Dark Liner: 9 Deadly Demons
In much the same way as the original version, a demonologist summons demons on the Liner with a dark text.
The significance of the pages?
In the original adventure, the pages are used to trap demons in the bodies they are possessing, by putting the pages in the mouths of the victims.
With 9 people killed on board as sacrifice, most would be kept in storage or makeshift morgue somewhere. One victim was burned alive in a incinerator (~could have a note somewhere that her body was not completely destroyed. Guards were able to pull her badly burned body out before it was completely destroyed~).
The Demonologist’s Role
He went insane not long after passing the gate. He is trying to complete the ritual the best way he can and with the players on board, he feels he can.
After seeing the ships approach, he moved all the bodies of the victims to their place of death. He then stuffed the mouths of each of the victims with a page of the Missives into the mouths of each of the victims, entrapping the demon aspect there, unable to effect the physical world and waiting to be released. He hopes that the group will turn the ship around and head toward the gate.
The players are going to seek out the pages, using the poem as their main clue, coupled with the Captain’s log. The demonologist Zudahk left clues near the entrance that would lead them to the right pages in the book, right before the pages that were torn out (9 pages). [Symbol in blood on the wall at the airlocks]
Once the players release the demon aspects, they eventually will gather at a specific point and finish the ritual.
The group can stop it by some other ritual defined in the text, involving the bodies of the victims, blessing and consecrating their murder scene and spreading salt or something on the bodies.
Corpulus (Sloth)
A deadly Sin once said
The Mass of One is Two
One’s soul consumed by consumption
Lie waiting for eternal corruption
Clues: Ships logs record a obese noble’s death. Even though his records show he was allergic to a specific shell fish, it was served to him, he devoured multiple servings of it. Records show this passenger ordering many meals and eating himself to death.
GM Notes: Obese passenger Gremlys Orkothan met Zudahk the demonologist and they talked about the food onboard. He became obsessed with the food, especially food he could not eat.
Corpse Notes: The body was taken for the ship’s morgue and placed by Zudahk at his dinner table in his quarters, with rotting food around him.
Demon Aspect Notes: The demon aspect of Sloth is a bloated demonic creature that is able to spit digestive juices from its mouth. Its tongue can lash out like a tentacle and the physical creature of Sloth can swallow hole.
The most the incorporeal aspect can do is telekinetic attacks, throwing rotted food at the targets. However, he wants the players to remove the page, so it is unlikely he will do anything to prevent that.
Hammer (Envy)
Punishment fits the crime
Hands severed, tortured, and death
Murder in a cacophonic hell
Hatred remains, soul undeath
Clues: Ships log notes several thefts reported throughout the ship. One particular noble was very adamant about finding the missing item, and punishing the thief one day. This noble went on a tirade with some guards about the stolen item.
These guards went to seek out suspect – a person that seemed very interested in the item throughout the trip, as well as other items. After the tirade, the noble seemed unconcerned about the item, but the guards we obsessively seeking out the suspect.
The guards filed a report about the suspect and their investigation. They reported they found the thief in the cargo hold, and the thief had a weapon and they were forced to kill him. There is no record of the weapon being found, however.
Thief’s Quarters: In the thief’s quarters, the passenger seemed obsessed with the particular item in the possession of the noble/priest.
GM Notes: Thief aboard caught stealing random things from passengers (due in part because the Zudahk the demonologist influence). The items were of very little value, but extravagant (something envious).
The guards (influenced by Zudahk the demonologist) punished the thief severely. They take him down to a lower level to a machine shop (~cacophonic – chaotic sounds~), cut his hands off, replacing them with tools (hammer) found in the shop they were torturing him in. He died bleeding to death, trapped in a hidden storage area beneath the cargo bay.
Body Notes: The body was placed chained up in the machine shop. His hands were replaced with power tools.
Demon Aspect Notes: The demon aspect has telekinetic control of power tools, incorporeal or not. He will attack with his tools in melee or can launch drill bits, nails, or saw blades as ranged.
Juggernaut (Wrath)
Murderer, psychotic soul
Rage, Insane hate of those on high
Imprisoned, but escaped, on the run
Caught, and cornered, a blaze erupts
Death and flame the only result
Clues: Ships logs note the ship security finding a known criminal and hunting him down. He is a known war criminal, suffering from PTSD, from the battlefields of the Kurgan/Hazat war. He seeks the death of any noble as he blames his nightmares.
GM Notes: Wanted Kurgan soldier suffering from PTSD, his nightmare have been “enhanced” by Zudahk’s powers, causing him to rage and kill. He was a huge hulk of a man, a former soldier from the Hazat line – special forces and black ops training. He experimented with combat enhancing drugs and steroids. He came on the pilgrimage to find peace from the voices and the horrors, perhaps ease the feeling that he has to kill again. In the killer’s quarters, the walls are covered in his ranting of rage and revenge. Nightmares of war and the horrors he saw.
The demonologist manipulated him to believe that Kurgan scholars are the enemy, and this started his serial killing rampage.
Body Notes: The Juggernaut was killed after taking on half the ship security in forward cargo hold. He killed five security guards but was finally taken down by weapons fire. They hit him multiple times. His body was taken to the ships morgue. The demonologist moved his body to the cargo hold with some effort.
Demon Aspect Notes: The demon aspect, in incorporeal form, creates a chaotic cacophony of war noise and light shows, if necessary. Telekinetically, it can drop or move objects. Once in physical form, the faces of his victims protrude from his muscular body. They can extend out like tentacles, biting victims 10ft away. He is armed with a conglomeration of weapons that he produces out of nowhere.
