In Brief: An old rivalry between the leader of a Necropoli and the head of a divison of the Legion of Paupers comes full turn, catching a party of wraiths in the middle. A small campaign good for beginning players, small parties, or beginner Storytellers.

This campaign takes place in a Necropolis around Stygia, and Necropolis Charleston, specifically the headquarters of the Emerald Legion and the Legion of Paupers.

A map of the offices for the Legion of Paupers is found below. You may use this one, or come up with your own.

Map Locations:
1. Armory
2. Security Office
3. Jaminson’s Office
4. Ethel’s Office
5. Soulis’ Office
6. Reception Lobby
7. Conference Room
8. Main Lobby
9. Prison Cells

Geoff Soulis: Formerly the head of the Legion of Paupers in the Stygian Necropolis, he was beat out for the position of Regent by Philip Lucilious. Never getting over it, he put in for a transfer and eventually became the head of the Paupers at Necropolis Charleston. Soulis still wants to be a Regent, and continues to set his sights on the position he lost. If the opportunity ever arose to gain information about Lucilious, he would jump at the chance to bring down his greatest rival.

Philip Lucilious: The Regent of the Stygian Necropolis. Philip takes his job quite seriously and will route out any traitors who work against him or his business. However, he also shows mercy, allowing those he considers merely wayward to redeem themselves through Legion business. It is through this combination of strictness but kindness that he has ruled this Necropolis for nearly fifty years. You’d be hard pressed to say the Renegades and Heretics love him, but they don’t hate him either. Lucilious being usurped could have devastating consequences on this part of Stygia.

Denise Whitfield: The head of Emerald Legion, Charleston. Brisk and to the point. She is old friends with Lucilious and owes him a few favors. However, she owes nothing to Lucilious’ underlings and makes that quite clear.

Ethel: Soulis’s second-in-command and right hand woman, Ethel appears as a sweet, elderly, frail old lady. Nothing could be further from the truth; Ethel is a devious, dastardly spy who uses her abilities to get what Soulis needs. She is fiercely loyal to him and him alone.

Jamison: The other second-in-command of the Paupers, Jamison got his position through good old fashioned work. Ethel’s promotion, based on deceit and treachery, bothers and frustrates him. Make no mistake, he will do what he is told by Soulis, but not out of loyalty.

Suzannah An older wraith who has been imprisoned in the offices of the Legion of Paupers for ages. As her loud rambling attest to, she has not been to her Fetters in a long, long time. She will do everything she can to scare the wraiths into staying with her in prison, just so she won't be alone.

Thugs in the Emerald Legion offices:
Attributes
Physical Stats: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3
Social Stats: Charisma 3, Manipulation 2, Appearance 2
Mental Stats: Perception 3, Intellegence 2, Wits 2

Abilities
Talents: Alertness 2, Athletics 1, Awareness 2, Brawl 4, Dodge 3, Intimidation 1, Streetwise 3
Skills: Firearms 3, Melee 4, Stealth 4
Knowledge: Bureaucracy 2, Computer 1, Law 2

Arconoi: In each set of two, one will have Usury 3 and Outrage 3, and one will have Moliate 3 and Argos 3.

Starting Corpus: 10
Starting Pathos: 10
Willpower: 5

A party of wraiths somehow associated with the Legion (by choice or not) has been asked by the local Regent, Philip Lucilious, to go on an important mission. He needs them to go to Charleston, deliver a missive, and pick up a letter from the local Emerald Legion head, Denise Whitfield. The letter that is sent back will be sealed, and must remain unbroken, or else Lucilious will consider the mission a failure and will act against the party accordingly (demotions, forging, imprisonment, etc.) He bides them on their way and tells them they have two days to complete the mission.

If the party has no other means of travel through the Tempest, they may take the Legion ferry. The Ferryman will have already have heard from Lucilious and will take them to Charleston for free, but not without scaring the hell out of them first, with tales of the creatures of the Tempest, threats of failure, whatever it takes to get a rise out of the party. Eventually, the boat lands on the Battery of Necropolis Charleston. If the wraiths tip the Ferryman heavily, he will wait for them; otherwise, he will turn and head back into the mists of the Tempest.

