[MH] Caribbean by Night

[Icelander]

Does anyone have information about how things work at the Port of Houston and the smaller ports around it, especially the Port of Galveston?

I'm particularly interested in the protocol for a small container vessel arriving in the evening of the 29th of December, 2018, allegedly with a human trafficking cargo. They are arriving from some location where such a cargo might plausibly originate.

First of all, does anyone know where I could find pictures and deck plans of a fairly typical smallish container vessel used for international trade between the Port of Houston and somewhere in either Southeast Asia or Latin America?

At what point would such a vessel be custom inspected? After docking? What does the custom inspection entail, how many personnel board, how long do they spend there and so forth?

How far into the restricted waters of the port would they go under their own power and where, if anywhere, are they taken into tow?

For that matter, how long does it take the vessel to dock and unload, from the time they sight Galveston Island until they unload any containers?

If the Aqueronte is expected to dock at 18:05, where will it be at 17:30 and what will it be doing?

And any other suggestions and notes that somebody that knows about American container ports can add.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Varyon

EDIT: Incidentally, did you ever decide on an alternate ritual location? I'm pulling for Indianola - it seems almost purpose-made for this - but am curious what you ultimately decide on.

Well, any and all plans the villainous cult had for a ritual sacrifice have been thoroughly scuppered by the PCs.

Unfortunately, their method of preventing mass human sacrifice was... killing a goodly number of humans inside a nexus of dark energy.

So, they might have exchanged one villain for another. Maybe better, maybe worse. Such is the life of a PC.

In any case, new villain, whom we shall refer to by one of his titles, suitably translated, He Who Hungers in the Deep, is looking for as much dark energy as he can devour as quickly as possible. So, any place where cultists might have gathered in preparation for a sacrifice that will never happen is going to draw him like blood draws sharks.

He Who Hungers doesn't need virgin sacrifices and he doesn't much care about the gender identity of his prey either, any more than we ask about the gender of our burgers. He wants flesh, life, spirit, the will to live, the love of life, the soul, the sublime... and everything else. He Who Hungers in the Deep has tasted of this world and he finds it good. Now he wants it. All of it.

His first step is alllowing the little tendril of his essence which has managed to enter this world, possessing a frail vessel, to grow in power. To do this, he must do two things. Find areas of dark magical energy... and devour.

The ultimate goal is for He Who Hungers to rend the veil between worlds and enter this one. While He Who Hungers has no need for calendars, He can sense that the local food will soon celebrate a new year and such times are times when the veil is weakest.

So, unless the PCs can destroy He Who Hungers in the Deep by chasing Him down in his natural element, the ocean, they'll have to look for him using thaumatological means... or predicting where he'll go. Which, in these two nights before the New Year's, is likely to be where the cultists are. They'll flee, once they get wind of the catastrophe that ruined their preparwtions, but some of them will go to ground in areas of dark magic, trusting in subtle spells that cause unease and confusion in people who cannot see past the Facade to keep them hidden until the law enforcement manhunt dies down.

So, any and all of the suggestions in this thread are still in play, as a couple of dozen cultists will desperately trying to avoid being arrested by mundane authorities in the Galveston-Houston area the night between the 29th to the 30th of December, 2018.

[Icelander]

It occurs to me that the ongoing discussion about the specifics of foes and events of the ongoing campaign, 'Caribbean by Night', belongs more appropriately in this general campaign thread than in a thread posted to obtain answers to a specific background question in that campaign, i.e. Scientific Specializations for Exploring Unknown Island

Christopher R. Rice asked some follow-up questions about the Outsider, 'He Who Hungers in the Deep', an Enemy of Teddy Smith (PC), apparently dating back to Teddy's time in a strange, sidereal world of eternal twilight, where he was lost after the scientific expedition in 1995 to the titular 'Unknown Island', which was the focus of the thread where this conversation started.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Before Teddy Smith closed off the Aqueronte from any other planes and realities, using his 'Elder Sign'*, He Who Hungers in the Deep was quite close to actually manifesting something more than a few tendrils, given how enthusiastically the PCs were killing the crewmen/human traffickers on the cargo ship and the not-quite-human pishtaco who oversaw them.

But with that connection closed, He Who Hungers must find an alternative source of energy to grow this severed part of him into a perfect predator capable of opening the way to Earth for his whole self.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

A nice Xantos Gambit.

