The Hollow Men - Session 0

Welcome to the Hollow Men - our Hunter: The Reckoning solo actual play.  In this episode we interoduce you to the world of the Hollow Men as well as providing a walk through of character creation.  If you want to skip the boring rulesy bits just listen to the first twenty minutes or so and then you can bounce to episode 1!

Thanks to Heather Haneman for voicing The Messengers in this episode!

All messages and sound effects from Epidemic Sound.

Contact us at:

EMAIL: roll.to.save.pod@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/rolltosavepod
WEBSITE: https://rolltosave.blog

HOSTS: Iain Wilson, Steve McGarrity, Jason Downey
BACKGROUND MUSIC: David Renada (Find him at: davidrendamusic@gmail.com or on his web page).
TITLE, BREAK & CLOSEOUT MUSIC: Xylo-Ziko (Find them on their web page).

Chapters

• 0:00 Scene Setting
• 0:21 Creston Call Centre
• 4:31 Kowalski
• 9:06 The Glitch
• 11:01 The Imbuing
• 12:08 Purge the System
• 13:01 Series Intro And Content Warnings
• 14:16 What Hunter The Reckoning Is
• 15:22 Rules Overview And Chaos Ethos
• 17:20 Second Sight House Rules
• 18:22 Monsters And Source House Rules
• 19:11 Character Creation Starts
• 22:24 Attributes
• 25:36 Abilities
• 28:19 Backgrounds
• 31:07 Merits and Flaws
• 33:15 Freebies
• 35:25 Wrap-Up And How To Support

Transcript

Iain: 0:05

Welcome to The Hollow Men, a dramatized actual play of Hunter The Reckoning. This episode contains descriptions of violence. Listener discretion is advised. Creston, Iowa, April 8th, 1999, 2.44 pm. The cheap fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A constant drone that threatened to burrow into the woman's skull alongside the white noise of fifty voices pitching insurance policies. A wheezing sound rattled through dusty vents, the asthmatic gasping of the building's geriatric HVAC system. Despite the noise, it never quite managed to cut through the miasma of accumulated body heat that clung to this floor. The carpet, a mottled grey-brown that probably hadn't been vacuumed in weeks, stunk of stale coffee and cigarette smoke, and it turned her stomach so that she could feel just how sticky it was under the soles of her sensible flat shoes. Her cubicle walls rose barely four feet high, dirty beige fabric stretched over particle board, giving her barely enough privacy to hide her slumped posture, but not enough to escape the oversight of management. She could almost hear her mother's voice from here. Sit up straight, dear, the body's posture reflects the heart's desire. Mother had lots of sayings like this, usually a bit staying thin. As if seeking reassurance, she idly touched the small silver crucifix she wore in the chain around her neck. Its pristine surface reflected the sickly green glow that came from her CRT monitor. As she dialed another number from the seemingly endless list that paraded down the side of her screen, she picked up the laminated script card from the table and absent-mindedly tangled the headset cord around her fingers. Janine had been sitting here yesterday, and the coiled black wire still stacked with a cheap drugstore perfume. She knew that Janine only wore it to mask the smell of cigarette smoke that she was permanently wreathed in. Frowning, she waited for someone to pick up on the other end. She didn't approve of smoking, it was, as Mother said, a vice. The ringtone stopped, and a man's voice answered. She nervously pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and affected a smile, despite the fact that she could practically chew in her own exhaustion. With what she hoped sounded like a peppy enthusiasm, she launched into the same spiel she'd been through several times already that day. Her prospective customer, a Mr. Henderson, was not showing much interest in anything she had to say. Three cubicles over, someone was eating something pungent. Fried convenience food, probably. This competed aggressively with the smell of bunk break room coffee and the make her feel nauseous. Her own voice was distant, almost dreamlike, as she parroted out this exclusive deal that she was offering. If he was interested, Mr. Henderson certainly wasn't showing it in his voice. Heavy footsteps approached from behind. She could hear them squelching slightly against the sticky carpet, and she knew that sound. Mr. Kowalski was making his rounds. He always walked too close, especially where the girls were concerned, leaning over shoulders to read screens, his breath hot and damp, reeking of the mints he sucked to cover the whiskey she knew he drank at lunch. His polyester shirt rasped as the fabric strained against his gut. She straightened reflexively, pressing the headset tighter to her ear, eyes fixed on her screen. Mr. Henderson had long since hung up, so she hit the dial button to call the next customer, hoping that Mr. Kowalski would see her working and pass her by. He didn't. His voice came from directly behind her left shoulder, far too close for her liking, as he inquired into how many calls she had made that day. She could feel the heat radiating off him, and his body odor seemed to reach out and try to cling to her like a needy lover. She spotted out her total, 17, and kept her eyes on the screen, watching the call timer count upward, still ringing. Pick up, please pick up. He seemed to consider the total and drew the word out in disappointment before telling her that Jenny in Rose C was already at 26. Kowalski liked Jenny. She was blonde, skinny. She dressed like a whore. The line clicked. A man's voice irritated, indicated he wasn't interested, and emphasized this with the buzz of a disconnect. Reflexively, she hit the button to log the call. No sale. Mr. Kowalski lingered, his weight shifting from foot to foot. The floor creaked under his bulk, and he reminded her that her enumeration depended on the numbers. His tone of his beating irritated her more than she realized. As if for reassurance, before hitting the next call button, she touched her crucifix again and thought of the Bible verse that mother had taught her, which always brought her comfort whenever Kowalski turned into the robot numbers. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them. For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you and nor forsake you. As if sensing this, Kowalski suddenly placed a meaty paw on one of his shoulders. His knuckles were pale and goy, the cheap gold ribbon cutting into the flesh of his finger. Meaning, he knew that it would be terrible if he had to write her up again. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the screen, refusing to reply. After what seemed like an age, he straightened with a granite, the carpet sucking nauseatingly at his shoes as he waddled away from her. She allowed herself one small breath of relief, then reached for her water bottle. The plastic was warm, the water inside tasting faintly of the bottle itself. Overhead, she could hear the rain battering against the roof. Despite the rising winds and the stormy conditions, the humidity was stifling. Around her, the call centre was a hive of desperate energy. To her right, Marcus was in the middle of his pitch, his voice rising excitedly with false enthusiasm, an equally false smile plastering his face as he spoke. Lies. Marcus was good at lying. She'd listened to me enough times to know that the policies he sold never quite matched what he promised in the phone. But Marcus made his numbers. Kowalski liked Marcus. Marcus never got written up. Marcus got bonuses. Marcus drove a brand new Mustang while she took the bus to work. Once she told Mother about Marcus, and Mother simply shook her head and reminded her what the good book said about men like Marcus. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Ha, and there was ever a man who was selfishly ambitious. It was Marcus. He would be judged when the time came, she was sure of it. The clock on her monitor read 2.47 pm. Two hours and 13 minutes until her shift ended. Her lower back throbbed, a dull ache that radiated up her spine despite her cheap ergonomic chair that wasn't ergonomic at all. Across the aisle, Denise laughed at something, that brittle, tittering, performative laugh she used with customers. Denise had been here six years. Six years in this fluorescent purgatory, and it showed in the hardness around her eyes, the way a smile never quite reached them anymore. She wondered if she looked like that yet. Probably. She'd been here 18 months and already she felt holidayed. She turned her monitor and hit next call. The machine beeped angrily and the screen went blank. Her brow furrowed in confusion and she hit the escape key. She was nowhere near her quota. The last thing she needed was a terminal to have died. Angrily and with a rising sense of panic, she tapped the escape key again. Nothing. Reaching down, she was about to press the button to restart her machine when the screen suddenly flashed into life in a violent bust of green light. However, rather than a call timer and a list of phone numbers, the screen was black, apart from a single message, picked out in green flashing script. Purge the system. She rolled her eyes. Wonderful, the database was corrupted. That was sure to have ruined our chances of making our numbers today. As if to emphasize this, the machine beeped again, and the same message appeared under the first one. Purge the system. Then, as she watched, it repeated again and again, the same words filling the screen, line after line, until the text started scrolling at once. Purge the system. She reached for the power cable and yanked it out of the wall, but rather than turn off, the machine continued to flash the same message over and over, faster and faster, its flickering text strobing madly in front of her, and painting her pale face in a frenzied green glow. Purge the system. She looked around for assistance, and it was then that a sweeping wave of the attire almost knocked her off her feet. It was like someone had reached inside her head and flicked a switch behind her eyes, because she now saw what was in front of her. Some noise must have escaped her lips because Denise had stopped talking and was staring at her. The screen continued to flash, but she understood what it was telling her. Slowly and with purpose, she stood up, pushing her chair back and removing her headset. Mr. Kowalski was walking towards her, gesticulating and saying something, but she couldn't hear him. All she could hear was a voice in her head, a voice that sounded distinctly like Mother's, and it was repeating the