SaraLynn Devereaux (Paula Hiller)
Player Background:
You were born in French Canada and grew up speaking both French and English. When you were 10 years old, your mother died. Your father remarried, but his new wife had little tolerance for children. You were sent to live with your mother’s mother, Granny LePlanc in New Orleans. You were a quiet girl, and tended to stay out of trouble. Your ability to keep out of trouble stemmed more from your incredible luck than from you being a particularly angelic child. You always managed to stop misbehaving a split-second before your grandmother walked into the room. She had a large house in the French Quarter of New Orleans. She didn’t have a regular job, but managed to earn a nice living by entertaining some of the richer and more superstitious women of the neighborhoods. Your grandmother had convinced these women that she could read the future. Although you found your grandmother’s fortuneteller act to be very entertaining, you never truly believed she was a legitimate clairvoyant. You had a few friends among the neighborhood children, but would have quickly told anyone your “best friend” was Angelica. Angelica Lebo was a sweet young Cajun girl who cleaned your house on Wednesdays. She was only a year and a half older than you, yet was already married and had a child. You often went with Angelica to her house in a Cajun enclave in the bayou outside New Orleans. There, you learned of the extraordinary beauty of the bayous and swamps in which the Cajun people lived. You also were able to watch the deterioration of those same swamps as big business and industry began to slowly pollute the land. You never learned how to negotiate the swamps alone, but were very comfortable with your Cajun guides. Because of them, you were able to feel the change in the swamps as the pollution levels of the water became more pronounced. Determined to do something about it, you returned to Canada to attend college, pursuing a degree as an environmentalist. Like many college students of the time, you did your share of experimenting with drugs. It was during one of these forays into chemical escapism that you discovered your psychic abilities. Perhaps your grandmother wasn’t such a charlatan after all! You eventually received your degree, and as a result learned that New Orleans was not the only part of the world in need of environmental care. It was almost as if the natural world were rebelling against civilization. The percentage of wildlife mutations seemed to be increasing. The great forests of Canada were being overrun by extremely vicious wolf packs. People who had lived their entire lives in the isolation of the wilderness were disappearing…their homes found broken into and the contents shredded. And each time you investigated a strange occurrence, you felt your empathic senses stir. Maybe it was your love for nature being repulsed by the unnatural acts. Maybe it was something more.
Your grandmother died a few years ago and you returned to New Orleans for her funeral. As her only surviving relative, you had to settle her estate. As a result you had to go through a number of her personal papers, including her diary. The diary chronicled the story of a woman whose mental state had deteriorated to the point of pure paranoia. She wrote often of a “tangible evil” which threatened her life and sapped her strength. The cause of death turned out to be a brain tumor. She was 98 years old when she died. This event caused a shift in your life path. The environment was too big to take on alone. It was like attacking the Atlantic Ocean with an eyedropper. People were suffering too. You could sense increasing unease and mental stress in people around you, so you put your psychic abilities to use trying to ease the pains of humanity…one person at a time. You became a fairly well-known psychic, and did your share of traveling. Occasionally, you would spread a ray of sunshine into someone’s bleak life. Occasionally, you would stop a person from making a terrible mistake. Occasionally, someone would tell you that you had really made a difference in their life. But then sometimes you would encounter someone you could not help. Someone whose life had been touched by such evil that their very soul seemed lost. On a few occasions you met people who you swore were trying to destroy as many lives as they could. And sometimes you would catch a glimpse of a face in the crowd, that was not a person at all, but something hideous and twisted.
In time you were contacted by one of your old college roommates. She invited you to a meeting, and begged you to attend. That was how you became embroiled in the underground psychic movement, and learned some of the truth behind the evils you had sensed. Since that time, you have been a troubleshooter. You investigate natural and unnatural phenomena. You’ve seen some pretty strange things out there…enough to convince you that the earth is threatened by a powerful evil. You believe that somewhere, out there, creatures that are not human are plotting the destruction of the world in which you live. You and the other members of the movement have sworn to oppose that evil. The movement does most of its work through an underground network linked by “Motherhouses” in most major cities.
