Page 206 - Chronicles of Darkness

WELLINGTON SCHOOL

FOR GIFTED CHILDREN

The children of Wellington School are special, brilliant, real-world experience.” What they mean is, “if we can sneak
and strange. Are they the cause or the reason for the strange you through a background check and you can remotely justify
and sometimes deadly occurrences that happen around the your experience, you’re hired.”
school? You, the faculty, are about to find out. Wellington always focused on future careers as well as
Infrastructure higher learning, so they have a functioning auto-shop pro-
gram and metal works. Retired cops may find themselves
asked to teach Criminal Justice to high school students at
When the public school system in this medium sized a college level. To keep the children enthusiastic and chal-
American city “failed,” many of the schools were bought out lenged, maybe they’ve arranged for a guest instructor this
by private companies. This included Wellington, a special semester in anthropology, world religions, paranormal stud-
school that handles children who are both troubled and bril- ies, or other esoteric subjects.
liant. The sorts of kids who, if sent to an average school, get It’s perfectly reasonable for one or all of the characters
so bored they cause trouble. In the privatization, Edu Tech to play some of the troubled teens from the school, students
Corp fired the entire staff, disposed of the old computer who live, sleep, and eat inside the strange walls.
systems, and hired a whole new faculty and administration.
They called it “restructuring.” The fired teachers called it Blueprints
“union busting.”
It got weird for a while. The papers reported some of All children are special, of course, but these children are
the old staff wouldn’t give up their jobs. They locked them- more special than most. For whatever trick of circumstance or
selves in the building chanting crazed profanity, and had to twistedly-inspired architecture, the God-Machine cannot op-
be removed by force. The papers never said what they were erate within the walls of Wellington. As a result, the children
chanting, or told their side of the story. No word of trial or raised within its walls never learn to ignore the truth, and
resolution, they just vanished. the supernatural remains an open book to them all through
The staff has been told to ignore the gossip, to assume adult life. In game terms, all of the students at the school have
the kids will make up stories. They’re “troubled” after all, the God-Machine version of the Unseen Sense Merit (see p.
and will do anything for attention, positive or negative. 60), and, if the Storyteller wants to make the supernatural a
Strange behavior, including gossip, should be reported to the bit more overt, might be more prone to manifesting psychic
Administer of Public Trust, (a replacement for the plump, powers such as Telekinesis or Telepathy.
good-natured principal). School policy with regards to the The God-Machine wants to remove this liability. Of
students is very clear. Assure them everything is fine. Nothing course, a group of children being wiped out in almost any
has changed. They’re safe. instance in the U.S. can be more of a shock to the system
In Truth: As will become apparent, the Wellington than the God-Machine is prepared for, and besides, the God-
School is not part of God-Machine Infrastructure. In fact, Machine isn’t entirely certain what’s happening and why
the God-Machine has no power and no visibility on school (since it can’t see inside the school grounds at all). Therefore,
grounds. As such, the players’ characters in this Tale are the it’s taken a more subtle approach. The characters’ mission is
Infrastructure, specifically elimination. They don’t realize this to undo whatever glamour hovers over the place, whatever
(at least not at first), but as the Tale progresses they should makes the place unique. The God-Machine’s hope is that
come to understand their function. any liability from the place (that is, people that possess the
Interchangeable Parts capacity to see it) can be disposed of or used at its leisure
once the blind spot is corrected.
If the characters don’t deliver the God-Machine the secrets
The players take on the roles of staff, teachers, advisers, it’s looking for, (and they likely won’t) it starts attacking the
coaches, and possibly even janitors or staff as a part of Edu school and the student body. It isn’t trying to destroy the
Tech’s takeover of Wellington. That may sound like a limiting place (since it doesn’t know what effect that might have),
selection of character types, but it doesn’t have to be. Edu but to nudge the characters into finding out what’s so spe-
Tech isn’t interested in paying for the best teachers money cial about Wellington. The God-Machine doesn’t really care
can hire. Rather, they’re looking to cut corners wherever about “why” in the end, it just wants this pocket outside its
possible. They’re out for profit, so they hire anyone who influence to be controlled or destroyed.
can handle the basics of teaching. They call it a “focus on

205
Wellington School for Gifted Children