The irruption of He Who Hungers in the Deep into the adventure was not actually a Xanatos Gambit by the GM or the Outsider himself. Rather, the PCs were dealing with the fallout of the machinations of a a cult entirely unrelated* to He Who Hungers in the Deep; the Keepers of the Last Hearth, dedicated to the Lords of the Last Waste.

It just so happened that Teddy Smith rolled under the Frequency of Appearance for his Unknown Enemy, which means that at the moment when Teddy was preparing for boarding a ship he suspected of transporting human sacrifices for the cult of the Cold Ones, He Who Hungers in the Deep became aware of him again.

We may safely assume that a fraction of the consciousness of He Who Hungers is devoted always to tracking down those with whom He has a bone to pick and Teddy Smith's prodigious use of magic at that time is a plausible explanation for how He Who Hungers noticed him... and the world where he now lived.

Now, ordinarily, rolling under the Frequency of Appearance means that the Enemy interferes in some way, so I determined that tendrils of He Who Hungers in the Deep were searching for a way to enter this world, in order to communicate to Teddy Smith His deep disappointment with him.

However, as the container ship Aqueronte had already seen some pretty dark things, as well as having had a ritual enacted to construct a sort of magical energy battery of dark power, and the PCs were 'forced' to kill quite a lot of people (or people-adjacent beings) on board, rules from Horror and the Pyramid #3/58 article 'Safe as Houses' came into play. The violent deaths reduced the Threshold of the Aqueronte to negative numbers and thus made it a certified Bad Place (TM).

Now, I warned the players, especially Teddy's player, that his PC's skills told him that fraying the Threshold any further would weaken the walls of reality and there was no telling what kind of energies or beings could come through. And when the push came to shove and Teddy had to choose between trying to capture a maniacal-looking killer who'd taken a hostage and killing him... well, let's just say that Teddy did not attempt to resist his Bloodlust Disadvantage.

So I rolled for the consequences, basically a random Reaction Roll from the universe, and got a Critical Failure.

At that moment, it was pretty obvious what had happened. He Who Hungers had been provided with a way to extend his tendrils into our reality and proceeded to possess numerous people aboard the ship (the PCs and their allies all made their saves, largely because they were heavily warded against spiritual influences and possession).

From then on, the PCs had to deal with hostages who'd been possessed by tendrils of the Outsider, the occasional crewman and, of course, pishtaco. With the added complication that killing anyone or anything within the Bad Place that the Aqueronte had become counted as a sacrifice to Him Who Hungers in the Deep, allowing it to use the power to extend more tendrils into the world or to strengthen those already there.

The current body of He Who Hungers in the Deep is actually a former human who had been made into a pishtaco through dark magic and was then possessed by a tendril of the Outsider. I like to imagine it's a D&D template kind of deal: "What do you mean half-Peruvian, half-Australian, half-vampire and half-aberration? How many halves has this thing got, anyway?"

This vessel was the last one that the PCs didn't manage to exorcise and/or destroy, but given how many others had been killed, it had accumulated more power than the other tendril-hosts, even with the loss of connection with the Outer Realm from whence it came caused by Teddy Smith's use of the Elder Sign.

Then there is the fact that (without planning it that this particular pishtaco would be the one to be taken over), the possessed pishtaco was actually the first and most powerful pishtaco aboard the ship (with a backstory and everything), as well as being established as a powerful sorcerer who was responsible for creating the sacrifice-powered dark energy vortex aboard the Aqueronte. Before being taken over, the pishtaco referred to himself as 'Saucy Jack', and even after the possession, carried out a sadistic murder in a way that was uncannily reminiscent of certain famous murders...

*Well, the Lords of the Last Waste and He Who Hungers in the Deep do have one thing in common, i.e. they are Outsiders in the context of our known world, their home worlds being not even known to occultists of the past. This may be because they tend to eventually destroy those worlds where they manage to enter.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

It occurs to me that the ongoing discussion about the specifics of foes and events of the ongoing campaign, 'Caribbean by Night', belongs more appropriately in this general campaign thread

Thanks, things are joined up better now.

... well, let's just say that Teddy did not attempt to resist his Bloodlust Disadvantage.

Is there a neo-sensible faction in the party? I'm starting to get the impression that there isn't. Thinking back to Jade Serenity, you were the player who was trying to restrain the chaos . . .

