's dead!
He wasn't, of course, just badly hurt. Nana came in, and we told her what was wrong and that we wanted our mamas.
Player: You notice how everyone asks for Mama? No one wants Daddy.
Nana said that we shouldn't wake our parents, which confirmed for most of us (Morgana being beyond caring) that she was Up to No Good. Larry and Sheri blocked Nana's way to Ken.
Nana (looking Sheri in the eyes): It's Nana. You know you can trust me.
Sheri (realizing it's true): Oh, it's Nana. We can trust her. (moves aside)
Larry: Uh-oh. She's gone over to the Other Side.
Nana tried to pick Ken up, but Morgana refused to let go of him, until Sheri talked to her. Morgana, Jonathan, and Sheri followed Nana into the bathroom where Nana took off the pathetic bandage and poured stuff on the wound that hurt Ken a lot. Still, we knew that medicine poured on an open wound hurts. She was quite interested to hear that the monster was Jonatahn's monster, sort of, and asked if any of us had other imaginary friends. Then she left, telling us she'd be right back.
Frank went to the library, saw a stuffed animal, and freaked, remembering the story. Larry and Kathy wandered out in the snow to the shed, waking up a man called Michael, who was quite concerned about there being a wolfcreature around, as Larry described. He went back to the house to get a shotgun, followed by the kids. They went to the kitchen, where Nana was getting out candles, just like in the story. This was the last straw for Kathy, who ran away in tears.
The kids upstairs wondered what happened to Nana and whether she was forgetting things, like old people do. Then we met a man who said he was Larry's dad, come a bit late. Larry confirmed this when he arrived upstairs. The father opened all the parents' rooms, breaking the knobs, although he claimed that the doors were just stuck. The parents woke only when their children touched them.
Frank's father made a phone call, saying that there was a mess to clean up. Soon, cars arrived containing some very strange people, including a creepy doctor who gave Ken a shot. Frank said one person was a vampire, and Sheri recognized one man as the warrior Kathy had described in her dreams. The parents poo-pooed all this, trying to round up the kids.
Sheri slipped off to the kitchen, seeing a man cleaning up. Nearby were two large sacks, as in large enough to hold a person. Fearing the worst for her dear Nana, Sheri threw her soccer ball at the man. He caught it. She kicked him in the shin. He hardly noticed, and his eyes glowed red as he strongly suggested she return to her parents. Her parents came in at that moment, and his eyes returned to normal.
The kids were taken away from the house where, as the parents explained, for some reason, gardening equipment had been left in the kids' room. Yes, that's it. Sheri didn't try to argue, since she knew the doctor/vampire had hypnotized everyone. Larry showed his father the sucker marks on his hand and asked what his father believed.
Larry's father: Oh, I believe you.
Larry: So what was it?
Larry's father: Something you'll learn about when you're older.
That ended the adventure and began the debriefing/explanation section.
Kathy was not an Eshu, as I'd thought, but a Dreamspeaker, which was why she was in contact with an African warrior. Jonathan the dancer was the Eshu, and the monster under the bed had been haunting him for a while. His mother bought a nightlight, which solved the problem at home, but he was in a dark room filled with kids who had absolutely no banality. Conditions were perfect for the monster to materialize, and it did. His mother was an ordinary woman.
Morgana, as we'd guessed, was a Sidhe, and in a previous incarnation, had been late delivering a pardon to save her friend's life. This was why being on time was so important to her. I think Ken, the zither player, was the Satyr. Their parents were as ordinary and as clueless about what was going on as Jonathan's mother.
Frank was human, but this nice Italian boy was from a nice Italian family. Does the name Giovanni ring a bell? These are the Italian vampires. His parents were not vampires, but they did serve the vampires as loyal family retainers, and perhaps ghouls. So, the vampire/doctor had been called by Frank's father.
Yes, Nana and Michael had been killed. Yes, Michael was the Michael from the story. The stuffed animals and the odd photos we found in the closet were red herrings. Nana made Michael's parents be "very still" by killing them, plain and simple. She wanted Michael to stay with her, and she wanted us to stay with her, one way or another. She had absolutely nothing to do with the monster under the bed, and was genuinely trying to help Ken. She had, however, drugged everyone's parents, not with tea -- we'd warned them not to drink tea after hearing Nana's story -- but with a bottle of champaign for the new year.
Larry had specifically asked to be woken when his father arrived. His father was the werewolf who saved us from the monster under the bed. Larry was a mage, which is why he could grow the velocoraptor teeth and claws. His twin brother, had their been another player, was a werewolf who would have dreamed of killing the family cat, confusing the issue muchly.
Kathy's parents were clueless of course. And Sheri?
Me: So what am I?
GM: You're special. Wait for the sequel.
And that was all he would say on the subject.
