“Anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.”—Oscar Wilde
The characters arrive underneath the Palace of Fine Arts up by the Marina district and the Presidio. The palace was built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a world’s fair to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.
A few blocks north is the bay. To the west the Golden Gate Bridge will be visible spanning more than a mile across the bay with its red iron and cables. It is 30 yards wide and 70 yards above the water. At night it is a bridge of lights, with the lights of Oakland twinkling across the bay.
It’s a cold August. Temperatures in San Francisco normally range from 55 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, but this month temperatures are hitting 50 to 65; August 14 will have a record low for that day, at 48 degrees. There is no rain in August this year, which is normal for the area. The moon is quarter full, and waning.
The characters arrive at about 8:30 or 9:00 on Tuesday, August 5, 1969. They’ll have some assistance from the Summit. Deanna Carmen, who made a Summit-inspired music video in 1968 about a dead San Francisco brought back to life by a magical Dean Martin, will bring them apple blossoms for their hair, and a band of mercenaries to help them at the end of the gauntlet.
But first, they’ll need to get past the trap laid by the swarm, possibly also by Joe Lakono. The player characters will probably have a short-term goal of tracking down Joe Lakono, assuming that Joe has made himself an enemy of the characters. Once the characters discover what’s happening, they should accept the goal of stopping the assassination of August Wey.
They can discover the assassination plot (and possibly clues to the whereabouts of Joe or his waxen double) by interrogating mafia gunmen, calling the phone number in the Paradice matchbook, finding the address and date on an Autumnal Swarm gunman, or finding Manson’s hit list (which includes Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr.).
Palace of Fine Arts: The door
The door opens to a watery, organic smell. It’s a small tunnel, and a stream in the tunnel is filled with waste. Murky water flows slowly down a thin tunnel into darkness, to your right. A metal stairway on the other side of the stream leads upwards to a landing of some sort. A tiny ledge separates the doorway from the stream.
On the San Francisco side, the door is a huge, circular, iron grate, secured with bolts. It normally takes about two minutes with a heavy wrench to open the door, and the door will close on its own given any opportunity. Once closed, it can only be opened by undoing the bolts. The door is pressed with the words “Key 7 Ironworks”.
The door clangs shut. Where there was a simple wooden door, there is now a huge iron circle in a stone wall. The iron is rusted an even red, and the wall is dotted with moss around it. Four small hexagonal protrusions form a square within the iron circle.
There are recent scratches around the bolts, indicating that they’ve been turned within the last several months, but not within the last several days. Anyone examining them can see this with an easy perception roll. If Joe Lakono (or his waxen double) came through recently, he’s still here.
The stream leads out to a man-made lake.
Break on through
If they climb up the stairs and into the main basement, they’ll see a long hallway filled with boxes.
A magical light hanging from a rope on the ceiling about ten yards up throws a dim yellowish glow onto this wide hallway. Huge wooden boxes as tall as you line both sides of the hallway, arranged haphazardly. Those on your left are partially hidden in the shadow of a high shelf, which itself is lined with smaller boxes. Thirty or so yards down the hallway, the light fades into darkness, but you might see a slight curve in the hallway where the light fades.
Now is a good time to start the soundtrack if you’re going to use it. Remember, magic is difficult to use here!
There are six mafia gunmen and two Autumnal Swarm gunmen lying in wait in the basement of the Palace of Fine Arts. The mafia gunmen each have a six-shot .357 revolver. The two nearest the secret door also each have a 20-round M16 automatic rifle with one extra 20-round magazine each. When firing with revolvers, they’ll usually take the penalty of 1 to do 2d6 (and use two shots). When firing with the automatic rifles, they’ll usually do an unfocussed cone attack to do 1d8 damage to anyone in the field of fire (and using ten rounds). However, they may adjust their tactics if necessary.
Revolver gunmen: (Human: 1; Survival: 4, 6, 6, 8; Move: 10; Attack: revolver; Damage: d6/2d6; Range: 18; Defense: 0)
Assault riflemen: (Warrior: 2; Survival: 12, 16; Move: 10; Attack: auto rifle or dagger; Damage: d8 or d4; Cone: 1 yard every ten yards; Range: 30; Defense: 0)
The Autumnal Swarm hosts look human but have been infected with the Autumnal Swarm. They each carry a 13-shot 9mm Browning High-Power handgun.
Swarm gunmen: (Autumnal Swarm: 5. Human: 1; Survival: 16+1, 25+7; Move: 11; Attack: 9mm handgun; Damage: d6/2d6; Range: 18; Defense: +2; Special defense: slo-time)
Swarm insect form (Autumnal Swarm: 5; Survival: 16, 25; Move: 16; Attack: mandible; Damage: d8; Defense: +5; Special Defense: slo-time; Magic Resistance: 3)
One of the swarm gunmen is marked with a crossroads scar on their temple. The other is marked on their lower back.
Once fire commences, some shots will hit the boxes and the plaster sculptures inside.
You hear a noise like strange thunder, quick and harsh. Insects whiz past you so quickly you can’t see them, some leaving blood in their wake. Holes appear in the wooden boxes around you, and clouds of white dust exude from the holes.
