Page 202 - Chronicles of Darkness

door to the room so that the character can identify who else strange events involving a strange room, changing their past,
is using this room. and people vanishing.
Stealth: What do other people dream? Roll Composure Good Time Management (see p. 44): Once in the past,
+ Stealth to hide in the room until someone else falls asleep. you only have so much time. Making quick use of the time
If you stay there with them, and fall asleep as well, do you you have is essential.
time travel together? True Friend (see p. 56): If you could relieve one mo-
Empathy: Characters who have used this room at least ment, would anyone believe you? Changing the past is risky
once gain a sense of other people who have used this room. and potentially addictive, and it would be helpful to have
Any time one dreamer sees another, he makes a reflexive someone who could share the experience — unless, of course,
Intelligence + Empathy roll. Success means that the observer that friend starts using the room, too.
can tell that this person has also used this room. The observer
also gains a general, vague sense of what events have changed Escalation
in this dreamer’s life. If the observer personally knows the
dreamer, he gains more information. Rooms like this begin appearing in several cities and
Streetwise: Dreamers remember anyone who vanishes towns. Rumors about these rooms begin circulating on the
because they used the room one too many times. As soon as internet, as do reports of people vanishing and no one else
a dreamer asks a non-dreamer who no longer remembers the remembering them. Depending on how this progresses, im-
person ever existed, the dreamer simultaneously remembers portant bits of history like deaths might be altered, leading
that the vanished person never existed in the reality they now to Wake the Dead (p. 214).
inhabit. A Wits + Streetwise roll permits characters to learn A Journey Into Time (p. 228) is also a natural progression
about and locate other people who have been talking about from this story.

SISTER CITY

Something is wrong with your old familiar skyline. Is that The Truth: The God-Machine isn’t doing this on pur-
a building that wasn’t there before, a cab from a company pose, so the city’s dual nature isn’t really Infrastructure.
that doesn’t exist, the smell of exotic food coming from a Rather, Old Seattle is logistical Infrastructure insofar as the
library? Is it possible this isn’t even your city anymore? What God-Machine kept it going after the fire as a kind of “what
do you do when the God-Machine glitches and you see what if” experiment, but the two cities were never meant to merge.
you aren’t meant to see? All of the God-Machine’s attempts to keep the cities sepa-
Infrastructure rate and kill people who cross over, then, are elimination
Infrastructure.

In 1889 Seattle burned nearly to the ground. A new city Interchangeable Parts
was built over the ashes and tinder left behind. But the God-
Machine wasn’t quite done with the old city, so it allowed The player characters should be split, some of them living
the old city to continue to exist in the same space at the same in Seattle, and some living in Old Seattle. Up until now their
time but with neither city aware of the other’s existence. lives have been separate. Now, they run into each other’s
It’s an average day in Seattle. Maybe you’re in software lives as one city crashes into another and sharing one space
design, or coffee, or organic foods. The drizzle doesn’t get becomes a problem.
to you any more than the cold and you’re content knowing Characters in Seattle are exactly the sorts of people you’d
you’re in one of the most forward thinking, progressive, and expect in a modern, liberal tech town.
intelligent cities in the world when.... Characters in Old Seattle have a wilder lifestyle and
It’s an average day in Old Seattle. Maybe you’re in ship- temperament. Given a hundred years to grow under the
ping, gambling, or dock work. The occasional piracy doesn’t God-Machine’s careful machinations, the city holds on to its
get to you any more than the crooked politicians because wild frontier feeling. Drunks and foreigners still occasionally
you’re content knowing you’re in one of the most exciting, get kidnapped out of bars and sold off into slavery. Pirates
adventurous, and free spirited cities in the world when.... and a pirate-based economy still exist, though the media and
Something crosses over from Seattle to Old Seattle or vice politicians pretend they don’t. In general, the tech is lower,
versa. A ship with modern technology and cannons pulls except when it comes to ships and sailing, and Old Seattle
into the Seattle harbor, or some of the old-fashioned dock is known more for its liberal gambling laws and loopholes
workers find a cell phone, technology their city has never than it is for coffee.
seen before. And the characters are on hand to see the lifting All of the characters witness some event that crosses
illusion between the two places. between the cities. It would save time if all of the characters
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Sister City