GURPS (4th ed.)-Locations-Metro of Madness.pdf

Locations:

Metro of

Madness TM

Written by FADE MANLEY and BEVAN THOMAS

Edited by NIKOLA VRTIS

Illustrated by ALEX FERNANDEZ and BEN WILLIAMS

An e23 Sourcebook for GURPS ®

STEVE JACKSON GAMES

Stock #37-1411

Version 1.0 – March 2009

C ONTENTS

I NTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

About GURPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

S YMBOLISM OF THE T UNNELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

The Station as a Ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Mural Wisps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Mana and the Metro System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

R AIL S HAMANISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Daniel Walks-the-Rails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Rail Shaman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

N EW S PELLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

S PIRITS OF THE S UBWAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

New Special Enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Genii Loci of the Metro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Ghost Metro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Miriam, Genius Loci of Samuel Luke Station . . . . . . . . . . 28

Subway Ghost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Andy Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

I LLUMINATED A RCHITECTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

U NDERGROUND H EADQUARTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

1. T HE S TATION T HAT L UKE B UILT . . . . . . . 4

H ISTORY OF THE S TATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

The Man Himself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Reasons for Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

E XPLORING THE S TATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Level One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Level Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Level Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Mind the Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Urban Legends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Riding the Trains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

M AP OF S AMUEL L UKE S TATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2. P ASSENGERS ON THE S UBWAY . . . . . . . . 10

S TATION T RAFFIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

T EMPLATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Cultist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

New Skill Specialties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Timothy “Tim” Hudson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Metrophile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Richard Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Pickpocket. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Megan “Rose” Sinclair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Serial Killer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Harold McDowell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Urban Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Jordan Spenser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

O THER P ROMINENT NPC S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Amelia Hernandez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Catherine “Cathy” Madison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Mad Mort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Peter “Master Vassago” Norton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Reynard Gray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Valerie Summers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

You don't look at each other on the

subway.

– Simon Pegg

4. P UTTING I T A LL T OGETHER . . . . . . . . . 31

T HE S TATION AND THE C ITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

T HE S TATION IN O THER G ENRES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Cyberpunk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Fantasy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Infinite Worlds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Science Fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Steampunk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

In Nomine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Supers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Changing the Mood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

B IBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Nonfiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

GURPS Supplements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Other Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3. T HE M YSTERIES OF THE T RACKS . . . . . 20

C ATACOMBS B ENEATH THE C ITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Troglodytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Chthonic Demon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Chthonic Disciples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

I NDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

GURPS System Design

❚

STEVE JACKSON

Managing Editor

❚

PHILIP REED

ROSS JEPSON

Errata Coordinator

❚

GURPS Line Editor

❚

SEAN PUNCH

WILL SCHOONOVER

Production Artist & Indexer

❚

WARREN

MacLAUCHLAN McKENZIE

GURPS FAQ Maintainer

❚

e23 Manager

❚

STEVEN MARSH

❚

NIKOLA VRTIS

PHIL REED and

JUSTIN DE WITT

❚

MONICA STEPHENS

Marketing Director

❚

–––––––

VICKY “MOLOKH” KOLENKO

❚

PAUL CHAPMAN

GURPS , Warehouse 23, and the all-seeing pyramid are registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. Pyramid , e23, Metro of Madness , and the names

of all products published by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated are registered trademarks or trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated, or used under license.

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C ONTENTS

Director of Sales

Art Director

Page Design

Prepress Checker

GURPS Locations: Metro of Madness explores Samuel

Luke Station, a subway stop that can become part of a city

transit system. It is the disquieting magnum opus of a maver-

ick artist, filled with vandalized stone angels and coated with

cryptic graffiti . . . a place that has accumulated dark urban leg-

ends and fills passersby with curiosity and fear. This GURPS

Fourth Edition supplement covers the layout and history of

Samuel Luke Station, the most prominent people connected

with it, and how this station can play a role

in a wide variety of campaigns, especially in

illuminated and supernatural settings.

writing a pretentious, deeply personal novel, and he hopes to

get it published.

Bevan wishes to thank Graham Fox, former head of the

British Columbia Rhinoceros Party and a true scholar of the

bizarre, for all his help and support. He also expresses grati-

tude to his brothers Alexander, Gwyn, and Ian for their excel-

lent ideas, and Ryan Elias, whose LARPs served as the initial

inspiration for this book.

About GURPS

Steve Jackson Games is committed to full support of GURPS players.

Our address is SJ Games, P.O. Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760. Please

include a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) any time you write us!

We can also be reached by e-mail: info@sjgames.com . Resources include:

New supplements and adventures. GURPS continues to grow – see

what’s new at www.sjgames.com/gurps .

e23. Our e-publishing division offers GURPS adventures, play aids, and

support in PDF form . . . digital copies of our books, plus exclusive mate-

rial available only on e23! Just head over to e23.sjgames.com .

Pyramid ( www.sjgames.com/pyramid ) . Our monthly PDF magazine

includes new rules and articles for GURPS , systemless locations, adven-

tures, and much more. Look for each themed issue from e23!