same message over and over again, getting louder as Kowalski got closer. As a voice screamed its message, she understood its intent, because if a figure in front of her wasn't Mr. Kowalski, it was something other. She could feel the sheer wrongness radiating off it in sickly, pungent waves, and she could see the thick black veins that pulsed underneath its pasty skin. Whatever it was. It was yelling, but the noise came out like a shrill buzzing of an insect. It was inhuman, but why was no one else reacting? Maybe they were too scared. Maybe they were in its thrall. While she sometimes disagreed with Mother, one area that they never debated was that of a woman's right to defend herself. She had been only 16 when Mother had taken her to the local chapter of Women on Target, and she had learned to shoot at an even younger age. Even though this office of Midwest Insurance was meant to be a weapons-free workspace, she'd never been willing to let her guard down, and as a Kowalski thing came towards her, buzzing and gesticulating wildly, she knew what she had to do. Calmly, and with an almost casual indifference, she reached down and opened her pus. Denise had always laughed at this, calling it frumpy and mocking its size, saying it was the sort of thing moms used to carry diapers and snacks in. Therefore, it was with some small amount of satisfaction that she saw Denise's eyes widen and her mouth drop open in shock that she drew the pistol from the bag. As she started to squeeze the trigger over and over, she was sure she could hear the mother voice room to bring Welcome to the Hollow Men. Brought to life with voice actors and narration. Content warnings first. This is obviously horror. Expect violence, gore, and profanity. Hey, I'm Scottish, profanity is my love language. I'll fade to black when anything sexual and give warnings if we hit suicide or similar themes. Important caveat. This game is ultimately procedurally generated using the mythic games master emulator and some dice. It will not be neat. Plot threads made angle, characters you love can die, the dice lead everything, and I follow. If you want a tidy story, this absolutely is not going to be it. If you want to see though where the chaos takes us, you are in the right place, my friend. So what's Hunter the Recking then? Basically, ordinary people wake up one day and see the monsters hiding in plain sight. More importantly, they choose to do something about it. Now, that something doesn't mean grabbing a shotgun and an oozy, it means that they take action instead of running or pretending they saw nothing. After that moment, they are changed forever. We are using White Wolf's original first edition from 1999, not the more recent 5th edition version. The game uses the storyteller system, and at its simplest, this means you roll D10s equal to an attribute plus a skill and you're trying to beat a target number, usually six. Once you've rolled a dice, you count the number of successes you've got and deduct any ones that you rolled. If you end up getting more ones than successes, that means you have botched spectacularly, and that's basically it. I'll explain any more details that matter as they come up. So if you're ready to begin, jump straight to episode 1. However, if you want to see character creation and here's some specific house rules, that's going to be next. I should note that this is going to be the only time I'm going to go through character creation. So if you want to know what that methodology is, stick around. Any other characters that appear in the story, I'll be generating off mic. Why? Well, basically because when I was writing this out, I realized I was boring myself doing it, so goodness knows what that would do to you listeners. So if you're still around, let's talk about some rules. As I mentioned before, I'm gonna explain mechanics as they come up during the story. Nobody wants a rule book episode. However, one stat that's very important to talk about before we start is that of conviction. Conviction is a spiritual energy unique to the imbued, and you can use it for all sorts of different effects. If you spend a part of conviction for one scene, you're going to be immune to supernatural fear, mind control, emotional manipulation, and any attempt to sort of puppet your body through will alone. You'll also remember everything that happens. In White Wolf's games, most monsters can fog mortal memories. Conviction that burns that fog away. It also grants second sight, letting you see monsters hiding in plain sight. Now, here's where White Wolf made a bit of a mess of things. Sometimes in their writing, second sight merely shows a creature as being wrong. That is to say not human. Sometimes though it reveals the true form, and sometimes it's both. Basically, when White Wolf wrote this, they wrote some inconsistent nonsense. My ruling is going to be second sight works like this. If you have a second sight active, you can see creatures masquerading as humans. So that's basically shapeshifters in human form, vampires, demons wearing flesh, that kind of thing. These guys will feel wrong. Not evil, not good, just not human. How that manifests will vary by hunter and by my mood when I'm writing it. Spirits possessing or hiding within humans will appear as