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Thanks, things are joined up better now.

Is there a neo-sensible faction in the party? I'm starting to get the impression that there isn't. Thinking back to Jade Serenity, you were the player who was trying to restrain the chaos . . .

Well, 'sensible' is a pretty tall order. In setting terms, it is well known that all magicians are at least half-crazy and all of the PCs do have some supernatural abilities...

Generally, Teddy Smith is pretty sensible. I mean, yes, he was a soldier for a long time and his reaction to a legitimate threat to himself and others tends to be pretty decisive, but Teddy actually tried to have crewmembers of the Aqueronte surrender where possible. The one he decided to kill regardless of the consequences was pretty clearly not entirely human, however, which triggered Teddy's (fairly rational) fear and hatred of predatory alien beings from outside our reality. Also, the grinning maniac was in the process of carving up a young girl and sucking out her fat through the wounds... so, there were extenuating circumstances.

'Nonc' Morel is hardly a model for sanity, but he has a deep and abiding respect for human life. If not for his calming influence, the PCs would have slaughtered far more members of the Aqueronte's crew.

I suppose the PCs restrain each other, at different times, because they are each crazy in their own particular way. It's a unique form of teamwork.

[Icelander]

I decided to reply to Christopher R. Rice's questions about the setting of 'Caribbean by Night' in this thread, rather than the one that is aimed at getting feedback on a specific expedition in the background of the organization for which the PCs work; i.e. Scientific Specializations for Exploring Unknown Island.

Originally Posted by Icelander

The PCs don't actually know if there is a Heaven or Hell.

Some spirits are opportunistic and hungry for attention, as well as often being malleable and influenced by the unconscious belief and desires of the population around them, which means that a lot of spirits claim to be angels, demons and the souls of departed humans, but there's no actual way to determine whether they really are or not.

'Ghosts' might genuinely believe that they are the disembodied souls of the dead, but scientifically, they might just as well be an alien race composed of energy instead of matter which feeds on certain brain waves and unconsciously take the shape and characteristics of the deceased from memories of those who survive them. There is no consensus among occultists as to whether the human 'soul' is an entity or simply a process, let alone what happens to it when people die.

So far, there is no evidence that any celestial or infernal authority that polices supernatural powers exists. That being said, various powerful spirits that claim to be loas, angels or demons from all kinds of human religions are active on the Earth of the 2010s, usually through worshipers, devotees or shamanic intermediaries, and these spirits will mostly not appreciate anything that devours spirits.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

That's interesting but too wishy-washy for me. Unless you mean the PCs don't know of course. One of the first things I do is figure out how the afterlife works and that includes ghosts. Sometimes it's as simple as "There isn't one."

In a strictly scientific sense, no one in the world, PCs or NPCs, actually knows what happens after death. To me, that sort of knowledge makes a world significantly less interesting. For one thing, it pretty much eliminates the possibility of faith, at least in any religious sense.

To take some in-character examples, Lucien Lacoste (PC) is a Catholic from New Orleans who believes in some unorthodox, if common, superstitions (his Creole grandmother is only nominally Catholic, being a Louisiana voodoo queen). Alice Talbot (PC) was raised in a New Age household and has been spiritually searching for meaning for quite a while, but while she's not found solace in any organized religion, she does worry quite a lot about the fate of her immortal soul.

Teddy Smith (PC) has lost any religion he might have been raised with, but knows well that there are fates worse than death that can take one's soul. And two PCs, 'Nonc' Morel and Julian 'Dane' Winding are pagans, with Morel worshiping a mangrove grove he calls 'Papa Mangrove' and Winding wearing a Mjölnir pendant and praying to Thor.

Prayers and ceremonies absolutely can work in the setting, but to scientific researchers of the paranormal, there is no fundamental thaumatological difference between ritual magic that practitioners believe is granted by higher powers and ritual magic that regards any entities that respond to divine titles as simply opportunistic spirits that can sometimes be used and sometimes pose a threat.

Specifically about the afterlife, Lacoste strongly believes that the spirits he can see and converse with are actually the souls of the departed and feels a sense of duty toward them as much (or more) as for the living. Lacoste tries his best to free ghosts from what binds them to an unsatisfactorily afterlife and perform rituals to lay them to rest and allow their souls to go to Heaven, but while Lacoste doesn't doubt the efficiency of this, he has no scientific evidence on what happens to the spirits after they disappear.