Internet. Visit us on the World Wide Web at www.sjgames.com for

errata, updates, Q&A, and much more. To discuss GURPS with our staff

and your fellow gamers, visit our forums at forums.sjgames.com .

The GURPS Locations: Metro of Madness web page is located at

www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/locations/metroofmadness .

Bibliographies. Many of our books have extensive bibliographies, and

we’re putting them online – with links to let you buy the resources that

interest you! Go to each book’s web page and look for the “Bibliography”

link.

Errata. Everyone makes mistakes, including us – but we do our best to

fix our errors. Up-to-date errata pages for all GURPS releases, including

this book, are available on our website – see above.

Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the GURPS Basic

Set, Fourth Edition. Page references that begin with B refer to that book,

not this one.

A BOUT THE

A UTHORS

Fade Manley lives in Austin, which she

has never quite forgiven for being located in

Texas. Despite having designed SPANC

(Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls) and

living with four cats at home, she is not at all

obsessed with felines, and she has carefully

excised all other mentions of cats but one

from this manuscript just to prove that

point. She is working on a cliched YA fantasy

novel when not wasting all her time on role-

playing games online.

After communicating with customers

almost exclusively through e-mail for years,

she has become entirely resigned to being

addressed as “Mr. Manley” and “Dear sir:” in

business communication.

Bevan Thomas lives in Victoria, B.C.,

where he writes, reads, and ponders the infi-

nite. His articles have appeared in several

magazines, including Knights of the Dinner

Table , Webcomics World , and Pyramid , and

he has contributed to books published by

Bastion Press and White Wolf. Many jour-

neys on Vancouver’s metro system inspired

this supplement, which was shaped by his

love of mythology, conspiracies, gothic

adventure, and fringe mysticism. He is

Harshly articulate, musical steel shell

Of angry worship, hurled religiously

Upon your business of humility

Into the iron forestries of Hell.

– Allen Tate, “The Subway”

I NTRODUCTION

T HE S TATION

T HAT L UKE

B UILT

The doors of the train barely open before Jennifer Larson steps

onto the platform at Samuel Luke Station. Her eyes wander past

the hurried commuters and the man begging in the corner to set-

tle on a painting attached to the station’s wall: an angel being

buried alive, screaming as a cheerful crowd shovels dirt over her

struggling body. Somebody has spray-painted “I want to go

home” into a speech bubble over the angel’s face.

“People say that was his wife.” The man standing beside her

tilts back a wide-brimmed hat and smiles as Jennifer looks at

him. “Samuel Luke buried her alive in the masonry of the sta-

tion, and then went mad. He painted his own crime on the

walls.”

“Is that true?” she asks, already reaching for her notebook.

The man shrugs, still smiling. “It’s what people say.”

H ISTORY OF THE S TATION

When the city council decided to expand the subway sys-

tem, they awarded the contract to maverick architect and artist

Samuel Luke. Luke kept to conventional design principles for

almost all of the stations, but he insisted on full creative con-

trol of one station, to be named after him. He surprised the city

by selecting a station in a failing industrial area.

Luke personally painted and sculpted all of the chosen loca-

tion’s embellishments. Like all of his creations, the art in the sta-

tion displays his love of melancholy religious iconography. The

intersecting vaults in the glass ceiling of the top level, coupled

with the arching walls and the statues of angels and saints, lead

many to compare Samuel Luke Station to a Catholic cathedral.

At its unveiling, the delicate craftsmanship and powerful

imagery awed onlookers, though many felt there were too many

disturbing pieces among the decor for a public facility.

The station has fallen into disrepair since then. The granite

walls are caked with layers of graffiti. Almost all of the statues

are defaced; some have been smashed to unrecognizable

lumps of filthy marble. Budget concerns and a lack of interest

in the area have stalled plans to remove or replace the dam-

aged pieces, so the station remains in its marred state.

More than the art has decayed over the years. Homeless

people use the station for shelter, gangs for a meeting place,

drug dealers and prostitutes to find customers, and thieves and

robbers to acquire a fresh source of victims. This unsavory ele-

ment, combined with the disturbing appearance of the station’s

shattered stone angels, has resulted in many ghoulish rumors.

The neighborhood deteriorates just as the station does.

T HE M AN H IMSELF

Samuel Luke was a man of many rumors and few facts. He

delighted in giving conflicting stories about his past, when he

agreed to give interviews at all. Those who worked for him

spread stories of his eccentricities: He refused to work on

Wednesdays, shake hands (unless sealing a bargain), or eat in

front of others.

He is known for architectural projects that combined the

grandiose and mystical with the mundane and prosaic, adapt-

ing elements from gothic cathedrals for use in public struc-

tures. Samuel Luke Station was the pinnacle of his career . . .

and his final work. Soon after his location was complete, Luke

dropped out of sight and has not been heard from since.

R EASONS FOR C ONSTRUCTION

Many people asked why Samuel Luke placed his station in

a part of town where his art was sure to be vandalized. No one

received a satisfactory answer.

