Page 190 - Chronicles of Darkness

Themes

The characters are following orders.
Does that make what they are doing any
easier? If their superiors tell them to stop
a serial killer who can clearly violate the
laws of time and space, does the fact
that he can violate those laws supersede
what he is?
Players should consider their char-
acters’ motivations very carefully. If
a character is motivated by a sense of
duty to his fellow man, at what point
does that curdle? Does witnessing war
in all of its historic, bloody glory make
a soldier despair? Does he realize he is
just one more body thrown into a meat
grinder, a veritable drop in a bucket
that, apparently, never wants for volume?
Does seeing the world tear itself apart in
the wake of a devastating illness make a
doctor wonder if this is all worth saving?
Sequence

The Key (p. 208)  The Hatching
(p. 226)  Operation: Bell Jar
(p. 221)  What Is It Good For
(p.233)  The Scarlet Plague (p.
225)

Progression

This track starts with The Key be-
cause tracking a serial killer is something
that the players should be able to under-
stand. Police procedurals make for good
inspiration for this opening story, as do
movies like The Silence of the Lambs and
Insomnia. The characters might be police
officers in the various cities affected,
or they could be a specialist team from
a variety of different agencies. Stretch
suspension of disbelief if you need to;
this is obviously a special case.
The Key  The Hatching

The Hatching, as written, doesn’t as-
sume the characters have any particular
training or expertise, but coming on chronicle track’s theme of following orders, maybe the charac-
the heels of The Key, it might be that the God-Machine spe- ters’ superiors find evidence that Wesley was in Liberty Park
cifically chooses these characters to save the world. Maybe, and might have left behind evidence. Once the characters
after disposing of Wesley Cote, the characters receive a visit are there, The Hatching progresses as written.
from a version of him that never succumbed to his murder- The Hatching  Operation: Bell Jar
ous nature. This Wesley reveals that he is the true Key, and
tells them that they need to be in Liberty State Park at the This transition is probably the trickiest, because it involves
appropriate day and time. Or, if you want to keep with this taking a group of characters who are likely cops and changing

189
Chronicle Tracks