If the setting definitely established followers of any religion (or alternatively, the secular, materialistic thaumatologists) as correct and the others as wrong, it would, to me at least, cheapen the issue of faith and the search for answers that both science and religion revolve around.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The occult preparations that the cultists of the Keepers of the Last Hearth have done at several dark-flavored local Places of Power for their now-ruined sacrifice, as well as the upcoming liminal time of the New Year, will both be powerful temptations to He Who Hungers in the Deep.

To His predator senses, there are feasts of flesh and souls prepared for him in locations where the magical energies necessary to strengthen this frail vessel may be found. To His way of thinking, all He needs to do if hunt well the next two nights ashore, rest up in the ocean during the day, and then He'll be in a position to open up a new way to the Outside during the time when the veil between worlds is weak over the New Year.

While He understands the threat of firearms from some previous experiences, that was against a small band of humans cut off from modern society. He Who Hungers still hasn't experienced the scale of organization and coordination of a human law enforcement response to incidents of alleged terrorism, so He cannot really appreciate how unsafe it is to come ashore anywhere near Galveston at this exact time (and for the next week or two).

The ocean depths may be inviting, but there is little in the way of energy or food for him within any reasonable sensory range there. Unintelligent animals yield far less mystical energy when devoured than beings with personality and self-awareness and while there are areas of great magical power in the deep ocean, most of those are located hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the Gulf Coast.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

So someone is preparing victims for him? Neat.

Technically, the cultists devoted to the Lords of the Last Waste, i.e. the Keepers of the Last Hearth, were preparing local dark-flavored Places of Power for the sacrifice of a couple of dozen victims of human trafficking that their allies were shipping them. They actually had one specific location they were planning to perform the ceremony at, but given how things turned out, they had to scramble to find alternative sites at short notice.

None of these cultists or their occult-aware organized crime associates had any idea about the existence of He Who Hungers in the Deep.

But that doesn't stop Him from sensing the preparations that they are doing and being attracted to the dark energy.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I'm guessing he hasn't been hit with something like a grenade or RPG - those always even the odds against critters.

No, the most powerful human-made destructive things He Who Hungers has been exposed to are alchemical explosives. Which can be scary powerful, but don't exactly come in the numbers that humans can supply grenades and RPGs in.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Smith doesn't actually know.

However, Smith's possession of a magical artifact designed to seal barriers between worlds and generally act against Outsiders, as well as Smith's rabid preoccupation with the threat of Outsiders (to the point of Fanaticism), argues that when they met before, Smith might have used the Path of Crossroads to do something that He Who Hungers in the Deep deeply resented.

For that matter, Smith doesn't know what enabled him to finally get home. Something delivered him and the other three survivors through the veil between worlds and it's a fair bet that this was something that had to do with the Path of Crossroads.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Maybe HWHitD is worried that if he's sealed and sent back this part of the tendril from the original entity goes bye bye. Worse than death - that's unmaking.

Well, the tendril of He Who Hungers in the Deep and 'Saucy Jack', the pishtaco it took over, have the potential to become a unique individual of their own, of course. Not so much in combat time, but given more time for existence and reflection, the new composite being will develop its own self-identity.

Also, depending on the events of next session, it's possible that the issue of identity will become even more complex...

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

That is a LOT of support for a group of hunters to have. Not that it's a bad thing, but wouldn't you have the whole "Let's wait for the calvary to show up" problem?

Originally Posted by Icelander

Not in my experience.

Note that only some individuals in the various Sheriff's Offices around Galveston and the local Coast Guard detachment are at all aware of the supernatural. Even those who are friendly to Kessler and/or individuals in his network generally have only a vague idea about the existence of a supernatural threat and they are aware that the official policy of authorities nearly anywhere is to find any other explanation for odd phenomena than supernatural ones.

This means that official law enforcement tactical teams and other support always have to justify their actions to superiors and/or bureaucrats who do not know about the supernatural (or, alternatively, do not believe what they know and/or pretend not to know). There will also often be members of these teams who do not know or do not believe.

In practical terms, therefore, the PCs determined that having sheriff's deputies, Coast Guardsmen or federal agents with them when they boarded the container ship Aqueronte would be counter-productive. Not only does it constrain the actions of PCs, by forcing them to conform to the rules and expedition of law enforcement unaware of the supernatural, it also introduces more or less ordinary people to a situation that they are not equipped to handle.