Art majors from the local college believe that Luke designed

the station as a form of avant-garde art, and the inevitable

defacing of the angelic and saintly images is a metaphor for a

loss of innocence or the modern degradation of values. Others

offer stranger theories: The station is a cover-up for a secret

government project. It is being used for occult rituals. It is a

gate to Hell. These and other esoteric uses of Samuel Luke

Station are discussed in Chapter 3.

T HE S TATION T HAT L UKE B UILT

C HAPTER O NE

E XPLORING THE S TATION

Samuel Luke is built on three levels: the entrance, a court-

yard, and the actual station. Inside the station, there are no

doors except for those that lead into the washrooms and the

ticket booths. The entrance has heavy oak doors on well-oiled

hinges. Luke’s original locks on these doors have been supple-

mented with modern security systems, but the locks them-

selves are still in good repair.

Graffiti covers much of the station. Although the usual gang

tags, angry slogans, and offers of sex do appear in Samuel

Luke, they are mostly confined to the upper sections. The mes-

sages spray-painted on the walls of the lower levels are reli-

gious, cryptic, or most often both. Biblical quotes are

common, such as Isaiah 14:12 (“How art thou fallen from

Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down

to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”) and

Revelation 20:1 (“And I saw an angel come down from Heaven,

having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his

hand”), as is the name “Samael Lucifer,” an obvious reference

to the station’s creator. Other popular phrases are “Heaven is

emptied,” “Kingdom of the Blind,” and “Abandon all hope, ye

who enter here.” People have left graffiti in other languages,

particularly Hebrew and Latin. Strange symbols lurk in odd

corners, phrases in unrecognizable languages and crude, dis-

turbing images of demons and suffering.

A map of the station appears on p. 8.

New names or phone numbers have replaced some existing

ones. Other entries have been completely blacked-out, and new

entries have been added. Comments such as “Not the One,”

“Give her three apples,” and “Do you know me?” annotate

many entries.

The washrooms at Samuel Luke Station are infamous for

drug deals and prostitution. These rumors are likely exagger-

ated – who would use washrooms in such a state? The mirrors

are shattered, the walls are coated in graffiti and unidentifiable

stains, the toilets have backed up, and the floors are covered in

toilet paper and pools of liquid.

Lo! ’tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter

years!

An angel throng, bewinged,

bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears.

– Edgar Allan Poe,

“The Conqueror Worm”

L EVEL O NE

At street level, a grass lawn with a gnarled cedar tree and

tangles of dying weeds spreads out in front of the subway sta-

tion. A stone path leads to the entrance. A pair of stone cheru-

bim sit on either side of the doorway. Though the cherubim

were carved to appear as lions with human faces and four

wings each, their wings have been snapped off and their faces

smashed to lumps. A plate-glass roof spills daylight into a

courtyard below. Commuters can descend to the courtyard by

a staircase, twin escalators, or an elevator, all located behind

the wide station doors.

Fifteen minutes after the last scheduled train has gone

through Samuel Luke Station for the day, the escalators stop

and the custodian locks the doors.

On the other side of the courtyard is a small garden. It is

open to the sky and rises to street level; in wet weather, this fre-

quently results in mud and puddles throughout the station.

The garden includes ash trees, cedars, and a pair of apple trees,

all tangled with weeds and bushes. A marble Francis of Assisi

sits on one side of a bench now grown over with foliage,

preaching to a flock of stone birds. His eyes have been chiseled

out and his fingers shattered, and some of the birds are gone

save for sharp lumps where their feet once perched. A marble

angel beneath the cedar tree wrestles with a hippopotamus-

like beast, both long since decapitated in an impressive feat of

vandalism.

A life-size granite statue of a woman stands between the

two apple trees. She has fangs, a snake’s tail instead of feet, and

she holds up her hands in desperate supplication toward

Heaven. This figure, which most people identify as Lilith, is the

only completely undamaged piece of art in the station.

A fountain sits at the boundary of the garden and the court-

yard. At its center is a statue of the Virgin Mary, clasping a vase

from which pours a stream of water. The statue is chipped all

over and streaked with blood-red paint. Her robe completely

covers her feet, which piques some Catholics (traditional

iconography always shows at least one of Mary’s feet, proving

that she is not a hoofed devil in disguise). People use the water

around the statue as a wishing well, tossing in coins, animal

bones, little dolls, and other strange objects; it’s difficult at a

glance to distinguish the occult offerings from mere trash.

L EVEL T WO

The courtyard at the foot of the stairs has corridors on both

sides leading to pay phones and public washrooms. During the

day, vendors with carts offer cheap food and drinks, newspa-

pers and magazines, or, occasionally, fresh flowers. The ven-

dors change frequently, but there’s always someone willing to

put up with the weird surroundings to sell a few cups of coffee

to weary commuters.

Most of the pay phones have been pried open, had their

handsets broken off, or been torn off the wall. The few remain-

ing phone books are almost unusable, with most of the pages

torn out and words and pictures scribbled on the ones that are

left. The inscriptions are in the same style as the rest of the

graffiti, except that they relate directly to the book’s entries.

T HE S TATION T HAT L UKE B UILT

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: