MONSTER RALLIES IN STRANGE TALES OF NEW ENGLAND

One of the methods I started using for playtesting and proofreading games is the Monster Rally adventure. This allows me to take a closer look, with more eyes at the Threats chapter of a book, by having the players assume the role of monsters in a wild creature feature mash-up. For those not familiar with Monster Rallies they are movies featuring multiple iconic monsters, and the first film of this type is usually considered Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). In these films monsters can team up, be pitted against one another, and they also often have more of a silly tone to them (or they are at least capable of veering into comedy and very campy horror). This makes the Monster Rally perfect for an off-the-cuff adventure using a party of monsters. In some of my monster rally playtests, the monsters are fighting one another, but they often have goals and work together. As Strange Tales of New England is in the final stage of layout (I just did my last real proofread), the monster rally has been a useful method for vetting the monster chapter and the gazetteer section. Here I want to talk about one method I recently drew upon to quickly assemble a monster rally adventure that focuses on monsters working as a team. 

Art by Jackie Musto

The first step is to give players the rulebook and tell them to peruse the monster chapter with instruction to pick a monster they can see serving as a fleshed out character. This can be opened up to other areas of the book (for example in Strange Tales of New England I can let players pick entries from the Gazetteer that are oriented around a monstrous villain). This can also be determined randomly for each player. 

The second step is to have them flesh out the characters, giving them names, adding 3 ranks to skills (they can pick new skills too if they want), and describing a brief background/character sketch. They also need some general goals. In my last session, one player chose to be a Skadegamutc (a ghost witch) named Helen, who had been born left-handed but was beaten by her puritan teachers to use her right. This led to resentment against all puritans she took to her death and when she rose that was the focus of her ire. Another player was Ruth, a hag, who worked with Helen, because it gave her easy access to human flesh. The third player chose a less orthodox giant snake, a 50-foot long reptile named Ted who was more intelligent than other giant snakes and could write out words with its tail. 

Once this is done, the part decides on a shared goal for which they need one another to succeed. This goal should be pretty specific, and the players must hash out exactly how they know each other, if they are together or if any of the adventure will involve them assembling as a team. In our session, the person playing Helen decided the goal could be they wanted to dig up the body of her teacher, Sarah Jacobs, in order to raise and torment her. To help with this goal, the player who was Ruth, chose a malignant spell that resurrects the dead. 

With that detail out of the way, the GM then needs to flesh out some background around it. First the GM creates an obstacle or obstacles to the goal. I decided an obvious obstacle was the body had been moved from its grave. I drew on a recent news story about a curiosity shop that had been illegally buying human remains and wrote down that the Cemetery Manager at Dartmouth Cemetery sold Sarah Jacobs' corpse to Maria's Curiosity Shop in Salem six months ago. Since the players were based in Amherst New Hampshire, but Sarah Jacob's was buried in Hanover New Hampshire, this would mean a big of trouble. 

After this the GM creatures a foe for the party. This will often be a Van Helsing type. But I decided to have Maria of Maria's Curiosity Shop be a witch who was interested in capturing Helen and punshing her for her crimes. So the body had been purchased as a lure, with the intent of capturing Helen in a Canopic Jar. However simply throwing a party of monster hunters in the mix is perfectly viable. 

During the session, the players went to Dartmouth Cemetery after learning the details of Sarah Jacobs' burial from the town hall archives. This was somewhat tricky because Ted is a massive snake the size of Titanoboa, and it was an hour and a half to get to Hanover. It was decided at the start of the session that they used a large box truck to transport Ted (flying was an option too as Ruth knew how to make flying ointment, but that was too slow). At the cemetery they found the grave was empty when they dug it up, so they broke into the Cemetery office and Ruth searched the computer. She was able to find email exchanges between the Cemetery Manager and Maria of the curiosity shop. So they drove to Salem. But before they left, Helen cursed Isaac Roberts, the Cemetery Manager to suffer credit card decline for the rest of his days. 

When they reached Maria's Curiosity Shop, it was nearly  midnight and everything was closed, but the shop had a light on inside, which they could see through the storefront window. Ted smashed though the window, letting the alarm go off, and found Maria in a backroom office. There he bit her and drained her life, killing her instantly (Giant Snakes drain life-force in the setting). Helen, who was in her luminous spectral form*, went inside and found a set of stairs leading down. Ted was able to sense a waft of death from beyond the door at the bottom of the stairs and indicated this to Helen. She opened the door and walked in, seeing rows of canopic jars on either wall and a giant sarcophagus at the end of the chamber. As soon as she moved towards it, she was drawn into one of the canopic jars and imprisoned. Sirens began to flare as Ted and Ruth waited in the truck outside, realizing Helen was taking too long. This is where the session ended. 

This was a quick monster rally adventure. We spent an hour or so setting up and about 2 hours playing. We will continue the session next week and it happened to fall on a cliff-hanger moment when we ended. 

Monster rallies are fun because there is no strict tone. They can be horror blended with comedy, and they can also be a bit schlocky. It is also a chance for players take on the roles of monsters in a more casual adventure structure. Something I am thinking of doing is coming up with goal lists to help give players ideas. The main benefit I use them for is an easy and fast way to re-read monster entries. But they are a great option if you don't have anything planned but want to do a quick pick-up game. 

 *During the day she reverted to an inert corpse