Mystery Teens Ride East



I'm making an RPG about mystery-solving teens. Just ran a playtest session using the Orient Express mystery-o-matic. They ended up taking a ride with

Rupert Coldsing. Twelve year old chain smoker, travelling alone, turned out to be an expert on defusing bombs. By finding this bible verse, deciphering a code, and hacking into the frequency of his secret radio, the gang discovering that he was a secret agent of communist-nazi spy agency Leviathan, working together with

Lokman Yilmaz, Turkish hypnotist and master of illusion. Both he and Rupert were working together to hunt down whoever stole the Key to Shangri-la from Leviathan. Lokman and Rupert were threatening

Count Frumpenshire Hamffleswain, famed Shakespearean actor, surrounded by silent servants with sewn-up waistcoats. The count had some bad debts, and was on his way to pick up his inheritance in Istanbul when Leviathan tracked him down. He was fine at first, but started to sweat after the murder of his personal friend,

Francis Depardue, suicidal French artist. From the occult symbolism of his paintings, the teen team deduced that both he and the count worshipped the same ancient, forgotten volcano god. Deeply depressed at the death of his religion, Depardue said this would be his last journey - so why was he found stabbed with his own ceremonial dagger? The culprit was taller than him - which means it was either Lokman, the Count, or

Beatrice von Trumpleshlize, obsessive german monkey collector. After stealing the Key of Shangri-la, she was fleeing on the train with her husband:

Marco Catione, mild-mannered Italian priest and secret ice robot from another dimension. On a hunch, the teens burst into his cabin and interrogated him. Believing they worked for Leviathan, he revealed his true form and froze one of the teens solid. With some home-made explosives the gang blew up the carriage and escaped off the train.

Now the teens are in the middle of the Austrian wilderness with Marco's severed robot head and the stolen Key to Shangri-la. If they can get to the Himalayas alive with that key, they could unlock the greatest mystery of our time - but all these crazed treasure-hunters and the forces of Leviathan are ahead of them.

We spilt indana jones all over our demented agatha christie, it's great.

Mystery-o-matic Orient Express


Roll up identities, secret identities and goals for about 6 passengers, then put them in a list and give each a relationship with the passenger below them. Finally, roll to see which one is killed 1D4 days into the voyage, and again to see who did it. You may also, if you wish, roll for a mystery gimmick.

IDENTITY:
1. Fat Russian royalty, always laughing
2. Twins from Austria, beautiful, talk between themselves in made-up language
3. Nikola Tesla equivalent, old and broke
4. Old french artist, makes depressing speeches, no-one listens
5. African Indiana Jones equivalent
6. Italian preacher, nervous and clumsy, takes instant dislike to one of the PC's
7. Jazz singer with 12-person Big Band from London, constantly drunk and celebrating
8. German, tall and reserved, obsessively collects [insert something the PC's own]
9. The Mum of one of the PC's. Here on holiday.
10. Scottish author, stays in cabin writing book for entire journey, yells at intruders with unintelligible accent
11. Young english kid travelling alone, bitter beyond years
12. Excitable Australian inventor, working on fantastic cure that could be misused as a horrible weapon
13. Swiss couple with identical sets of scars all across bodies, consider themselves the same person
14. Frail, sick-looking Russian with massive amounts of kids that swarm everywhere
15. Haruspex, has small menagerie of animals, cheerfully foretells dire omens from their organs
16. Masked plague doctor from Venice, speaks with mechanical rasp,
17. Turkish Magician, Hypnotist and master of illusion, will obsessively try to divine the trick behind any real magic they see
18. Shakespearean actor, alternates between overblown speeches and tired self-consciousness
19. Hard-nosed railway brass, making sure the journey goes smoothly
20. Prize german boxer, with daughter. Super aggressive except in sight of kid.

SECRET IDENTITY:
1. Utterly disgusting slithering wet black thing, mind-controlling passengers and PC's to like/love it
2. Anarchist rebel, concealing bombs
3. Actually mute idiot controlled by ventriloquist shadow
4. Exactly what they seem to be
5. Keeps fridge full of virgins, will begin to shrivel into skeleton if they don't bathe in their blood for 3 days
6. Bank robber, getting away after successful haul
7. Secret agent of Coldsnap, communist-nazi spy organization
8. Keeps heart in cage in room. If heart is released, will grow legs, escape, and sabotage train.
9. Secretly a large group of clones, each takes turns to act as them
10. Time-traveler Future PC in heavy disguise
11. Spy for [powerful faction], left hand detaches with a bunch of rope to act as grappling hook
12. Insect, burns if exposed to true darkness
13. The president of the United States
14. Cuts a piece of themselves off each night, making tiny doll with them
15. Heir to throne in hell
16. Ice robot from another dimension
17. Powerless volcano god from a forgotten old religion, desperate for worshippers
18. All servants/followers/acquaintances are zombies. Hates them, but owes them debt; they stick with them to make sure it's paid.
19. Minor character previously encountered, obsessively in love with PC's, on train to stalk them.
20. Cultist servant of [Nearest Cthulhoid monster]

