Vat:09 The Postman Always Kills Twice

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Starring: Steve, Koz, Amiri, Pauline, and Joseph
Guest Starring: Sophia, Mailman
Challenge: Sangrophage
Location: Several homes in McKeesport
Date Played: 26 September 2012

Recoveries

Pauline: I can't say I'm terribly happy about waking up in a hospital, but it gives me a chance to think. Once the painkillers clear, anyway. I spend a long time thinking about what, exactly, it is that I'm doing here. I signed on to the Vat with the hope of making the world, or at least the 'Burgh, a better place. And for weeks now, I've been chasing superspies. It's all a very abstract, not like rescuing children from were-creatures. I also think I need to be much more careful when dealing with these sorts of nasty creatures.

New Pro Bono Case

Pauline: I'm still a little bit shaky after all of this, but when the bosses lay out the problem, I'm all ears. People are missing in McKeesport. Not just one or two, but over thirty- and in two weeks. Obviously, something's very wrong, the cops are flummoxed, so we need to go look into it.

Gathering Facts

Pauline: The best place to start is with the victims. We start with the lonely old lady with a pile of cats. The lady and the cats are no where to be found, but a gigantic pile of crap is. Literally, this lady was a hoarder who kept her depends. A combination of dust masks and baby-wipes keep us from losing our lunch. Yes, I keep baby-wipes in a zippy in my purse, and no, I haven't changed diapers in years. But you have no idea how handy it is to have a pile of wet-wipes readily available.

While there, we discover strange little pebbles in the litter box. They're fragile as anything, and while trying to collect some as samples, we discover: they're eggs.

A few more spot checks yields more of the same. The disappearances and the eggs tie to packages that were delivered.

Team 7 Assembles

Pauline: How many times have we run face first into something nasty with absolutely no back-up? I'm not sure either- I think getting shot too many times has damaged my memory. Old as I am, I've learned something: the team rallies team seven, Vat, Inc.

We lay out the problem, and our best suspect: the mailman. It's a bit of a stretch, because Joseph lays out the details of Sangrophages, and while intelligent, they can't talk. It's hard to impersonate a mailman without talking.

Fighting the Sangrophage

Pauline: But that also gives us a great chance to confirm whether the mailman is a talker or not. We essentially ambush him with riot shields and truncheons. His name is Luke, and he's actually a pretty nice guy, n'at. He actually has a sense of what's going on, but doesn't want to be a suspect. We trail him, at a distance, to see if we can spot what's going on.

And we do: the Sangrophage impersonates one of the residents, accepts the package, and when the coast is clear, she does a quick-change. She turns into the mailman, and then goes to deliver the package. Once we have confirmation, we swarm the bitch, ready to kill. And we do.

Unfortunately, I can't hit a toilet while I'm sitting on it, these days, so I'm basically useless. Joseph gets torn up something awful. We do bring the creature down, but not before Joseph gets gutted a nice-looking old lady opens the door and dies of a heart attack. Joseph we can stabilize, but the old lady's bought it.

We call an ambulance, get the hell out of there, along with the sangrophage's corpse. We didn't save everyone, but this thing won't be killing ever again. And with team 7 on the lookout, we'll hopefully get the eggs before winter comes, meaning there won't be another outbreak next year.

And I've also got a dead sangrophage. According to lore, their bones are super hard. It's not metallurgy, but maybe I can recall enough materials science to find a use for this.

The Sangrophage Itself

(facts remembered listed here)

• Intelligent
• Shape shifter 🎲 DM Autoillusionist
• Eats, lays eggs, and leaves
• Eggs need to gestate over a cold winter
• Bones are incredibly hard

Sophia Dissected a freshly hatched one.

🎲 DM I wanted you guys to see a quick stat block for a monster, and this is a good one to share:

• physical stats all 3
• mental stats all 2
• Claw attacks d8*Str [cf point rapier], Bite attacks d12*Str+1 [cf greataxe] but imposes dodge penalty
• primary skills 3 (ie, brawling, dodge, stealth, notice, acrobatics)
• knowledge/social/technical skills 0-1
• other skills 2
• +50% damage from fire
• life points 100~150