Page 156 - Hunter - The Vigil

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armer only has four minutes, or four rolls, in which to disarm Since the tracker actually follows the etheric signature of
the device. Once that time ticks down, the device detonates if the pellet and not a radio frequency or other, more earthly sig-
it hasn’t been neutralized. natures, it can follow creatures even when they slip into an
Against humans and monsters not afraid of sunlight, the invisible, intangible state. Likewise, the pellet’s pseudo-etheric
VDSB is treated as an ordinary explosive. It has a “Damage” nature allows it to anchor in the resonant structure of a mani-
of 4, but damage is only rolled to determine whether or not fested ghost or spirit as well as the flesh of a corporeal entity.

the target is Stunned. Remember that to calculate an explo- The current model cannot track a target that fully departs this
sive’s damage, you roll a number of dice equal to the Damage, plane of existence, but Task Force: VALKYRIE researchers are
in this case 4, and add the successes to the base Damage rating hard at work on cracking that puzzle as well. An etheric tracker
(see The World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 178). Blind char- has an effective range of only half a mile, but this range is not
acters and creatures without eyes are unaffected. hampered by buildings or other obstructions. A single pellet
When a vampire or other creature vulnerable to bright can be tracked for 24 hours before its etheric resonance fades.
light is caught within the area of a VDSB, the effects are far Special: An Etheric Tracker comes with a full magazine
more pronounced. The vampire’s player must immediately of pellets, which resembles a magazine for a semiautomatic
make an extended Resolve + Composure roll, with each roll pistol filled with blue sand. The sheer number of pellets

representing one turn. Each turn in which the vampire’s player means the Etheric Tracker’s ammunition is effectively unlim-
rolls at least one success, he maintains his composure for one ited. Should an agent lose his supply of etheric pellets, a call

further turn. If at any time the vampire fails to gain any suc- to his home office and a successful Wits + Politics roll can get
cesses on a roll, he flies into a frenzy of fear in which his only him a replacement within one week, provided he can get to

objective is to flee from the source of the light. He will attack a population center or military base. An exceptional success

anyone who gets in his way, but otherwise just tries to get away. sees the pellets delivered within one day.
If the vampire accumulates fi ve successes on the extended roll,
he shakes off the fl ight instinct and can act normally. Munin Serum (••••, Renewable)
Special: A VDSB can only be used once before it must be No matter how black the black ops or how covert the
refitted; the intensity of the flash burns out the light sources covert strike team, on occasion, witnesses to Task Force:

in a single use. Unlike the Equalizer grenade, a VDSB can VALKYRIE operations survive the initial fracas. Sometimes

be refitted in the field with a minimum of fuss. Refitting a it’s a bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time, some-
Sig mine requires full spectrum lights available from most times it’s the newly freed victim of a possessing entity or the
science-novelty or pet stores for a Resource cost of • and 15 liberated thrall of a warlock. Sometimes, those witnesses start
successes on an extended Intelligence + Craft roll. Each roll to ask awkward questions. Since secrecy is one of the organi-
represents 20 minutes of work. zation’s paramount directives, the silence of these witnesses
must be guaranteed. In the old days, that meant a couple of
Etheric Tracker (••••) ounces of lead in the back of the head; nowadays, VALKYRIE
Monsters, whatever their stripe, tend to be elusive. operatives prefer to use less messy alternatives.
Whether it’s a vampire’s ability to cloud men’s minds, a witch’s Munin serum — or, as it’s more colloquially known,
teleportation spell, or a werewolf’s really damn disconcerting “memory cleanser” or “Brain-O” — is a cocktail of narcotics,
way of just disappearing sometimes, if Task Force: VALKYRIE psychedelics and memory-inhibitor drugs that can completely

can’t find it, they can’t very well tag it or kill it. The etheric suppress the last six hours of a subject’s memory. Extensive
tracker is one step toward nullifying that advantage. By mark- application of the drug can lead to addiction, illness and even
ing a target with a small “tag” that has been bombarded with death. New VALKYRIE recruits are frightened with campfi re
exotic, high-energy particles similar to those underlying the tales of agents who injected themselves with Munin serum to
creation of etheric rounds, Task Force: VALKYRIE can track forget the horrific things they’d seen, only to end up wasted,

its quarry even through realms beyond mortal ken. cancer-ravaged addicts desperately jonesing for a taste of the
Function: The etheric tracker consists of two parts: the high they can never quite remember.
main unit is roughly the size and shape of a large pistol (Size Function: Munin serum must be administered by injec-
1), which uses precisely aligned electromagnets to fire a track- tion directly into the spinal column just below the cervical

ing pellet at considerable velocity, embedding it below the vertebrae. The process is excruciatingly painful and subjects
target’s skin. The pellets themselves are roughly the size of a are usually sedated before being treated. If an agent wishes to
grain of sand, and are small enough that the target must roll administer Munin serum to an aware and unwilling target, he
Wits + Composure to notice the impact. Even if it is noticed, must first successfully grapple his target. Once the target is held

the sensation is comparable to the bite of a small insect. A securely, he must succeed on a Strength + Medicine “attack” at
handheld scanner, the second part of the tracker, picks up the a -2 penalty (the actual penalty is -3 for targeting the victim’s
pseudo-etheric radiation given off by the pellet and displays head, but Task Force: VALKYRIE distributes Munin serum in
a location on an LCD screen. Earlier models only showed ap- large, sturdy hypodermics that count as +1 weapons).
proximate distance and direction; current field models inte- As long as the hunter scores at least one success on this

grate a GPS locator and street maps of the area, allowing the attack, he may dose the target. Each dose affects one hour of
team to pinpoint the precise location of its quarry. the subject’s memory; a single syringe of the serum contains

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