Adventure Ideas: Page 6 (Ghost Stories)

GM's, do you want your player characters to get a creepy feeling that they're not alone? Do you want them to sense a chill in the air, or detect movement out of the corner of their eyes, or hear discarnate whispers coming from the dark hallway? Do you seek that delicious thrill of the characters assuring themselves that nothing’s there, that it’s only the wind or a trick of the light. Or perhaps your players desire to seek out the spirits that remain in the rooms of the past? Then these adventure ideas are for you!

“Bum Fighters”

Y'all remember them bum fight videos back in the day? The ones with all the homeless people beating each other up and doing dangerously stupid stunts? Remember how scandalizing people said they were? Remember how the people who filmed and sold the videos got sued and all that? Well, those video cant be distributed anymore, but the stunts and random fights are still a thing around here. In fact, there seems to be more and more of them these days. There's no shortage of homeless people in the hood, and there's never enough people or money to help them out, so they're easy pickings for people with poor taste in entertainment looking for cheap laughs.

They call the homeless people "Bum Fighters", a name inspired by some fighting video game from way back. For the price of a few bottles of booze, or a bag of blow, or even for some classic cash, you can arrange a bum fight pretty fast, and at most hours of the day. And these people come from miles around too, setting up these fights at a moments notice and getting a cheap laugh and some amusement before slinking back to whereever they came from. The worst of them are the ones who set up fights that offer bigger prizes to those willing to fight each other with sticks, bats, knives and other weapons for an even more visceral show. Sometimes they get them to do even more dangerous stunts like running through busy traffic on the interstate or walking the edge of the rooftops while drunk as a skunk.

There's no medical attention offered afterwards to these poor, desperate people either. People who are already in various declines of health as it is. So several of these fighters have died over the years, getting so beaten up and injured that they're too incapacitated to get medical help. Those despicable people who arrange the fights don't bother to help them as they'd get arrested for initiating street fights in the first place.

I think that's why the spirit showed up and started haunting our neighborhood.

The ghost... its making people crazy, man! Everyday, normal, rational people who normally mind their own business and live their lives as usual are suddenly going crazy, screaming and ranting like they gone mad and attack people and/or do insanely dangerous things that gets them injured or killed before they stop. Those who survive these sudden bouts of craziness say they don't know what came over them, they just went nuts. At first, the people who had been going crazy, or had been attacked by people who'd gone crazy were the ones instigating the bum fighting. But more and more people who never had anything to do with the fights are getting possessed.

Word gets around, and I heard someone say they seen the ghost lurking the streets at night, saying its wandering around unseen, picking people at random to possess and make them go crazy. Some people think the ghosts of the homeless who died from their wounds are what's doing it. I, on the other hand, think its a spirit of vengeance, a ghostly voice standing up for these desperate people when no one else does.
That's great and all, but the problem is that the ghost isn't just coming after the people responsible anymore.

It got to one of my neighbors a week or so back. Witnesses said he just went bananas while walking home one night, yelling and screaming and attacking people before finally jumping out in traffic and got himself killed. I knew him for a long time, and I knew him well enough to say that he wasn't a crazy man. In fact, he was a good man and a kind soul. He discouraged the bum fights. He called the cops once when he saw a fight break out. He even volunteered at the soup kitchen down the street some nights. He didn't deserve what happened to him.

I've never watched any of the bum fights either. I don't encourage them, I don't want them here either; its despicable and sickening to take advantage of people like that.
But that don't matter to the ghost, it comes after whoever it wants and makes them do all the crazy, dangerous things the homeless people are made to do. So I'm in just as much danger as the people the ghost should be coming after!

Whatever it is, I hope it solves the problem and goes away, and soon.
- Marty Sloan, local grocery store worker who lives nearby.

The Adventure Idea: A Madness Ghost (RIFTS: Madhaven, pages 114-115) has found its way to this part of the big city and is possessing people, turning them into raving lunatics. It didn't come as any sort of “spirit of vengeance” like Marty believes (or at least hopes), its arrival was simply incidental timing. It was acts of sheer, dumb luck that the first several victims were the people who incite and encourage the bum fights. In reality, the Ghost doesn't care who it possesses, and innocents are getting hurt or killed by its possessions. If anything, all the P.P.E. from the dying fighters is what drew it here.

Unfortunately, the P.P.E. from the death and the lure of human desperation is starting to attract other entities and P.P.E. vampires as well. Unless the investigators get involved soon, who knows how bad things will get. And if/when they start hindering or halting the bum fights, the instigators wont be happy about it and are likely to offer money and prizes to anyone willing to impede, harass, or even attack the investigators.
Then there's the danger of the Madness Ghost itself coming for the investigators.
Things could get bad enough that a Conglomerate Entity (also from RIFTS: Madhaven) could be created from all this, a entity as terrible as it is rare on BTS Earth.

This adventure/investigation can get unexpectedly dangerous for the player characters, and quickly!

"Marfa"

Marfa is a pretty little homemade rag doll, who's still in surprisingly good condition and is just as vibrant, as clean and as pretty as she was the day she was given to Claire on her 3rd birthday. Claire meant to name her “Martha”, but it came out sounding like “Marfa” in Claire's inexperienced three-year-old tongue and it stuck. Marfa went everywhere with Claire. Claire talked to and played with Marfa all the time. Clare has taken very good care of Marfa over the years.

Now nine years old, Claire still takes Marfe everywhere with her. She still talks to and plays with Marfa every day. When asked about why she still plays with the old rag doll, Claire says she has to; “Marfa doesn't like being ignored”. Over time, if asked enough questions about Marfa... according to Claire, Marfa doesn't like a lot things.

Marfa didn't like it when Claire's older brother bullied one afternoon after shcool, pulling Marfa from her grasp and holding it over her head, just out or reach while teasing her about it like big brothers sometimes do. Even after the many times Claire begged and begged her brother to stop it with tears streaming down her eyes because “Marfa doesn't like that”, he kept it up until their parents got involved. The next morning, her brother shattered several bones in his leg after tripping on his skateboard and falling down the stairs. He swore that he didn't leave his skateboard out, but that he cleaned his room the day before and put it in his closet.

Marfa didn't like it when Amos, the family dog found and chewed on her one day, ripping her dress and part of her fabric body before Claire could retrieve and rescue her.
The next morning, Amos was missing and was never seen again. Marfa however looked brand new.

Claire says Marfa watches her while she sleeps at night and it scares her to the point of being too afraid to want to go to sleep. But she's even more afraid of not letting Marfa watch her sleep. Marfa wouldn't like that.

Last year, Claire asked her grandma, who gave her the doll as a birthday gift years earlier, to take Marfa back as she was afraid of it. Claire was careful to make sure Marfa was in her bedroom while grandma was downstairs in the living room before asking.
Of course her grandma thought this was a silly thing to ask, but assured her that if she was still afraid of Marfa when she stopped by for another visit in a week or so, she would take Marfa back to where she came from. Her grandma was found deceased in her bed when Claire's dad when to check on her after not returning his phone calls a few days later. She'd apparently passed away in her bed during the night after visiting Claire and her family. Claire now understood that Marfa doesnt like the idea of going back to where she came from.

A few weeks ago, Claire quickly stuffed Marfa in another girls backpack at school during recess. Being in Kindergarten, Claire hoped that the younger girl would like Marfa and keep her at her house, and she would be free at last. Marfa didn't like that.
Claire's family woke up to her screaming in the middle of the night. When they came to her bedroom, Claire was gasping for air as if she's couldn't breathe and had been choking to death. Her parents said it was just a nightmare, but Claire knew better... Marfa was laying in her usual spot in the bed next to her, like she always did... because Marfa likes to lay there while watching her sleep.

Claire's parents confronted Claire in the kitchen a few night ago at the dinner table, telling her that its time she let Marfa go. Claire shrieked a scream they'd never heard before, scooped up Marfa in her arms, leapt out of her chair, ran to a kitchen drawer, pulled out a steak knife and tucked herself into a corner of the kitchen, clutching Marfa under one arm while holding the knife in her free hand, threateningly pointing it at her family. With frantic tears and absolute terror in her eyes she screamed “DO NOT TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME! MARFA WONT LIKE THAT!” It took the rest of the evening for the tension and concerns of that evening to calm down, and only after her parents promised not to take Marfa away.

That same night however, her dad came into her room to take Marfa away while CLaire was sleeping. When he opened the door, he froze in place. Marfa was propped on the pillow next to a sleeping Claire, as if she were staring right as him. While it might have been his imagination, her dad had an icy and sickening feeling in his gut that Marfa was watching him, and warning him. He left Marfa where she lay, and went back to bed, uncharacteristically locking the bedroom door behind him that night.

Not sure what else to do (and secretly becoming fearful of the rag doll), Claire's parents took her to a child therapist to talk about her “fascination with Marfa”. Claire knew that the therapist wouldn't believe her, but when pressed, Claire told her everything she knew and experienced about Marfa. It felt good to get it all off her chest.

Her therapist didn't believe her of course, but asked Claire if Marfa could stay with her for a few days, to give Claire “a break”, thinking this would give her the space to let the rag doll go. Claire had to be pressured into it by both her parents and her therapist, but after numerous times of saying Marfa wont like that, she relented. Notably, she didn't give or hand Marfa over the therapist; she placed the doll on the table between her and the therapist, saying “I'm sorry”. Its uncertain if she said this to Marfa or the therapist.

That evening, the therapist was driving home from work, Marfa tucked safely in her messenger bag. She didn't make it home; instead she suddenly swerved erratically on the road before having a head on collision with a semi. She died on impact. Marfa wasn't found in the wreckage. Marfa was sitting in Claire's chair at the dinner table in the kitchen the following morning. Claire's mother was the first to see her, screaming in terror at the sight of the rag doll.

Victoria, another child therapist and a colleague of Claire's now deceased therapist called her parents later that day with the news of the accident, and that she would be taking over as Claire's therapist. An exhausted and terrified sounding response from Claire's mom told her that it wouldn't be necessary, letting it slip that “Marfa wouldn't like that”.

Unlike her colleague, Victoria could see the hints and cues in Claire's story. More importantly, not only did she believe Claire's story, but she knows of a few paranormal investigators who might be able to help her.

Game Master considerations: What is Marfa? Is the doll possessed by an entity of some sort? Is the doll really a demon or a monster in disguise?

Why is Marfa so attached to Claire? Is there something special about Claire, or was it simply bad luck that Marfa came to her? And what happens if the investigators take Marfa away from Claire? What happens if they damage or destroy the rag doll?

While on the surface, this adventure has all the earmarks of an entity, including the teleportation of objects and haunting the family, she's obviously something more powerful. Marfa is also able to stifle her supernatural aura, meaning the psychic investigators wont be able to get more than a x2 I.S.P. boost investigating her. That is, unless she reveals her true self, which she wouldn't do unless necessary.

As Claire's grandma is deceased, they cant ask her where she got the doll from. However, if a Psychic Medium is in the group, performing a seance to reach out and talk to her spirit can be helpful. Talking to her spirit might be a lead to a much bigger adventure altogether. For example, her grandmother might have found and bought her at a quarterly craft fair show she visited regularly, or she might have commissioned someone to make her. Does Marfa's origins have anything to do with her being a supernatural being?

How the investigators go about solving this investigation is up to them, but as Marfa becomes aware that they're trying to take her away from Claire (or even worse, wants to destroy her), she will not take kindly to this and will retaliate. As noted above, her responses are potentially lethal and she ends up back with Claire by morning.
For example, simply incinerating her in a fire will see a character hospitalized the next morning with 3rd degree burns across their entire body as if they spontaneously combusted in the middle of the night. Marfa on the other hand will be laying next to Claire when she wakes up the next morning, looking as new as ever.

Note: I love the ideas and concepts of “Marfa” and I plan to go into writing more about her (and what she is) in my upcoming Beyond the Paranormal sourcebook.
However, I'd love to hear your thoughts about her and what you came up with while running this adventure idea. Feel free to contact me and let me know what you did with this adventure idea.