The Whispering Vault

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
- William Shakespeare

If you wish to join this game, ask Alcar for help about making PCs. Once a session has begun no knew players can join unless the Stalkers choose to make a Call themselves back through the Rift for more aid.

This Whispering Vault campaign will run at undetermined times. Make a PC, if other players are on and not busy, there is a game. Nice and simple :)

The campaign itself will consist of a series of quick Hunts to get players used to the game system, followed by a specific campaign idea if players are willing.

This page will have experiece/karma listings and session summaries, gods willing :)

I think there is choice possible to us at any moment, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.
- Muriel Rukeyser

Making a PC for The Whispering Vault is easy. The non-dice mechanics are the important part, and detailed below.

Decide when your PC was born historically and where. As beings of Essence, Stalkers are not bound to mortal ideas of time. Indeed, to those who make the Dream, all time is one. As such, your character can be from any period of history. The camapign will take place in the modern world, so your PC might want to know something of it.

Who your PC was and what they did for a living is very important. No matter what a Stalker becomes, they never truly lose who they were. Keep in mind that most Stalkers are exceptional individuals - it is more likely your PC would have been a warrior than a farmer, for example. As well, try to avoid turning historical figures into your PC. I will allow it, but only if it can make sense with the PC becoming a Stalker.

Why and how your PC first began to hunt the Unseen is important. Were they Sensetive to them, in the wrong place at the wrong time? Working out what drove your PC to hunt such creatures down will tell you alot about why s/he became a Stalker.

As well, the actual experience of being offered - and accepting - an immortal essence life is important. Why did your PC agree to become a Stalker? How did the experience change them?

Once a character leaves the realm of Flesh for existences in the realm of Essence, their spirit is freed from the bounds of flesh to be what it should have been, or what the PC turned it into. Be inventive. The Revealed form of a Stalker is what they really are, and often contains some hints of their mortal life. Your form - Avatar - should be distinctly supernatural, but doesn't necessarily have to be sickening or twisted. Also, just because your avatar looks like an angel doesn't necessarily mean your PC can fly.

Every Stalker has a home, a Domain carved out of Essence by them to live in when not Hunting the Unbidden. The physical laws of the Dreaming world of Flesh don't apply. Make your home as strange, exotic and bizarre as you want to. When your idea begins to seem far off to left field, you're getting there.

Note that a PCs background will most likely have no impact on the game, except showing the areas of time they know something about and giving the player a feel for the character, as well as some skill ideas.

The five keys are your PCs symbols of office, and might look like something other than real keys, but all are physical and must be prominently displayed on your PC. They define your PCs humanity. Every PC must take Compassion as one of their keys. It is the first one to be forged, and the last to be lost, part of what makes a PC able to be a stalker. The others can be good or bad. Most PCs would end up with 2 Virtuous Keys, 2 Flawed one (everyone has flaws) and one Memory one, based on something that happened in their life. Each player should have at least three done for the game. The last two can be added as you get a better feel for your PC.

The darkness can teach you things that the light has never seen, and will never be able to see . . .
- Marion Zimmer Bradley

The basic rules of the game are very simple. Roll a number of 6-sided dice, find the highest total die, with duplicates counting to the total of one. For example, The Red Thief is trying to sneak past a lazy night watchman in order to examine an Enigma. The Red Thief had a Dexterity of 5, so he rolls 5 dice, getting 2, 3, 4, 4, 6. While the 6 is the highest single die, the two 4's combine for an 8, so the Thief adds his stealth skill of +5 and ends up with 14, more than enough to evade the humans perception of 10. The perception of 10 is an example of a Challenge Roll, which is the number (or stat) a PC has to beat in order to succeed in an action.

Sparkie has this as the !vault command. So !vault 6 (for six dice) would roll six and give you the highest result.

Combat in The Whispering Vault is fast and brutal. Vitality (how healthy you are) is how much damage you take before you are dead. Vitality is your blood and bones, not abstract numbers: a human losing 2 or 3 vitality is in need of desperate medical attention. As well, PCs are free to be creative. If a PC attacks an NPC and does a fair bit of damage, they can chose what happens (within reason) such as ripping someones arm off and the like.

Init is a Dexterity Challenge rolled at the beginning of each session and is your Init for that entire session, to save time. You do go before your foe if you surprise them but otherwise in the normal order.

Attacks are done using Dexterity (for basic and ranged combat) challenges. You add your attack bonus skill or appropriate focus skill. Defending is a dexterity challenge plus ones defend bonus. Unarmed combat is based on using ones strength as damage dice, othertiwse its the damage of the weapon used. Note that dice caps are imposed on damage from ranged attacks (-1, so no roll of 6 counts towards damage). As well, most mortals get another -1 due to the fact that stalkers aren't normal.

Damage is done with sparkie using !damage <damage die> <dice cap> So !damage 4 resulting in 1, 3, 4, 6 would result in 14 damage. If the die cap was on, for 5, all rolls over 5 would be ignored, so the PC would do 8 damage instead.

Damage is taken to anyone in the game by reducing it due to their fortitude. A Fortitude of 3 would mean that for every 3 damage that hits them, they lose 1 point of vitality. Once all a persons vitality is lost, the damage is taken off their fortitude, which is even more brutal. As Stalkers are not human, they don't lose consciousness as mortals do when they run out of vitality and, furthermore, can decide what attribute is lowered from damage. So they could reduce fortitude OR strength OR deterity while mortals just lower fortitude.