The ambush strategy is to wait until the player characters enter the basement and get about 26 yards from the riflemen, and use automatic fire on them. The only light left on is a hanging bulb with a green shade right about at the 30-yard mark. Having the light there means that the gunmen fire as normal, but any attempts by the player characters to fight back (or perceive what is beyond the light) are at a penalty of two.
If the characters destroy the light bulb, everyone will be in darkness and have the standard penalties for not being able to see. Note, though, that destroying an electric light with a metal weapon runs the risk of electric shock: the player must make an Evasion roll or take 1d6 damage from electricity and act as surprised for the next round.
The gunmen are supposed to be careful, but if they think they’re dealing with unarmed opponents they’ll be careless, for example, stepping fully into the open to use their automatic weapons. Otherwise, when initially firing they’ll have the advantage of full cover. If the characters are within ten yards of them, the boxes will only provide medium cover.
“What the hell was that?”
“We told you to stay out of sight,” says a high-pitched voice.
“I thought they were unarmed.”
“You were wrong.”
The mafia gunmen will back up the riflemen as necessary. The gunmen will not move from their position before the player characters arrive, but if the player characters retreat the swarm gunmen will send the mafia gunmen after them, and then follow themselves.
The gunmen arrived in two sedans. If any of them choose to flee, they’ll flee to one of those cars and drive away.
He runs to a very small, oddly-shaped white house covered in windows. He flings the door open and rushes inside; the house is so small that he has to sit inside of it. Suddenly you hear a roaring noise. The house emits a puff of black smoke low from one of its ends, and then zips quickly away with the man still inside. [If they can see the license plate: There are some letters and numbers you don’t understand on the lower back of the house.]
Taken prisoner
If the ambush succeeds, any survivors will be taken to the dungeons of Alcatraz, where the swarm will try to convince each of them to give in and host a swarm insect.
Taking Prisoners
If they take any of the mafia gunmen prisoner and interrogate them, the mafia gunmen are tough but not heavily committed to the strange men leading them. A successful (but very difficult) Charisma roll or appropriate role-playing will give them the following information about the ambush.
“There was a hooded man talking to these things, they talked back in a high-pitched noise like a telephone line in the rain. The hooded man asked if there was a road nearby, and something about flowering trees. He asked about digging up the roots and sapping the roads.”
If any of the swarm hosts remain alive, the characters may be able to acquire information from them, although no form of intimidation or cajoling will succeed against an infected host. If the swarm possession can be thrown off, such tactics may succeed, A Demonic Clarity spell would work, for example. The host’s knowledge will be limited to what they’ve seen and some vague impressions of the swarm’s knowledge as a whole. Such a victim will, if they realize that their respite is only temporary, beg to be killed before the spell’s effects fade.
Deanna has never seen a swarm victim’s possession reversed. She’ll be very interested in the process.
One of the mafia gunmen will have a Paradice Island Lounge matchbook. If they gain identification information for one of the hosts, they can impersonate that host over the phone (it is impossible to impersonate a swarm host in person to another member of the swarm, because there will be no meshing). The phone number in the matchbook can direct a swarm host to an appropriate location to assist in the assassination of August Wey.
Swarm host Andy Cochino has his driver’s license, with an address in Sausalito which will turn out to be a dock, and a mailbox used by the Weathermen. Note that the bug will try to take this identifying information with him if it flees.
One of the gunmen has a key to their black 1968 Cadillac Sedan deVille. (The key to the white 1960 Chevrolet Impala sedan is in the car.) The cars are distinctive enough that if someone gets away in one, characters will recognize it if they see it again. Their license plate numbers are KRD-061 and UWN-916, respectively. Successfully asking around will bring the information that the cars have been seen at the north docks. The Impala also has information about the swarm hive in the glove box, scrawled inside a Paradise Lounge matchbook: “block a the rock”.
The Cadillac’s plate is registered to Andy Cochino (one of the swarm taking part in the ambush) and it has the Sausalito address. The Impala’s plate is registered to Jesse Hill at 1139 Grant Avenue.
Among them, the mafia gunmen know that:
1. They were set up here several hours (or a day or two, depending on how long after Joe/the assassin realized they were coming and when they actually came) ago to ambush anybody who came up from the sewers.
2. The ambush was requested by a hooded man who promised a quid pro quo—that is, to help the two whiners—if they provided the ambush.
3. The whiners are called whiners because their voice is so strange.
4. The hooded man wanted to know about a nearby road, and if there were any flowering trees in the path. No idea what that means. The hooded man wants to “sap the roads” and “dig up the roots”. He’s a crazy man.
5. They work for the whiners because the whiners quid pro quo; that is, the whiners help the higher ups. They don’t know what the help entails, only that the higher-ups are appreciative of the services provided.
6. They met the two whiners at the docks north of the park and followed their Cadillac here.
7. The whiners are working some deal with the blacks. Some Angel of Death cult.
8. The whiners been working with the military on some secret project.
9. The hooded man asked them about the silver city and how to get to Highway 61.