After all, with the ship roiling with dark energies and attracting every hungry spirit in ten counties, anyone without the right training (and mystical talismans) would be prone to be influenced into violent, emotionally-unstable behaviour by opportunistic spirits, as well as potentially subject to possession if they suffered a mental shock of some sort.

So the PCs deliberately arranged to have a mistake made by the JCSO communications switchboard, to ensure that most of the law enforcement agencies concerned with the investigation had the wrong coordinates. Finally, they warned friends in the USCG to have a boarding team ready for the Aqueronte, but insisted that they did not approach until they gave the okay, instructing their friends to cite unconfirmed reports of a potential biological threat to their superiors, but actually explaining, in layman's terms, the threat of all the qlippoth spirits attracted by the dark magic.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Well, if they can't use them to assist what's the point? It's like a Chekhov's gun for the PCs. Unless they haven't pulled that lever yet - maybe saving it for when they really need it.

Hmmm. I'mma have to think over this some. Got me an idea brewing on when to call in the big guns.

The purpose of the PCs having badges and official positions in the law enforcement community (albeit volunteer, part-time positions) is not so much to make it easier for them to call in the cavalry is to make it easier for them to keep law enforcement out.

Private citizens without law enforcement credentials or a lot of social influence don't have any realistic way to avoid police attention if they do the things monster-hunting PCs do. Hell, even just walking around equipped as PCs generally are will result in them being put on all kinds of watch lists even in places where it is technically legal to open carry all their weaponry.

Having the world be so far from our world as to ignore all the legal and social consequences of being PCs doing PCs things would make the world even more alien to me than declaring that gravity or biological processes didn't exist there. So for the PCs to be able to do their jobs, they have to have some plausible way to interact with law enforcement without being treated as suspects all the time.

Thus, two PCs have official positions as Reserve Deputies in local Sheriff's Offices around Galveston. Teddy Smith is a sharpshooting instructor for the tactical team who volunteers on the Marine Patrol and Lucien Lacoste is volunteering his time to help with cold cases.

Teddy has a pretty good Administration skill, but his minor law enforcement position is merely reflected with a Perk, as he's not really expected to act as an actual cop without supervision. Smith can still file reports and the like, where his expert Administration skill and a point in Writing are useful in coaching what the PCs do in bureaucratically acceptable terms.

Lacoste, meanwhile, is a former legendary detective from the NOPD and is really good at Savoir-Faire (Police), not to mention having five points in Legal Enforcement Powers (Informal), +2 Reputation among cops and 30 points in a police Contact Group.

In real world terms, the Sheriff of Jefferson County is trying real hard to get Lacoste to join his office full time and basically allows Lacoste to select which cold cases he investigates and backs him up on nearly anything (at least while he doesn't seem to be doing anything actually wrong). The sheriffs of Galveston and Chamber counties are also vying for his services, as Lacoste volunteers his time there too, helping to teach detective deputies modern investigative techniques.

Also, of course, the fact that the PCs have 100 points invested in J.R. Kessler as their Patron is pretty useful when it comes to social influence, given that Kessler is an actual billionaire who has spent decades building influence among local authorities in Texas and a selection of Caribbean islands where play is likely to take place, and to a lesser extent around the Gulf Coast of the United States, where the PCs might travel.

All of this is meant to allow the PCs longer careers than a single monster hunt, after which they'd spend their time fighting a selection of local and federal charges.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Looking up haunted sites and the like in Texas, Indianola seems like a great candidate. It's a ghost town (incidentally, Texas apparently has a massive quantity of such, which may be useful for your purposes), not terribly far from Galveston (a land driving route says 3 hours, but you could go by sea if desired, hugging the southern coast). It used to be a booming port town - second largest in Texas - until it got hit by a massive hurricane in 1875. While nearly destroyed, it managed to rebuild from that... but then got hit by another massive hurricane in 1886, shortly followed by a fire, which put the final nail in the town's coffin. If I'm not mistaken, this roughly coincides with around the time magic stopped working in your setting's past, meaning the destruction may have been supernaturally significant in some way.

There is an excellent chance that we might play tomorrow, for the first time since last summer.*

Our heroes find themselves in pretty much the same position as when we left them, i.e. rescuing victims of human trafficking and potential ritual sacrifices from the container ship Aqueronte in the harbour waters of Galveston Bay, where a nefarious cult with organized crime in South America had been transporting them for a major ritual of alleged world-ending consequence.