This basically covers combat for PCs without breaking any laws (I think). It is intended to be a reference for PCs more than anything else.

It isn't evil that's running the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly.
- Ned Rorem

My name is .... mine. It is the last thing I own of my peoples, so I will not give it here. I am - I was - a priest of my land, one of those who could do more than others, see more than they could see. I was found quickly as a child due to my ability to See what others could not and my sensetivity to the unseen world. The priests trained me well, and I worked hard for my order. Then the Thing came to our land. I heard rumours of deaths, of something neither man nor beast. Such things I had seen sometimes, but this was more than they, solid. Real. Deadly. For a month it rampaged the land, slaughtering even some I thought Gods come to aid us. I know they were Stalkers, now. I did not then. Later, the Order began to change. The rules and regulations of the priesthood altering. I confronted an old friend on it, and Knew he wasn't my friend. I slew him and something came out ... something I don't recall any longer but it drove me mad. I hunted this second creature for years, killing its vessels and forsaking my vows. I learned how to kill. Even more slowly, I became sane one day. I no longer sensed it, but the church had a new leader, a wise man from far off lands. I was caputured for my crimes, for the murders I had done, and brought before him. I knew he was the other thing, but I did not know how. He LOOKED human, in all ways but ... something was wrong with him. I attacked him. I was attacked by his own guard when more of the Gods came, Stalkers coming to slay this Unbidden that had slain the other group. They bound it, but freed it when they realised that the creature was doing good for my lands, now. Repairing what it had done before. Even I knew that. They came to me, then, and offered me freedom, to join them in dealing with other evils. I accepted, and left the world of Flesh into the undreamed world of Essence. I have not seen my homeland since. I never expect to again.

The Seer's avatar is a tall, robed priest with strange eyes that change colour with his moods, from pale to black as night. He is thin and tall (7'5") but strong and carries an axe by his side that has seen him through many battles in his mortal life. When angry, his entire skin can glow as his eyes do sometimes. He prefers to remain out of mortal legends.

The Seer lives in a small domain, just an island really. It's filled with images of the people he knew in his life, before he began hunting the unbidden that destroyed his sanity. It's also all that is left of Atlantis after it passed into Neitherspace.

Compassion (Virtue)
Faith (Memory)
Righteousness (Virtue)
Secretive (Memory of his homeland)
Vengeance (Flaw)

The Seer is a basic PC. Obviously, I would need to work on the domain a fair bit more for a finished pc - especially if other PCs will end up visiting it - but it works as a basic idea. I originally had Secretive as Loss of his homeland, but decided he is secretive about his origins instead, even to other Stalkers.

Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.
- Douglas Bader

The Whispering Vault is a horror-oriented game. If you don't think you can deal with mature - and immature - themes in a game designed to evoke horror, don't play. As well, I am modifying some of the rules from the Whispering Vault for ease of game play, as well as changing the setting a bit. If you have the book, deal with it :)

Finally, this game will involve combat, and likely a fair bit of it, unlike most of the games Alcar runs. Just a fair warning.

The world is but a thoroughfare full of woe,
And we are pilgrims, passing to and fro.
- Geoffrey Chauncer

The PCs ended up in 1963 Maine, where they destroyed the desk of a prison warden, which was somehow speaking to them and tried to steal the Keys of Office of 2 PCs, nearly succeeding the first time. They think it was something Whispering from inside the Vault ... something that wants out.

Hortemere and Liam were Called to 19th century England (Lian got side-tracked by a Guardian). Arriving alone, Hortemere entered the sewers, where he distngrted (sorry, disintegrated :)) a wall and entered the room the Caller was in. She thought him an angel but before they could truly converse a master of earthly magic bound Horetemere to his will.

Called to help a Stalker (hortemere) captured by a human magician, Harold saves the girl from a Shadow Awakened to kill her and ends up in the magician's home. Realising he needs aid, since the prison is impervious to Stalker powers, he Calls and Vincent responds. Freeing Hortemere from the strange locked sub-basement with their Keys, they attack the magician, who manages to Banish Harold before being shot to death by Vincent.

Called by a girl needing aid against a Plague Beast from Eldon's Domain somehow in Harolds, the 3 stalkers follow the girl through a hole made in Essence that takes them to a Shadow village by a lake where they save her from being burned to death. Wishing to unravel this lands mystery, they have her lead them to a sacred grove, of a man who came accross the water long ago, the last stranger to ever be here. Harold removes the lid of the tomb (to make sure the corpse is dead) and the Shadow begins disolving. Vincent falls - or leaps? - into the Void, but Eldon and Harold return, Harold taking the girl (Sofia) to his domain.

Adventure 5: Preventing Prehistoric Perverted Pecadillos by a Preponderate Person (Alec, Harold, Hortemere, Vincent)

The 4 stalkers were Called to the early ages of man by a cave woman who had been attakced by a strange bird man on her way to rescue her husband from it. The bird man - and some Minions - were beaten by the PCs. The bird man felt like an Unbidden but claimed to have been possessed by one when it attacked the woman and her children. Delayed by fighting it and the Minions, the PCs found the Unbidden had used some travel magic that dealt with Excalibur and Arthur to leave the area, killing the Shaman/husband it forced to aid it.