RELATIONSHIPS:
1. In servitude to
2. Having secret affair with
3. Conspiring with
4. Has power over
5. Killed personal friend of
6. Secretly related
7. Married to
8. Signed dark pact with
9. In reverential awe of
10. Sworn to destroy
11. Secretly buying weapons from
12. Knows secret identity of
13. Stealing from
14. Prostitute of
15. Sibling of
16. Student of
17. Challenges to duel over perceived slight
18. Taking care of
19. Good friends with
20. In debt to

GOAL:
1. Sell a weapon in Venice
2. Meet leaders in Moscow
3. Rob train
4. Destroy train before it reaches [next stop]
5. Claim inheritance in Paris
6. Escape police from [previous stop]
7. Hunt down their enemies in Venice
8. Stop Berlin from going to war
9. Go to China to die
10. Seek Wisdom in Himalayas

OPTIONAL GIMMICKS:
1. An invisible train car is secretly attached to the end of the train. Horrible things are inside.
2. 2D4 Highway robbers attack train 1D10+2 days into journey
3. Train is sentient, evil, coal must be constantly sacrificed to it to appease it
4. Train driver is chained demon, will offer anything for freedom
5. Everyone committed the murder
6. The murder victim is still alive
7. The Jade Cage, absurdly valuable ancient artifact with space-warping powers, is aboard.
8. A Nuke is on board
9. An axle breaks 1D10+2 days into the journey. Looks like sabotage.
10. Train misses stop and keeps going at high speed - drivers cabin is locked tight

Originally posted on my other blog ages ago. Sorry for how many different rolls you have to do.

Desert towns





1. Snake-eye. All water sources within fifty miles have been totally contaminated with snake venom. The natives can drink venom, and they go around with snakes biting onto their chins as ceremonial beards. Outsiders can buy distilled water for extortionate prices.

2. Thief town. Thieves use a massive series of inter-connected water caverns to smuggle goods in and out of the desert. Their beggar king rules them from a massive ruin in a strategically placed cavern. A small town has sprung up on the surface based on the trade below, pretending to be legit.

3. Dahakha. It is illegal to show more than five inches of naked skin - except in the court of law, where it is illegal to wear any clothes. Once a year, everybody goes crazy and the whole town descends into an orgy of sex and violence. No-one mentions it the next day.

4. Empty town - everything still in place from when people lived here. Cactuses grow everywhere where people once stood.

5. Salthaven. Natives walk everywhere on carefully marked pathways, strewn with salt every day. Most keep a  satchel with salt on them at all times. Anyone who falls off the pathway while in town is tearfully exiled, and will soon be infested with demons.

6. Knife. Women have no flesh on the ends of their fingers, so their fingers just terminate in little skeleton nubs. Big flesh-eating termite mounds all around town - girls must put fingers in as secret womanhood ritual.

7. Aldivra. Constant red dust storms obscure everything five feet in front of you. All native adults wear white masks in the shape of their spirit animal, believe they are already dead.

8. Monastery town cut in the side of big rock. Peaceful desert monks secretly get drugged up and become crazed  Hashshashin's at the behest of their leader - a blind, deaf, dumb old man who weaves his instructions into a tapestry in the inner monk sanctum.


9. Super-advanced dwarven society lives underground to escape heat. Constructed like a series of giant wheels; as you go further up the path of enlightenment, you can live closer and closer to the secret heart of the city.

10. Grave town. Poor rabble live in the massive tombs of some long-forgotten previous civilization.

What's inside that hole?

  1. Nothing. The hole collapses, burying you.
  2. A nest of scorpions.
  3. Termite eggs.
  4. A secret genie treasure hole, with a beautiful trapped maiden! Genie will return shortly.
  5. It's a sleeping giant's ear-hole.
  6. A bottomless pit. A quaint society of termite-folk lives in holes carved out of the side. You can see light at the bottom.
  7. A rabbit warren.
  8. Utopian ant society.
  9. Entrance to hell.
  10. Ancient buried ziggurat. 

"The world will never be safe as long as we're alive."

The ruler of Vornheim is a frost giant queen, trapped high above the city in-between the two hands of Vorn - the twin towers of the Palace Massive and the Eminent Cathedral. She looks down over the city she rules from within the clutches of the two towers that twist around her.

The party called down Vorn to stop this queen and her invading army, but once she was trapped they backflipped and made her the ruler of Vornheim. At that point, zombies were invading, the city was ravaged, and they decided the entire universe was irretrievably fucked. The only solution was to go back in time.

All of the world's problems were caused by the party themselves. To fix the world's problems, all they had to do was kill their very first quest-giver. If old man Crithens hadn't told them about that secret treasure, they wouldn't have become adventurers, and they wouldn't have gone on to ravage the world. Old Man Crithens was the lynchpin of all the world's woes.

With help from their Benefactors, they managed to go back and kill Crithens easily. The betaverse party stayed peacefully in their peasant village. A new timeline - the Betaverse - was split off. Everything was fine.  No zombies, no invading elves, no ravaged Vornheim. There was just one fatal flaw: They were still alive.


