Barrow County: The Silver Dragon Compound

 I know it's been a hot minute, but here's one of the Savage Tales from the Hearts in Barrow Plot Point Campaign, "The Silver Dragon Compound." Enjoy!

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The Silver Dragon Compound

Recommended Rank: Seasoned

The Silver Dragons rest uneasily, their spirits haunting the grounds where they were killed and manifesting physically during the new moon. Their leader, Gardner Horne, supposedly burned to death in a meth fire that started accidentally during the raid on the compound. In fact, he was crippled by Sheriff Kingsley in the raid and left to burn to death when the sheriff intentionally set fire to the militia’s meth lab. His fury and agony keep him chained to the compound, acting as an anchor for the ghosts of a dozen or so of his “loyal troops,” as well as the zombies that were created by the rampant feeding of Kingsley’s spawn during the raid.

The rumors of there being a great treasure hidden on the grounds happen to be true, though it’s somewhat less than people think. Unfortunately, getting to it means dealing with the traps left behind by the former occupants, the deadfalls and dangerous fumes created by the meth fire, and the ghosts and revenants of a group of angry white nationalists set on defending their turf.

 

Wandering Encounters

Each time the PCs enter a new area of the compound, and for each hour they spend exploring, draw a card from an encounter deck. On a face card, they’ve drawn the attention of a swarm of vermin (Clubs), 1d6 zombies (Diamonds), a ghost (Hearts), or the hellhound, Blitzer, out for a walk (Spades); on a Joker, it’s Horne himself, on patrol of the grounds with 1d6 zombies and Blitzer.

 

The Approach

The compound is surrounded by a ten-foot-high chain link fence topped with barbed wire and covered with copious warning signs, including several about “unexploded and concealed munitions.” Climbing the fence requires an Athletics check, with a failed roll resulting in a level of Bumps and Bruises from getting caught on the barbed wire. Cutting through the fence is easy enough with proper tools, but a hole big enough to crawl through might draw attention if the characters are on the grounds too long.

The land surrounding the compound is, in fact, filled with landmines. Crossing the space to any building has a 1-in-6 chance of stepping on a mine unless proceeding with extreme caution. A Notice roll at –2 removes this chance but requires moving at half Pace and forces a draw for a wandering encounter. There are ample opportunities for a player character to wind up running through a minefield at breakneck speed during this Savage Tale, having to make the choice between being eaten by skinhead zombies or tripping over a live mine. Players who want to safely retrace their steps on the way out can do so with a Survival check.

From the Approach, players can enter one of three buildings: the Clubhouse, the Cookhouse, or the Chapel. The Chapel is the least destroyed of the three, while the Cookhouse is little more than the burned timber frames and foundations of an old barn filled with rubble. The Clubhouse is the largest building, with its exterior blackened and charred by fire and all its windows broken but boarded up.

 

The Clubhouse

This building served as the main part of the compound, a combination of living quarters, machine shop, and armory for the militia.

Entryway: The main entry is riddled with bullet holes but mostly unscathed by the fire, which took out the rear half of the building. White nationalist propaganda covers the walls, much of it splashed in long-dried blood. This room connects to the living areas on the left, the garage and machine shop to the right, and the armory to the rear.

Living Quarters: This area consists of a mess hall style cafeteria with a long hallway that connects to small, spartan bedrooms for the former inhabitants. At the end of that hallway is a door that leads into a significantly larger bedroom that was home to Gardner Horne, the “commander” of the militia. Searching the mess hall for 10 minutes turns up 1d6 MREs that are still edible.

A thorough search of the bedrooms takes 1d6 hours and reveals 3d6 pistol bullets, a rusty revolver in need of repair, and a sealed footlocker; opening the footlocker requires a Thievery check, with success gaining access to a semi-auto rifle with a full magazine.

Horne’s bedroom is locked, and breaking the door down makes enough noise that the GM should draw an additional card from the encounter deck. Picking the lock requires a Thievery check at –2. Within is a truly terrifying amount of racist propaganda and literature, all of it moldy and decayed beyond salvage. In a glass case on his desk is a German luger (treat as a semi-auto pistol) with no ammo; concealed in its display base (Notice at –2 if interacting with the gun) is a bag of gold coins that can be pawned for 1d4×100 caseys.

Garage: The far end of the building from the living quarters is a garage and machine shop where the militia kept their vehicles—mostly a bunch of motorcycles and a civilian Humvee they were converting into an armored transport. The vehicles were all confiscated by the police after the raid, and the area is covered in bullet holes, burn marks, and bloodstains. Searching the area for an hour turns up enough loose tools to assemble into a full repair toolkit.

Armory: This area took the brunt of the damage during the raid, and it’s mostly a burnt-out shell with the outlines of gun lockers and similar accessories still visible among the wreckage. Unless he’s been encountered and destroyed elsewhere, this is where Horne’s lieutenant, the Bullet Farmer, can be found. The entire room is Difficult Ground due to the burnt wreckage and fallen timbers. If a fight breaks out here (and it probably will), a player who draws a Club for their initiative card stirs up a cloud of choking fumes, forcing them to make a Vigor roll to avoid Fatigue.

