Page 211 - Chronicles of Darkness

For its part, the God-Machine doesn’t care much about locks has something to do with the Key and what the chief
Cote particularly. If the characters kill him, it can create actually knows. Roll Intelligence + Larceny to plan the best
another Key for elimination Infrastructure purposes. Or, it time to get into those cabinets and have a look.
can use a version of Cote from a different time period (if you Expression: A group of reporters has you cornered. Their
think that wouldn’t annoy the players). questions are real stingers. They want answers and details
Linchpins you aren’t able to give them. If you blow them off, though,
it’ll look even worse. Roll Presence + Expression to tell them
things they already know in a new way and convince them
The God-Machine is largely a motivation and a means in they’ve gotten what they were after.
this chronicle rather than a potential antagonist. The hor- Empathy: Cote’s brother-in-law was there the night his
ror here, supernatural events aside, is really what one man sister died, and remembers Cote screaming about a “blue
can do, how he can hold three cities hostage just by reveling room.” But to get him to relive that night, he’ll have to believe
in his actions and acting as though the media should be you have his family’s best interests at heart. Roll Manipulation
celebrating them. + Empathy to get him to talk (alternately, this might be re-
Signs of the God-Machine might be peppered throughout solved with the Social Maneuvering rules on p. 81).
the stories as a method of setting mood; they are the trappings Mind of a Madman (p. 57): You’re the investigator every-
the Key is obsessed with, after all. He likes metal parts and one else worries about. The one with a dark cloud over your
gears; the deaths may occur near large industrial machines or shoulder and an unpleasant knack for getting into the heads
use them. Remind the players that blood smells like copper of psychopaths. You can start to understand what makes this
and rust. Maybe the characters find three doodles on the walls guy tick, which means you may understand how to stop him.
of the crime scenes, all drawn with the same silver marker, Mentor (p. 51): You had a professor in college who’s
but when the doodles are held up next to each other they opened a lot of doors for you since, but what interests you
make the shape of a key. now is her work in “quantum immortality.” Of course, her
Methods knowledge and your involvement puts her in the Key’s sights
— and maybe even on the God-Machine’s list for elimina-
tion. Keep her alive while she helps you sort through what
Medicine: The coroner does amazing work, and her
reports are always detailed and complete. Roll Intelligence is impossible and what is merely improbable.
+ Medicine to suss out the details of her reports, and maybe Escalation
pick up some vital clues for your investigation.
Politics: The old files you found have been heavily re- The Key is dead or in custody. Now what? Whether
dacted, possibly on a federal level. You refuse to believe it’s from him, or from his rambling writings, the characters
a dead end, though. Roll Intelligence + Politics to uncover a learn more and more about this “God-Machine” he was
place where unaltered files might be held and, more impor- obsessed with. He talks about global conspiracies. He talks
tantly, how to access them. about other “parts like him” operating, killing, and serving
Firearms: It was bad luck that the only witness to the the God-Machine all over the country, maybe all over the
latest crime is a bit of a recluse and a gun nut whose mental world. One of the parts is apparently planning to take down
state was made quite fragile by what he saw that night. He a plane in the next month. How do the characters follow up?
sees you as an outsider, maybe even someone tied to the This might lead into Do-Over (p. 199) if the characters try to
Key. Roll Manipulation + Firearms to bring up enough gun match time travel with time travel, Wake the Dead (p. 214)
lore from memory to gain his trust and get past his damage. if they kill the wrong guy, or Wellington School for Gifted
Larceny: The cabinets in the Chief of Detective’s office Children (p. 205) if it turns out another Key is hiding where
are locked. You suspect that part of the reason for all those the God-Machine can’t find her.

MISSING PERSONS

Unusual numbers of people go missing over a large area. search of answers, eventually ending up in a small city at the
People regularly report hearing these people calling for help geographical center of the disappearances. The characters
but can’t find them. begin hearing reports of people (and occasionally pets) vanish-
Infrastructure ing, and others hearing them calling from seemingly-empty
space. These reports occur across an area of several states.
In one famous disappearance, a young man vanished
The events begin in any city or town, but the characters from a car at the top of a Ferris wheel. For the rest of the
must travel across one or more states or a similar area in evening, other patrons claim to have heard the man calling

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Tales of the God machine