The party walks down the Battery. The classic southern homes lay in ruin or are occupied by some very snobby, unfriendly looking people. The Hospitality Fountain at Battery Park, normally topped with a pineapple-feature, is chipped and broken, and is spurting a black, tar-like and extremely putrid substance into the basin below. As the wraiths move towards Emerald Legion headquarters, the old Meeting House, they spot other sites of downtown Charleston. Skeletal horses draw creaking carriages down the broken cobblestones. Wraiths sell their wares from the sides of the streets. Some of the more persistent ones will pull out weapons and threaten “customers.” A group of Confederate-era wraiths, many missing limbs, will be standing around, telling jokes on a street corner. The palmetto trees that line the avenues in the Skinlands are broken and rotten. The few standing look bleak and wilted. If an unsuspecting wraith walks beneath one, a palmetto bug the size of a German shepherd will dive from the tree, snatch up the wraith in massive pinchers, and take it back to its nest, where crunching sounds ensue and plasma streams from the tree branches.

Eventually, the party makes it to the Meeting House. Upon entering, a receptionist greets them and upon hearing they need to see Whitfield on behalf of Lucilious, are escorted upstairs to Whitfield’s office under an armed guard. Whitfield takes the missive, reads it, and asks the party to wait outside her office. They are shown to a fairly lush waiting room. A little old lady sits in a chair on the other side. She is a fairly typical old lady, bursting with polite chatter and full of questions. Her name is Ethel, and she claims to be Whitfield’s great-grandmother, and is waiting to take her out shopping. If one of the wraith’s mentions Lucilious, her eyes light up in recognition. She might mention she knows him, but hasn’t heard from him in a long time. Eventually, Ethel will leave, claiming she needs to speak with someone else for a moment.

Soon after, Whitfield will come out from her office and hand the party the letter. It is quite thick and sealed with a black wax, somewhat like the substance from the fountain outside. She reminds them that it must reach Lucilious unopened, and then turns and goes back into her office. The armed guard is nowhere in sight, and so the wraiths walk back to the front of the building alone. Somehow, they get lost, but run into Ethel somewhere in the building. She says she knows the way out, and since she has a few minutes before she needs to meet with Whitfield, she offers to lead them out of the building.

Instead, she leads them into a dark hallway in the very back. There, a few tough, ragged-looking men and women, including some from the “armed guard” are waiting. There are two thugs for every member of the party. Ethel slams the door behind them, sealing everyone in. The guards will charge the party and fight them. Just when the battle heats up, party members and guards alike will start staggering and having trouble fighting. An observant wraith will note Ethel, in a gas mask, releasing a vaporous red substance from a small vial. Eventually, all wraiths, save her, will crash to the ground, unconscious.

They will wake up in a prison cell (#9 on the map). The doors are solid Stygian steel, except for a small slot at eye level in each one. There are no windows, and only a single, small Moliated torch casts a dim light in each cell. The wraiths, who are unchained, can communicate with each other by talking loudly. If they check themselves, their weapons are gone, as is Whitfield’s letter. There may be some other prisoners in the cells, such as a bag lady named Suzannah who has been trapped in the cells for ages and is slowly going insane. Before the party can put an escape plan into effect, the door from the hallway opens. Two men and Ethel enter the hall. The first man, a Regent by his rank insignia, introduces himself as Geoff Soulis. The other man, Jamison, and Ethel are wearing the rank of Marshall and the insignia of the Legion of Paupers. Soulis informs the wraiths that he has the letter meant for Lucilious. He tells them it was very informative, laughs, and informs them they will be the guests of the Paupers for the rest of eternity. The heads of the Paupers then leave the prison area.

The party is left on their own. Suzannah will repeat that no one has escaped the building, but will fade in and out of sanity while saying it. The slots in the doors are just big enough a wraith skilled in Moliate could slide through. Other means might include Flicker, reshaping the door itself, Rot, etc. Let your party figure out a means to escape. Once they get out of the cells, they can proceed to the vault door. Oddly enough, it is unlocked. The hallway they exit into has the security room (#2) on the left and a door marked “supplies” on the right. (What they find in there is up to you.) If they proceed down the hall, they will see a number of offices. The doors are closed and the rooms are quiet. Anyone gutsy enough to open the doors will find the offices empty, dusty, and deserted. Searching the office, they will find nothing but old supplies and paper.

If they go to the left and to the end of the hall, they will spot two Legionnaires down the next hall to the right, near the armory (#1). They are talking to each other and do not notice the group as long as the group remains quiet. If the group is brought to their attention, and they cannot talk their way out of things, one will sound a nearby alarm before the two attack. However, if the Legionnaires are persuaded, they leave to go down the front hall, leaving the party free to exit or to enter the armory and grab weapons (mostly knives, swords, small guns, and light armor). If the group goes to the right and the end of that hall, they see no one down the hall either way, but several open doors with sounds of office work (typing, papers rustling, stapling, etc.) coming from them. Most of the workers are busy, so sneaking past shouldn’t be a problem. If someone does notice them, the same act as the Legionnaires above occurs.

Persuade the wraiths to the back of the building. There, they will find the door to the reception lobby (#6) unguarded, and no one inside. Going to the right leads to an empty conference room (#7), to the left are a locked set of doors. If the party searches the room, they will find a rough map of the building in the reception desk. There are two heavy flags and poles behind the desk an innovative wraith could use as a quarterstaff. Otherwise, there is nothing of use.

If the wraiths remain long enough, Soulis and Jamison, along with several heavily armed guards, will enter the room. Soulis will have the prisoners rounded up and herded into his office (#5), where he will display Whitfield’s letter. The seal is broken. He will then offer a choice: become spies for him against Lucilious, or be executed. Either way, the wraiths are doomed. He has the party locked in the conference room and gives them one hour to think it over.

The conference room has one long table down the center, and about twenty chairs around it. The doors are made of thick soulsteel. A wraith skilled in Moliate could possibly melt a hole in the door, but it would take time and a lot of successes. There is a spiral-bound notebook sitting on the table that has wire that could be used as a lockpick by a wraith with the skills. A wraith who tries to Flicker out of the room will hit a forcefield of sorts and will not succeed. If the group cannot think of a way to escape, they are stuck until they think of one. When they do, they can pass into Soulis’ office unhindered. No one is inside, leaving them free to ransack the room if they choose. If they do, a party member will find a two-page list of spies Soulis has planted in Lucilious’ Legion building.

Eventually, Soulis will return, by himself. He asks for the group’s decision. If they choose to join him, he will make arrangements for another mission against Lucilious and the campaign ends. However, if they choose not to, he will tell them it will be a sad waste of talent and a pity, and will then pull out two handguns and start firing. The party will probably attack in some way. However, when Soulis’s Corpus reaches two, he does not fall unconscious; he continues fighting as if unaffected. When his Corpus is exhausted, he collapses to the ground; his chest will pop open, revealing a clockwork fake. The fake is incredibly intricate, from the machinery inside to the exact replica of Soulis’ face. Hopefully, a group member will remember the letter, which is tucked into the machine’s coat pocket. If the party runs, they can barrel through the building and escape onto Huger Street. They will have to wander across Charleston now before reaching the Battery.

From here, it would be simple to divert them into another campaign. However, if they make it unhindered, they arrive at the dock they started at. If they did not tip the Ferryman, they must search out another one. If they did, he is waiting at the end of the dock, smoking a pipe. He will take them back to the Necropolis, where two Emerald Legion Centurions are waiting to take them back to Lucilious. When they arrive, Lucilious will ask for the letter. He is very upset to see the seal broken, although he remains calm. If the party can’t think of anything, they’ll need to find a way out, fast! But, if someone presents Lucilious with the list of spies from Soulis’ office, all will be forgiven, and they will be rewarded. He may even offer them positions in the Legion for their help!