 

The Bullet Farmer (Wild Card)

In life an expert in ballistics and explosives, the Bullet Farmer was killed during the raid on the Silver Dragon Compound when a flashbang grenade that came in through the window cooked off the fertilizer he was currently turning into a bomb. The explosion that killed him set off the fire that gutted the back end of the Clubhouse.

When he manifests, the Bullet Farmer is a ghastly sight. He looks like a man whose front half has been burned off, leaving exposed muscle, tendon, and bone, as well as lidless eyes floating in ruptured sockets. His arms end in bloody stumps where his hands were blown off, and he trails a miasma of smoke, cordite, and bloody vapor as he walks.

Tactics: Intruders into the Armory have a chance to smell gunpowder before the Bullet Farmer manifests and attacks. Otherwise, he ambushes the group with his BOOM BABY BOOM ability, then flits around the wrecked room, ignoring the Difficult Ground by virtue of being incorporeal, and summoning ghost guns to fire at the survivors. He won’t leave the Armory, but the noise he makes will probably attract zombies and ghosts to his aid.

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d10, Strength d6, Vigor d6

Skills: Athletics d6, Common Knowledge d8, Fighting d6, Intimidation d12, Notice d12, Shooting d10, Stealth d12, Taunt d10

Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 5

Special Abilities:

·         BOOM BABY BOOM!: Once per night, the Bullet Farmer can summon up the ghost of the blast that killed him as an action. This creates a phantom explosion centered on him with the size of a Large Blast Template. Everyone in the area except for him suffers 3d6 damage. This attack can only be Evaded if the Bullet Farmer is visible or his potential victims smelled his presence before his attack (Notice roll vs. his Stealth).

·         Ethereal: May pass through objects; cannot be harmed by nonmagical attacks; may become invisible (–6 penalty to hit) as a limited free action.

·         Fear (–2): Ghosts cause Fear checks at –2 when they let themselves be seen.

·         Ghost Guns: The Bullet Farmer can summon up phantoms of every gun he wielded in life to spit hot lead at his foes. This acts as the bolt power, activated as a limited action with Shooting as the arcane skill.

·         Resolution: The Bullet Farmer served Gardner Horne in life and serves him still in death. He won’t accept the peace of the grave until Horne is destroyed. If he is brought evidence that Horne has been laid to rest, a successful Persuasion roll convinces the Bullet Farmer to go quietly into the night. A failure results in the ghost going berserk and attacking, only fading away at the next dawn.

·         Salt: Like all ghosts native to Barrow County, the Bullet Farmer can be hurt or driven off by salt. He can’t be killed by it, but it drives him off for 10 minutes per Wound he would have suffered, and he cannot cross a line of salt. If his corpse (which is buried in the rubble of his workshop) is covered in salt and burned, it destroys his ghost as well.

 

The Cookhouse

The Silver Dragons made most of their money out of this vast structure that started life as an Amish-built barn. During its heyday, the Cookhouse was filled to the brim with vats of chemicals, lab equipment, protective gear, and everything else a bunch of scumbag supremacists needed to brew their own methamphetamines and opiates for sale. It was also one of the primary places they disposed of the bodies of their enemies, melting them down in sulfuric acid and pouring the resulting slurry into a hole that drained into an underground pit.

Today, the Cookhouse is little more than burnt beams, fallen timbers, and ruptured tanks, all charred from the blaze that consumed the building and damaged the Clubhouse. Horne burned to death in this very building, shot through both legs by Rand Kingsley and left to die after the sheriff set a fire in the lab area. Horne’s dog, Blitzer, was loyal to the end and died trying to drag his bleeding master from the fire. Both were resurrected by Horne’s furious grudge—Horne himself as a monstrous revenant, and Blitzer as a night-black hellhound.

Horne spends most of his time brooding in the chapel with Blitzer and the ghosts of his men for company, but the Cookhouse is hardly abandoned. The human sludge beneath the barn absorbed Horne’s hate and the blood spilled on the compound’s grounds to reanimate as a kind of undead ooze monster that Horne calls “the Stuff.”

 

The Stuff (Wild Card)

The Stuff is an undead slime creature made from noxious chemicals, the slurry of melted corpses, and the runoff from a massive slaughter by vampires. It’s not particularly intelligent, mostly reacting on instinct to devour anything that gets close to it. The Stuff is always hungry, especially since most animals avoid the area, and it hasn’t had a good meal in years. If any living people come into the Cookhouse, it will attack them almost immediately.

Tactics: The Stuff extends its pseudopods up out of the ground through multiple holes, which allow it to attack anyone in the Cookhouse as though it were within reach of them. Its goal is to grab onto a victim and drag them underground to feed upon. The holes it reaches through aren’t big enough to pull a human through normally, so it must take a little time bending and folding them until they’ll fit through. If its prey tries to flee, it will emerge from its hidey hole and pursue them mindlessly, even chasing them into the minefield.

Statistics: The Stuff is a Wild Card blob (HC 110) of Size 8 (Huge), making its Toughness 16. It has Tentacles (4), which it uses to strike for Str damage with Reach 4. Anyone struck by a tentacle is subject to its Sticky Body ability, forcing them to make a Strength check at –2 or become Bound.