  • Matt Groves
    • Matt Groves
      karnopticon rewards favour to those who spread disease, right
    • i'm just thinking
    • no-one wants me to unleash the flesh plague onto vornheim
    • i think i might do it secretly anyway
    • for karnopticon
  • Jack McNamee

    Jack McNamee
    • do hooo hooo hoo!
    • that's kind of a rising intruiged whimsical laugh
  • Matt Groves

    Matt Groves
    • i mean, i dont want to piss everyone off, so can i do this secretly
      and does this mean that everyone in vornheim dies

  • Jack McNameeJack McNamee
    • It would become a demon city.
    • You can do this secretly
  • Jack McNamee
    Jack McNamee
    • actually, you might need to chat with odermagroth (The skin king, lord of the Flesh Plague)  himself
    • cut a deal for your diety
  • Matt Groves

    Matt Groves
    • first of all, flounder and I enter into the meditative prayer of karnopticon.
  • Jack McNamee
    Jack McNamee
    • flounder circles around you in the entwined dance of karnopticon prayer
  • Jack McNamee

    Jack McNamee
    • you contact the blight queen
    • your mind is above a massive, ravaging swarm
    • that is currently unaware of you
  • Matt Groves

    Matt Groves
    • in the gutteral vocabulary of the insect language, i say to her
    • "mother"

  • Jack McNamee

    Jack McNamee
    • Up it comes!
  • Matt Groves
    Matt Groves
    • "i kill everyone"
    • "for you"
    • "you feast on everyone"
    • "when i am done"
  • Jack McNamee

    Jack McNamee
    • The swarm splits away, moments from consuming you
    • and just seethes over and around you
  • Matt Groves

    Matt Groves
    • "i am your drone"
    • "you are my queen"
  • Jack McNamee

    Jack McNamee
    • Every bug in the swarm lets out a tiny sound
    • PLEASURE


      AND THEN...

  • Matt Groves

    Sunday
    Matt Groves
    • i invoke odermagroth using the lesser name that vick discovered
    • in demonic i say
    • "khkhkhkhkhkhkhsjsjda, I respectfully seek your consul"
  • Jack McNamee

    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • Several insects twitch and swarm together
  • Jack McNamee

    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • the insects smush together and start bubbling and a long stringy thing starts dripping out
    • the weird little conjoined mess starts humming around
    • brushing over the walls and floor
    • reaches the sealed portal, smooches over it
    • smooches near flounder, and a spark strikes out
    • they jerk back
    • finally they swing around to hover at face height, near you.
    • The long string of flesh droops out to form a dripping mouth, with sunken eye-sockets
    • "To what...Hnnguhh... do I owe the pleasure?"

    • Dealing ensues

  • Jack McNamee

    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • "Alright, hnguh, a third of the souls, and I'll throw in the rulers and clergy. All except the Popess."
  • Matt Groves

    Sunday
    Matt Groves
    • "That is acceptable."


  • Jack McNamee
    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • Excellent, excellent

  • Matt Groves
    Sunday
    Matt Groves
    • "but for only a third of the souls, my queen will demand the city."


  • Jack McNamee
    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • Surely you jest!
  • Matt Groves

    Sunday
    Matt Groves
    • "and she must be allowed to feast on the bodies of the fallen."


  • Jack McNamee
    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • I cannot spare a single body!


      Dealing ends.

  • Jack McNamee

    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • 1. The drone of karnopticon, Sebastian True Name, will bring the city under control of the flesh plague
    • 2. Karnopticon will recieve 1 third of all souls consumed by the plague, including the nobles and rulers
  • Jack McNamee

    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • 3. The Skin King will have these districts, and Karnopticon will have the others. Any being under the jurisdiction of Karnopticon will be instantly struck dead and consumed if it crosses the boundary, and the same for the followers of the Skin King. Neutral parties will be allowed to pass freely
  • Jack McNamee

    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • Conditions 2 and 3 only come into affect if condition 1 is met.
  • Jack McNamee
    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • If any party breaks these rules, his soul will be forfiet to the other party.
    • 4. Followers of Karnopticon will be exempt from the plague.
  • Jack McNamee

    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • 5. Karnopticon may consume the dead, all except for the skin, which must remain pure and unbroken.
  • Jack McNamee

    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • 6. The Skin King and karnopticon's servants may both use the farmland, provided that they do not molest each other.
  • Matt Groves

    Sunday
    Matt Groves
    • okay, this is agreed.
    • blood oath etc etc.
  • Jack McNamee

    Sunday
    Jack McNamee
    • IT IS DONE
  • Matt Groves
    Sunday
    Matt Groves
    • too easy.




  • Sunday
    Jack McNameeJack McNamee
    • You are the man of the match, and the biggest bastard in the game.

  • Sunday
    Matt GrovesMatt Groves
    • they'll probably knight me.

  • Sunday
    Jack McNameeJack McNamee
    • Yup

  • Sunday
    Matt GrovesMatt Groves
    • Kl'qi, the little drone who conquered the south

  • Sunday
    Jack McNameeJack McNamee
    • You got a good price for your soul.
    • Good night.