The ritual is supposed to take place at the New Year of 2018-2019 and was apparently supposed to be performed about a mile from the Gulf Freeway or Interstate 45, between Galveston and Houston, where an area by the Calder Oil Fields has been dubbed the Texas Killing Fields.

Unfortunately for the Keepers of the Last Hearth, the cultists behind the proposed mass sacrifice, the PCs have arrested the Girl with the Kaleidoscope Eyes, the sorceress of prophecy meant to invoke the Lords of the Last Waste at the ritual and discovered the intended location from her. They've also arrested the smooth and suave Raul Sandoval Jara, a facilitator and organizer for the South American 'Consortium' that is aiding the cultists and from him discovered the fact that human sacrifices were being imported into the US for this ritual.

While the PCs have stopped the schemes of the Keepers of the Last Hearth by leaving them without their ritual space or sacrifices, the dark magical energies combined with the murderous battle aboard the Aqueronte tore the Threshold of that ship to pieces and made it a full-fledged Bad Place. Which allowed an entirely unrelated Outsider to take notice of Earth and to attempt to come through.

He Who Hungers in the Deep is the Enemy (Unknown) of Teddy Smith (PC), gained on Teddy's sojourn into a strange sidereal realm of eternal twilight, where he lived among the Nommo and learned their aquatic magics. Happily, the PCs were able to sever the ties between Earth and whatever Outer Realm that dread being inhabits before it could enter our reality, but unfortunately, it was able to extend several tendrils of its essence into this world.

Those tendrils each possessed a person aboard Aqueronte. The PCs were able to kill some of them and rescue others using exorcism rituals, but one of the possessed escaped the ship, diving into the sea. And that someone was a person, yes, but not a wholly human person, having been made into a pishtaco, a vampire-like creature that sucks the fat out of their victims. The possessed was also a sadistic murderer and a sorcerer of great power, even before being possessed. He called himself 'Saucy Jack'.

To recap, then, we've got a half-Australian, half-Peruvian murderer and human trafficker who's spent several years as a half-vampire creature and after being possessed by an antediluvian horror from beyond the stars, is twisting into an aquatic aberration that looks something like a half-shark, half-octopus. That's... entirely too many halves.

Also, the surviving cultists of the Keepers of the Last Hearth and their criminal allies of the 'Consortium' will be scrambling to find an alternate ritual space. Fortunately, it's only the night of the 29th of December 2018, leaving them two nights to prepare another location, one with a strong aura of death, desolation, loss and hopelessness.

And, of course, the rituals that they use to prepare it will repel ordinary human visitors from wanting to go there, but to the composite being of 'Saucy Jack'/He Who Hungers in the Deep, they'll draw him like catnip, all the dark energy driving him wild with greed and hunger.

So, the PCs, chasing Him Who Hungers in the Deep, are liable to follow him all the way to...

Where the surviving cultists are setting up for the ritual!

Enter Indianola (thanks Varyon!).

Checking Google Maps, there seem to be a few houses where Indianola is marked on the map. Are those empty houses dating back to the 19th century or are those new houses where somebody lives now?

If the latter, which I believe from the looks must be true, who lives there? Are those fishing cabins for weekend visitors or are those year-round homes?

Also, say you were about twenty cultists, mostly South Americans (but also some from other countries), travelling in the US on tourist visas, and you were simultaneously avoiding police attention and trying to set up an apocalyptic magical ritual in a dark Place of Power.

Does anyone have any ideas on what exactly that looks like?

I'm imagining that they'll use the fact that magic doesn't play nice with technology in my setting to create a fairly subtle magic that intensifies that effect around the desired location. Make communications technology malfunction, so that phones and radios can't summon help. This is fine if there are only a few people there, but would be problematic for an area where there were hundreds of people, so I have to establish exactly how many people there are likely to at the site of the former Indianola.

Also, draw on emergency stores of magical energy and various things that can be sacrificed to start to prepare a ritual that will repel any human that can't see through the Facade, make him want to be elsewhere than in this particular area. That works on travelers, including law enforcement looking for fleeing criminals (that search will be focused over a hundred miles away, anyway, around Houston and Galveston). But it will probably not work on the inhabitants of these houses.