The Hag, The Lesser Sister (Oathbreaker)
Great Sister, ancient in days
Dedicated to a life of purity
To be tempted by evil
Corrupted one night
Lost to eternity
Burned in the fires of fear and a furnace
Clues: Ships logs records the discovery of priestess/nun executed. Her religious colleagues claim she was executed for violation of her vows, by her elders.
“… kashiminok tradition – executed by the Elder Sisters for heresy and crimes against the El Diin.”
Some of her elders claim she was found practicing antinomy.
Nun’s diaries in her quarters: Her diary explains her doubts in her faith, and meeting someone who agrees with her (demonologist). She senses something else and seeks to find more answers. She believes ther is something more than the belief in the divinity of the Caliph and El-Diin.
GM Notes: Kurgan ‘nun’ found experimenting with demonology (tempted by Zudahk). Through the demonologists influence, she dabbled in demon magic. She was later caught by her elders and executed in the lower levels of the ship, according to their traditions. The “holy priestesses”/leaders of the pilgrimage of the Kurgans punish her, and burn her in the fires of a furnace in engineering.
Body Notes: Not much left of the body except the fried skeletal remains. They were placed in the now cold incinerator, with the page in the mouth.
Demon Aspect Notes: The Lesser Sister manipulates fire. In incorporeal form, it can manipulate fire from other sources ( other furnaces, etc). Corporeally, it can throw fireballs and fire missiles.
The Lovers (Lust)
Trusting, and naïve, Protected
Young and searching escape
Virginal and unblessed
The soul of purity, daughter on high
Violated, corrupted and killed
Ships Logs: A seduced khan’s daughter. A daughter, overly protected by her khan father, is seduced by another passenger (manipulated by the demonologist). The girl’s father executes her and the cultist in a rage, cutting them in half laterally and sewing two opposite halves together for the rest of his daughters to see their sister’s mistake.
Young girls diaries or logs: She speaks of how miserable she is and how she met a young man on board. They secretly met in the maintenance corridors between decks.
GM Notes: The sewn two halves where never separated and at the time of the adventure, the other halves are in consequential.
Body Notes: The two sewn halves were left in the man’s quarters where the father found them. The other halves can either not be a factor or when they go physical, wander in as help.
Demon Aspect Notes: The sewn together halves, in physical form, attack with acid fluid from their appendages. (love juices?). In incorporeal form, they try to create a comfortable, almost seductive environment (Will save)
The Bloated Twin, The Leashed (Greed)
Numbers and probabilities
Leashed by Addiction
Partaking too much his downfall
Punished by debtors
Vacuum surrounding, consuming
No Air to breath
Body withering to a husk
Ships Logs: Two bodies were found in an airlock, both dead from decompression. It is determined that it was a execution by a crime boss and his thugs who were aboard. One victim – The Leashed – was a known gambler who was deep in debt with the crime boss.
GM Notes: The Twins are two individuals punished by a crime boss. The gambler was too far in debt.
Body Notes: Both bodies were placed in the airlock, intertwined the way they died (as the were fighting to kill each other, both angry at each other).
Demon Aspect Notes: The demon aspect of The Twins act the same. Both are bloated from the vacuum of space, both appear like large coin purses full of coins. They attack with either a blast of space vacuum ( a person suffers from a localized decompression effect) or throws huge balls of slimy gold.
The Bloated Twin, The Dog (Usury)
Trusted servant, money his vice
Preyed on the weak and addicted
Risking more and more
To skim off the top
Thinking his master unaware
The master collects more interest
Then the dog can pay
Ships Logs: Two bodies were found in an airlock, both dead from decompression. It is determined that it was a execution by a crime boss and his thugs who were aboard. One victim – The Dog – was the lender to the Gambler (The Leashed).
GM Notes: The Dog was skimming off the top from this particular transaction and his boss found out. Was killed in the same airlock as the Leashed.
Body Notes: Both bodies were placed in the airlock, intertwined the way they died (as the were fighting to kill each other, both angry at each other).
Demon Aspect Notes: The demon aspect of The Twins act the same. Both are bloated from the vacuum of space, both appear like large coin purses full of coins. They attack with either a blast of space vacuum ( a person suffers from a localized decompression effect) or throws huge balls of slimy gold.
The Queen, The Greater Sister (Invention)
Tempted by treasures of the past
Unmakers of Nature
Too small to see
Considered Blasphemy by some
Her undoing they shall be
Ships Logs:
GM Notes: A scientist picked up at Hira’s moon, with her cargo. Her cargo was some proscribed tech she discovered – nanites. She thinks they can be used to make you immortal but that’s not entirely true. Tempted by the demonologist, she could not wait and started experimenting on her own, in the cargo bay
Body Notes: Left in the forward cargo hold, behind the boxes of her stuff.
Demon Aspect Notes: The demon aspect is the warped version of the woman, distorted by the technology she toyed with. She attacks with blasts of energy from the nano- weapons she can form from her appendages or tentacles. In physical form, she also can bite and transfer the nanites to the person. Acts as a poison that eats away at the flash from the inside out.
The King (Pride)
Master of his own ship
Overconfident in himself
Challenge unwinnable
Justice by his subordinates his fate
Ships Logs: Final log is recorded by XO, after the execution of the Captain.
GM Notes: The Captain eventually is killed in a rage, declaring his supremacy over all. His crew mutiny and string him up before the
Body Notes: His body was never moved by remains in his own quarters, hanging.
Demon Aspect Notes: The demon aspect is the captain in his prideful rage, throwing blasts of psychic energy that renders the target a subordinate fool (Will save