images superimposed over their host. And any artificial illusions simply don't register to the imbued. This also gives other perceptive powers room to shine. When characters spend conviction, it's a free action and the effects last for one scene. One more thing second sight only works on creatures physically present. White Wolf waffled and wavered on whether it would work through cameras, monitors, TVs, that kind of thing, you know, whether you can look at a cinema screen and go, oh that actor, he's wrong. I'm just getting rid of all that. It doesn't work that way. Flesh and blood only. Now, Hunter Game would be nothing without monsters, and in this game, every monster I'm going to use will come from Hunter's published enemy books and also from the storyteller's companion, not the sister game lines. This is a hunter game, not Vampire the Masquerade with Hunters tacked on. The enemy books are true to the spirit of those games, whilst also giving me the freedom to change things up. It also means I don't need to build an ecosystem of monster politics, and you'll get to experience the same fear and ignorance that my characters do. Wonderful. Basically, don't expect game line specific terminology. You're not gonna find clans, tribes, or traditions in this, just monsters. My final house ruling, I say final, my final house ruling at the moment, concerns character creation. Hunter uses a point by system. That's far too tidy and controlling for this chronicle, so I've built a random generation system instead. Characters are rolled, not planned. I'm gonna be using the core rulebook plus selected merits and flaws from the player's guide. Nothing from the Creed books, the backgrounds, the abilities in there, either I didn't like them, they're already covered in the core book, or they're too niche. Like I say to my customers, it worked all the time, I'm gonna keep it simple. So this is gonna be time to roll up our first character. And warning, this is gonna be detailed because I want you to understand the system behind the chaos. So, first up gender. This is gonna be a high low on a D10 with high being a female. That's a six. So our first character is going to be a woman. The next thing we have are nature and demeanor. This was White Wolf's equivalent of alignment for their characters. Nature is who you really are, and demeanour is the mask you wear. Now I've compiled every option from the core book and the creed books and put them into a lovely little table, which I can now roll a percentage against. So, rolling for nature first. That's 24. Interesting. Celebrant. That means our character is going to take joy in her cause. She pursues passion with enthusiasm rather than duty. So she's either this naturally buoyant soul or something in her life really brings her happiness. On the flip side, because this is why Wolf and nihilism is everyone's best friend, she'll probably also crash really hard when things turn bad. Right, rolling for Demeanor next. 67 Paragon. That means she's straightforward, reliable, true to her word, the dependable type, a safe pair of hands. Right, with that out of the way, we'll move on to our first kind of hunter-related stat. So every character has what's called a primary virtue. These represent how you approach your calling once you're imbued. There's three of them. Zeal is energy for direct action, mercy is compassion and understanding, and vision is seeing the big picture. I'm just simply gonna roll a D3 here with one being zeal, two for mercy, and three for vision. That's vision, so she takes a long view. Why was she imbued? Who's behind it? What are these creatures she can see? What are they doing, and how does it all connect? She's gonna prioritize gaining information over direct confrontation. She'll want to develop a plan and see the bigger picture. Each imbued starts with three virtue points, and this determines what powers they have access to. Now I won't explain edge acquisition mechanics yet, edges are the powers that hunters get. That's gonna unfold within the story. Right now, all we need to know is whether all three of her points are gonna go into vision or if she's gonna spread them out between all three virtues. I'm just gonna roll a d6 here on a one to four, she's gonna keep all her points in vision, and a five or six, she is going to spread it out. A five, that looks like they're now gonna have one point in each of vision, mercy, and zeal. Now, ordinarily I would roll for what's called Creed Next. That's Hunter's attitude to the imbuing, but followers of vision only have one regular creed, they're very aptly named Vision Rays, so that's already been decided. Next up we've got attributes, which is to say natural capabilities. The system divides these into the categories of physical, social, and mental, and these will be prioritized as primary, secondary, and tertiary. So I'm gonna roll a d3 to find out which one is primary. So that's mental. That means our character is a thinker. For the other two, I'm gonna roll a high low on a d10. High means social is secondary, otherwise it's gonna be physical. Another three, so that means physical is secondary and social is tertiary. So we now need to see what she's actually like. As I mentioned before, the original system is all points by, but we're