So the cultists are probably going to have to capture them all. And, yay, bonus, they've got replacement sacrifices! Not young maidens, it is true, at least not exclusively, but if they can get enough people, they might make up for them not being ideal by simply having more of them. There will be around five or six of these cultists who are ritual magicians of some power and the rest will be capable with assisting at rituals. Also, they'll have numerous pishtaco with them, who are stealthy and ruthless, as well as being stronger, faster and more dangerous than humans.

Obviously, none of this is ideal and frankly, the cultists should probably cut their losses and aim to do this another time, but they're being led by a fanatic** who won't admit that the prophecy could be wrong.

Comments? Suggestions? Ideas on how this could go wrong or right? What the PCs might be walking into in the wee hours of the night of the 30th, assuming they find Indianola almost as soon as He Who Hungers in the Deep?

*My fault, medical issues which contributed to a near-total lack of energy and drive.
**Note to self, I have yet to detail anything about the cultists who arrived on the 29th. I have only detailed those who were supposed to make things ready for their arrival and the criminal and pishtaco group transporting the sacrifices.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Yay! Wag a paw at everyone for me.

I shall.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Ditch the "half Australian". That's way OTT and makes things far too tough for your PC group.

His father was an Australian mining engineer living in Peru. I don't think 'Saucy Jack' has ever been to Australia.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Checking Streetview, I see a number of moderate-sized and very well-maintained clapboard houses on tall posts, newish-looking mobile homes, and late-model pickups. There is a marina that looks little-used.

Now, the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales is not the Gulf Coast of Texas, but I see my country there. That's Hat Head without the headland and the kangaroos. Those are in some fashion ostensibly fishing shacks, but quite a few of them are permanently inhabited. In the summer and at holiday times they are full of hardy fisher-folk. Who have guns. Some of the permanent residents and owners who visit frequently let their houses to holidaymakers in the season, and visit a lot out of season.

Interesting. Do you think many of them would be there over Christmas and New Year's?

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I understand that the cultists are not expecting nor even aware of HWHITD (or rather, his squiddly shark avatar). Their preparations will be predicated on the absence of such gatecrashers, and as such are prone to be utterly upset.

Who are they expecting? The natural point for a land ambush would be South Ocean Drive east of Channel Drive. A power outage would make it tricky for anyone to land any aircraft, but an anti-materiel rifle might be indicated. How's the weather for an amphibious assault?

Well, I don't think they're expecting anyone. That is, they initially planned to perform their ritual elsewhere and are basically improvising now. None of them know much about East Texas and they basically found Indianola by using dowsing rituals for dark Places of Power.

They hope they can take over empty houses and lay low there for a couple of days while they perform rituals of preparation and purification. Granted, they realize that there's bound to be someone around, even on the 29th of December and not very good fishing weather, but are hoping that stealthy pishtaco can take these hostage without causing any incidents. With magical energies interfering with communications, they hope to avoid anyone noticing that they've set up shop there.

Depending on how well the takeover goes, the cultists might fear that police and/or friends or relatives of someone might come check on them. They probably hope to kidnap any harmless-looking relatives that might come around to add to their stock of sacrifices, but police they'd try to get rid of using mind-affecting magic sufficient to keep them away until after the New Year's. They know that cops not checking in for a long time will trigger a serious response no matter what kind of magical avoidance effect they can set up around Indianola.

They're not worried about consequences past that their ritual on New Year's, because they believe that after that, they'll be sitting at the right hand of Earth's new masters / away on a spaceship / experiencing blissful oblivion or whatever other wacky motive they have for attempted Earth-cide through opening a gate to some Outer Realm.

Crucially, while these cultists brought plenty of accumulated relics, power sources and magical objects, they didn't plan on fighting anyone. Just sacrifice people, using magical means. And while the six or so pishtaco crossed the border illegally and are probably carrying weapons, most of the ordinary cultists arrived that day by plane or cars from California, on tourist visas for the majority, and have neither weapons nor any means of obtaining them. Except whatever they can buy legally at a hardware store, I guess.

I suppose that the third of the cultists arriving from California might have weapons, at least the five Chinese transiting through there who are involved with organized crime. The several US citizens, however, are actually from California and don't have a license to carry handguns and didn't really see any reason to drive up there with shotguns or rifles. Besides, they're New Age cultists, not shooters.