PLAY: Protect Latent Australians in Yellow

The Royal Chambers Company (RCC), a famous but secretive theatre company, are enacting a moonlit play in the Australian outback. They are performing a secretive play (The King in Yellow) to the rich and powerful. Fist are assigned to guard the actors and theatre goers. The theatre company assures FIST that nothing goes wrong most of the time.

The Theatre

FIST are guarding a play in the Australian outback near Campion, Western Australia. They must keep the company and theatre guests, rich and powerful Australians, safe. The FIST mercenaries were blindfolded and brought to the theatre so they don’t know the exact location.

The stage is an old outdoor structure carved from meteorites. It has a powerful presence with many intricate carvings of spherical objects. The spheres seem to represent stars and planets at a glance but as you focus on them they take on the appearance of gazing eyes.

The RCC representatives say that nothing is likely to happen but on the off chance FIST are there to keep the company and guests safe. The play cannot be stopped and the guests cannot stop watching.

Whilst guarding the play each FIST mercenary is forced to wear an Incognito helmet, this will block out the audio and visuals of the play. This covers the entire head so other head gear cannot be worn. Any character that sees or hears the play without an Incognito helmet will become enthralled by it. They will not be able to react to any outside stimuli. This includes the RCC staff who cannot stop their roles in the performance. A non-enthralled character will need to cover the eyes and ears of the enthralled character to release them from the grips of the play.

Behind the guests is a parking lot full of their Light util. vehicles (12 HP, 1 ARMOR). The keys can be stolen from the enthralled guests easily enough. For interest vehicles include:

• Toyota Land Cruisers J40
• Nissan Patrols 3rd gen
• Suzuki Jimny SJ40

Ghost emus of war

Half way through the intermission-less play a dark green meteorite 3 miles behind the stage will react. The meteorite will crack open with an emu cry loud enough to hear from 10 miles away. An ethereal column of light will indicate its position.

The meteorite will immediately begin to summon 986 GHOST EMUS OF WAR, 9 every 10 seconds. These were all killed during the Emu War of 1932.

The Emus will move towards the stage and subsequently attack the company and guests if not stopped by FIST. They can run up to ~30 miles per hour so each group of Emus will take 6 minutes to reach the stage. Unless fired upon they will only attack characters enthralled by the play. Once the meteorite cracks open keep a track of how many minutes have passed to know when the emus will reach the stage and to apply pressure and tension to the players.

To stop the Emu invasion FIST can kill all the ghosts or disable the summoning. To stop the summoning they need to reach the meteorite, within a crater, and pull out a dark green emu egg from the centre of it. If they smash the egg all the emus will disappear and no more will be summoned.

GHOST EMU OF WAR

(2HP, 9 appear)

• Ghostly claws (worst of 2D6 DAMAGE)
• Harmed by normal attacks
• Fast runners
• Flightless
• Ghostly emus riddled with holes
• Followed by the sounds of Emu cries drowned by Lewis gun (light machine guns) fire

Gregarious: Birds of a feather flock together, even more so when they were all slaughtered. These Emus will congregate into flocks of 9 or more, with flocks combining together. Although their ghostly attacks are weak they make up for this with shear numbers.

Reward

Each FIST member is allowed to keep their Incognito helmet if it is not lost/broken.

Incognito helmet: 1 ARMOR (accessory). This helmet has filters to protect the user from audio and visual cognitohazards. This prevents the perception of eldritch based cognitohazards.

Additionally, if FIST was particularly successful the RCC will create a Dromaius rock from the Emu meteorite and gift it to FIST.

Dromaius rock: Once per mission you can rub the rock to summon 1D6 GHOST EMUS OF WAR, they will stay till they are slayed. Once summoned make a suitable roll to tame the Emus.

• On a fail (1-6) the emus attack anyone they can see.
• On a partial success (7-9) they attack any group the summoner points at, if the attacked group is killed the Emus will then attack others, including the summoner, indiscriminately.
• On a success (10+) the Emus will listen to all commands of the summoner and can be ridden.
• On an ultra success (double 6s) an extra 2D6 emus are summoned and they all act in the same manner as a success (10+).

If FIST decides to allow and/or assist the Emus in killing all the guests they will leave peacefully and happily. FIST will be able to keep the Incognito helmets. The emus will gift FIST a Dromaius rock and the below weapon.

Lewis gun light machine gun (1D6+1 DAMAGE, MOTION-TURRET)

MOTION-TURRET weapon tag: This weapon can be set-up as a turret to automatically shoot at any motion within a 45 degree cone.