going to randomize this, and each attribute in each category will automatically get one point. Then mental will get an additional six points to distribute, physical will get four, and social will get three. Attributes range from one to five, with two being human average and five being nearly superhuman. So here's how this is gonna work. There are three attributes per category, and I'll basically roll d3s equal to the amount of points available and distribute them. First attribute, second attribute, third attribute. No attribute can start up by five, so if anything does, I'll re-roll any extras. Mental attributes are perception, intelligence, and wit. We're gonna roll for those first with six d3. So that gives us two points in perception, three in intelligence, and one in wits. This gives final stats of perception three, intelligence four, wits two. She's keen-eyed and very smart, but she has fairly average reactions. Physical attributes are next, strength, dexterity, and stamina, and for this I'm gonna be rolling four d3. Wow, three in strength, one in stamina, none in dexterity. That means she's a whopping strength of four, dexterity one, and stamina two. Now, according to the rule book, strength four means she can live four hundred pounds. Our girl is built, but she's also incredibly clumsy. Dexterity 1 is rough. Average stamina suggests her strength isn't from cardio, but from natural heavy built. She's gonna be bulky rather than toned. Right, finally, social attributes. Charisma, manipulation, and appearance. And for this, we're gonna roll 3d3. That gives us 2 in manipulation, 1 in appearance, so it gives final stats of charisma 1, manipulation 3, and appearance 2. So she's socially awkward, she is rather plain looking, but she's very good at working situations to her advantage. This fits well with her high intelligence, she analyzes rather than charms, which is kind of perfect for a visionary. After we've rolled our attributes, we're gonna get abilities, and these are proficiencies in certain areas. Talents are natural flair, skills are practical training, and knowledges are book learning. Now, unlike attributes where one is below average, having one in an ability means you're trained in that thing, so you're immediately better at that than someone who has zero dots in it. Scale still goes from one to five, but a starting character can exceed three in an ability at this stage. So I'm gonna roll a d3 for primary category, and again, these are talents, skills, and knowledges. That's a one, so that means talents are gonna be primary. Again, for secondary, we're gonna do high low. Uh high is going to be knowledges, low will be skills. Another one. This pretty much exemplifies my luck when it comes to rolling dice. So that means skills are gonna be secondary and knowledges will be tertiary. So she's gonna be built on natural ability and practical experience, not academics. Similar to attributes, abilities get a pool of points to distribute amongst the primary, secondary, and tertiary categories. In this case, talents are gonna get 11 points, skills will get seven, and knowledges get four. Now, conveniently there are 12 abilities per category, so I'm gonna roll that many d12s equal to the number of points I get and distribute them. No ability can start above three, so if anything does, I will re-roll those dice. Obviously, me rolling a whole bunch of d12s and reading out the results one by one isn't particularly great radio. So, what I've done is I've rolled these off mic and I'll just summarize the results we've got here. So for our talents, she's got an alertness of one, and alertness is sensitivity to physical surroundings. She's got an incredibly high intimidation of three, which means even though she's presenting as being straight-laced, she's not afraid to throw her weight around. I think guessing the size plus smarts makes her very good at cowing people. She's got an expression of one, which means she communicates ideas clearly and convincingly, an empathy of one, which allows her to read emotions and thoughts well, an awareness of one, this is a kind of sixth sense for supernatural trouble, which will come in handy. An athletics of one, which is a nice counterpart to her high strength, maybe she played sports at high school. She's got a leadership of two, which means our last commands people with confidence and more importantly gets results. And finally, she's got a streetwise of one, which means she's not going to end up in the wrong part of town unless she really wants to. Now, with the talents out of the way, we've also got our skills. And for this, she ended up with a craft of one. This covers making and repairing things, notably not technology, there's a separate skill for that. So let's say she's good with cars for no other reason, mainly than I wish I was good with cars. So I can have a little bit of wish fulfilment through this character. She's also got a stealth of two, and this is kind of interesting. It means she moves quietly and remains unseen. Why does she have this? Maybe this will come out later on in character creation. She also has a technology of one, and this is the aforementioned electronics equivalent of the craft skill. So she can build and repair electronic devices. She's also got the