Your Current Situation:
A week ago, the Talamasca sent you to Phoenix, Arizona. The city of Phoenix is unique because for some reason, the entire city is literally covered by solar panels. The huge black panels are supported by towers spaced throughout the city limits. The result is a pitch black ceiling, 100 feet above the ground. The panels themselves not only keep sunlight from reaching the ground, but also manage to trap exhaust fumes and other airborne pollutants beneath it. The land below the panels is referred to as “Frozen Shade” by the local proles, many of whom have never even left the city limits. The lowest class citizens live at ground level. Above them, just below the panels, are the middle class. They have their own network of suspended roads, as well as their own public transportation system…including a new maglev train whose circular monorail loops around the entire city. There are five places throughout Phoenix that “rise above” Frozen Shade, both physically AND socially. The largest is City Center which houses the elite and government of the city. The other four towers are owned by various mega-corporations. Not only do the towers contain the corporate offices, but they also house all of their employees. Access between levels requires a pass, and is controlled by Scorpion Security, whose diligence is surpassed only by the vicious zeal with which they deal with offenders. You were sent to investigate the events preceding the occurrence of a freak thunderstorm. In the deserts of Arizona, it is rare to even see a rain cloud. This storm was accompanied by torrential downpours, heavy cloud cover, and intense lightning. As if that wasn’t strange enough, the storm was localized to Phoenix itself! During the storm, power had gone out all across the city, and several people reported the appearance of an enormous monster in the skies overhead. Some described it as a giant spider, others said the devil had climbed out of a ring of fire in the sky. The local members of the psychic movement reported a terrible sense of foreboding, and were unanimous in declaring the “event” to be the result of a Dark incursion…possibly from another dimension. As accustomed as you have been to strange events, you still find the concept of other dimensions to be a little far-fetched. You have managed to discount the majority of the eyewitness accounts of the event due to the special nature of Phoenix. How could anyone have seen a spider in the sky, when the sky is hidden from the view of 90% of the population? This led to the theory that most had shared the same dream, and that led to empathy tests on all of the witnesses. The testing, and screenings were assisted by a local organization called the Sunburst foundation. The resources of Sunburst were available because the foundation’s founder, Hal Garrett had recently been hospitalized by injuries he received by trying to prevent a gang war. Rumors from Sunburst employees led to the conclusion that the “monster” had been defeated by a local spiritual leader known as Coyote. In the end, you concluded that the disturbance did in fact have dark origins, and you reluctantly allowed the phrase “another dimension” to appear in your report. In any case, Phoenix obviously has a group of people watching out for its welfare. For now, you are merely staying at the Motherhouse waiting for your next assignment. Today, you received a letter which had been forwarded to you via your home in Chiwaukee. It was postmarked from New Orleans…
Personality Traits:
You get to pick these.
Special Abilities:
I’ll let you know as they come up.
Interesting Possessions:
A directory of underground members throughout North America, and phone numbers for contacting the various Motherhouses.
Act I : Shadow Man
The Motherhouse of the Talamasca is always an interesting place. You never know who you will meet, or what sights you will see. For instance, today your friend Giselle brought a strange man to meet you. He was introduced only as Crowley. He was dressed in a long checkered trench coat and a fedora hat. Giselle tells you that Crowley is an expert on dimensional travel, and has volunteered to show one to you. Your normal skepticism, of course took hold immediately. You were led to the basement of the motherhouse, and left with Crowley. Sketched out on the basement floor is a shadowy square. It looks as if a large smoking box was placed on the concrete floor.
CROWLEY: “There is nothing to worry about, the place we are going is perfectly safe.”
SARALYNN: “We are going someplace?”
CROWLEY: “Yes, a nearby proto-dimension. Your superiors thought it best if you came to admit the existence of other dimensions.”
SARALYNN: “So how do we travel to this proto-dimension?”
CROWLEY: “Your superiors would prefer to think that I will use their captured gate down here. In general, I prefer to avoid detection by translating across dimensions myself.”
SARALYNN: “Attracting attention?”
CROWLEY: “You came here to investigate the appearance of a Dark Lord known to us as Fiddleback. He is but one of the Dark Ones. Any time a dimensional gate is used, if one of the Dark Lords is nearby, he could locate the person using the gate by zeroing in on the Gate itself. Particularily if the gate is of Dark manufacture, as this one is.”
SARALYNN: “Oh.”
CROWLEY: “Well, enough of that, take my arm and we’ll get things started.”
With that, you took hold of his arm, and he walked purposefully straight toward the basement wall. You felt a moment of disorientation and found yourself standing on an open, rocky hillside. You are so shocked by this sudden transition that you turn to Crowley, but the person standing beside you no longer appears as he did in the motherhouse. Here, you see him as a black shadow. The only color you can see is the bright gold ring on his left hand.
CROWLEY: “Don’t worry about my appearance, my Dear. While traveling in proto dimensions, you see only what your empathic senses allow you to see. My considerable skills as an empath prevent you, or most people for that matter, from seeing my true form. You are fortunate to be empathic yourself…anyone with no empathy at all is blind in a proto-dimension.”
He then leads you to the top of a nearby hill. At the bottom of that hill you see a giant man, chained to a rock.
CROWLEY: “I see that we have a few hours until sunrise. That creature you see below you is most likely the basis for our legend of Prometheus. He has been chained to that rock, and each day, Vultures come and eat out his liver.”
SARALYNN: “Every day! But he looks perfectly healed…”
CROWLEY: “Yes. Every proto-dimension has it’s own physical laws. In this one, time travels backward relative to us, so any wounds he receives heal each night….”
Suddenly, he turns his head to the side and cocks it slightly, as if listening to something. Instinctively you listen too, but hear nothing.
CROWLEY: “There is trouble nearby…take my hand.”
Before you can even reply, he has dragged you through another dimensional wall…