skill of demolitions one, and though this doesn't mean that she's some Navy SEAL demo expert. Instead, this can also cover disarming explosives. Now, with our electronics knowledge, I'll say it's just a natural extension of that. She knows when to snip the blue wire instead of the red one. And finally, she has a survival skill of one, and survival covers things like camping, hiking, that sort of thing. So she's obviously quite outdoorsy. So finally, we're gonna roll for her knowledges, and for this, she got a research of one, that means basically navigating storehouses of knowledge. She basically knows her way around the library. A bureaucracy of one, which means she's got a good understanding of government paperwork. Our girl is utterly unfazed by visits to the DMV, and for that I'm rather jealous. She has an academics of one that represents formal humanities schooling, and this demands what's called a speciality, so she's a good communicator, so I'll say it was literature. And finally, she has an investigation of one. This is the ability to follow or, if you want, cover up leads. And you know what? All these skills are screaming that she is some kind of investigative journalist. So now that we know who she is, we need to know a little bit more about her life. And in the storyteller system, this is covered by a set of attributes called backgrounds. These are aspects beyond physical capability, things like your history, community, station in life, that kind of thing. As mentioned before, I'm using the core rule book only. There was a whole bunch of backgrounds appeared in the Creed books, but to be honest, I either didn't like them or they were just basically extensions of what already existed. I'm also dropping a background for the core book called Exposure because I've always felt that this background contradicts the whole premise of Hunter. The game is meant to be about normal people disrupted by their first encounter with the supernatural. Exposure indicates previous contact, which frankly flies in the face of the core rulebook, which states that the game isn't about humans with insights into familiarity with the supernatural. Never understood why they included that. Anyway, removing exposure neatly gives me 10 backgrounds. Each PC gets 5 points to spend, so I'll be rolling 5d10 to determine the spread. Okay, so she's got a resources of two, which means she has a nice car, a home, and she's comfortably making end meet. Now the rules actually say instead of having one nice car, you can have a couple of old cars. So with her craft skill, let's say she's got an older car and a truck as restoration projects. She's also got a fame of two, which means she's some kind of local celebrity. Um, but that we're talking morning talk show host level. Now she's certainly not charismatic or photogenic enough for cameras, but with research, investigation, good written communication, and a butt of abilities for getting answers from people who don't want to talk. Let's say she's a radio show, a talk show focusing on hard-hitting local stories, things like slippery politicians and corrupt business people. She does the investigative journalism to make the case, to get these people in front of a mic, and then she grills them. She's also got an influence of one. Now this represents some sway over some group. In the core rulebook, that only ever really covered politics, but the LARP version of Hunter included rules for all sorts of groups. So good thing I have those to hand. They included 15 types of influence, so what I'm gonna do is I'll roll a d20, be rolling anything over 16, and we'll go with that result. A four, that's health influence. I wonder what reason she has for having that. Let's say she organises blood drives through the radio station. She's got the leadership skills, so she'll be the sort of person who can make that happen. Next up, we've got one of my favourite parts of character creation: merits and flaws. Now the player's guide includes loads of these, but a ton of these are completely superfluous. There's for example Media Junkie, which gives you bonuses to pop culture research. There's also a skill called Trivia Champ that does basically the same. These are the sort of things that if a character wanted that, I just let them include it in their background and play it out. So instead, what I've done is I've compiled the most narratively interesting ones into a table and dropped the dozen or so that basically say some variation of you get plus two to a test when doing a really specific thing. Now in tabletop, merits and flaws are optional and they either cost points in the case of merits or give points to spend in the case of flaws. So to represent this, I'm rolling a d10 with a 75% chance to get a merit. If they get one, they get a corresponding flaw of a similar value. Then they get a 50% chance for a second merit, but no more. Two merits, two flaws are interesting enough, and I do want to keep bookkeeping simple. So I'm gonna roll a d100 and see if she's got a merit. That's a 15, so she does have a merit. Let's roll to see which one she has. 79. That's a flexible job. This kind of makes sense for her investigative work. She's the leeway to come and go as she pleases. Now what I'll do is I will roll for a corresponding flaw. Ouch! Alumini. She's responsible for payments to her ex-spouse and kids. Does she get a second minute to go along with this? Let's roll and find out. 52. Close but no cigar. Right, well, given the alimony flaw, let's see if she has any children. Now note there's a specific children flaw, meaning you're directly responsible for kids. So something must have happened to take them out of her life. Presumably, they live with her ex. Incidentally, I can hear all of you parents listening chuckling at the fact that children count as a flaw in Hunter the Reckoning. So let's roll a d6 and a one, that means no kids. Two to three means she has one kid, four to five means two, and a six means more than two. A six? Wow, this is clearly going to be a hefty eliminate. Her fixer upper cast suddenly make a lot of sense. Right, I'm gonna roll a d4 for how many more than two kids she has. That's a two, so four kids in total. One final roll is the family in the same town or elsewhere. This is gonna be a simple high low on a d10 with high meaning they are elsewhere. A three, so the same city, that's going to be interesting. Now, before I do my usual and go down a rabbit hole of generating all the information about the family, I'm gonna rule that I'm only going to generate that as it needs to come up as part of the narrative. We're also going to record her starting conviction, that is three for a visionary, and she also gets three starting points with willpower. The final stage of character creation is something called freebie points. The tabletop point spy system gives 21 points to boost attributes, abilities, backgrounds, willpower, and conviction. Attributes cost five points each, abilities cost two, and willpower, backgrounds, and conviction cost one each. Some quick maths tells me that one point in each of these categories will cost 10 3Ds. So I'll do that twice, then randomize where the remaining point goes between backgrounds, conviction, and willpower. Now I'll rule for her attributes that those points go into our lowest scores, in this case, dexterity and charisma. For abilities, I'm gonna roll two d3 for categories and a d12 in each. That's a one and a three, so talents and knowledges. So I'm gonna roll two d12 to determine where those points end up. A 12 and a four. That's subterfuge and finance. Both of these make sense. She has to deal with some slippery customers in her interviews, and she also has to balance her books because of the LME. I'm now gonna roll a d3 for the extra point to find out where that goes. So that's another point of conviction for an extra three in total. Finally, we're gonna roll two d10 for the remaining background points. A 1 and a 2 that equates to allies and arsenal. Allies means someone reliable she can call on with moderate influence. Now there's no need to define them yet, we'll meet them when the narrative demands it. Arsenal 1 means she's got a modest collection of rifles, shotguns, and maybe handguns. America, am I right? She probably also has some army surplus gear, including first aid kits. Coupled with survival and stealth, I think it's clear she's into hunting. It also means lots of government documentation on her, which probably explains her bureaucracy skill. So who is this character we've created? We have a woman with a deep joie de vivre hiding underneath everything, but she presents a straight-laced face to the world, probably because of the traumatic divorce that saw her lose custody of her children. She's incredibly smart and perceptive, not to mention very strong. She's plain and not particularly charming, but she has a very keen eye for human behaviour. This suits her role as an investigative journalist, which fits her inquisitive nature. Her local radio talk show has garnered some local fame and she uses that to help with charity work at the hospital. In her spare time, she hunts, and this helps her decompress and feel like her old self. With this background, saying she's in her late 30s to early 40s feels right, so I'm gonna roll a d8 and I'm gonna add that to 35. A 2, so she's 37. Perfect. One last thing, she needs a name, and I'm terrible with names, so I'm gonna be hitting some random name generator that I find, and you can find out what she's called on the next episode. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Hollow Men. If you've enjoyed what you've heard, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line at roll.2.save.pod at gmail.com or find us on Instagram and Facebook by searching for Roll2Save. If you want to support the show, you can do so by leaving us 5 stars on your podcast app of choice or by sharing our episode announcements on social media. Every review and share helps us reach more listeners and to be honest it validates our fragile little egos and makes us want to make more episodes. If you're new to Roll2Save, welcome. We have a back catalogue filled with other actual plays like this one, plus history episodes exploring classic RPGs, roundtable discussions, author interviews, and product reviews. If you're a fan of Gaming's Golden Age, you'll find something there for you. Finally, thanks to Heather Hanneman for voicing the messengers. What are the messengers? Well, I guess you'll just have to tune in to the next episode to find out.