Werewolf V has begun with the able and impeccable Dread Pirate Joe as the GM once again for what’s going to prove to be a humdinger of a battle.
For those of you unfamiliar with the game. Werewolf is a whodunnit where each player receives a secret role (some werewolves some villagers) and through the course of a number of nights try and either wipe out the villagers or put a stop to the wolves. In this case we’re going to be playing with a fairly large group (around 20) and by email with a move per day.
I’m fully expecting to be dead within a short time so until then I’ll report back.
For your deliberation here’s how it just started thanks to Dread Pirates superlative writing skills…..
Prologue:
Ext: It is the early hours, before dawn, in the distance, the sleepy mid-west-sterotypical small town of ‘JHFPville’ for short – is still sleeping. On a lonely road a car drives slowly.
Bob*: “This place always gives me the heebie jeebies”
Carl*: “Yeah, me too.”
Bob: “I ain’t been out to the old meat packing plant for years. Not since I wuz a kid. Kinda forgot it was there, till I read it was closed down.”
Carl (Shudders): “Yeah, me too.”
Bob: “I say, old Joe is gonna be mighty pissed that it is closed. That was his first business, yeah?”
Carl: “Yeah”
Bob: “I mean, he got lots more now, and is the frikking mayor and everything, so he gonna be all right. Don’t know whey he kept this place open for decades.”
Carl: “Maybe it was to stop the killin'”
Bob: “Man! That why you so quiet? Thats old ghost stories to scare the kids. None of that stuff ever happened. Damn, you got one helluva imaninagtion.”
Carl: “Name one person you know over the age of 60 – apart from Old Joe?”
Bob: “Well, theres a.. Now, gimmie a minute, my head ain’t that fresh at this time of night. Oh, theres… No, not him… well, there must be someone. A lot of them lie about their age.”
Carl: “Light”
Bob: “Their age, not their weight. Though some cou-“
Carl: “No. Light, at the meat packing factory.”
Bob: “This time of night? What you think, Old Joe working late?”
Carl: “Doubt it, they boarded the place up last week.”
Bob: “Damn. Someone trying to rob the place? We better get outta here.”
Carl: “Damn right. We don’t want no trouble.”
Carl increases the speed of the car and it passes quickly by the gate to the plant. After a few seconds, he slams on the brakes, and starts to reverse.
Bob: “What the hell are you doing?”
Carl: “We better go check it out.”
Bob: “Why?”
Carl: “Well, we are the police after all.”
Bob: “Chrissstake. It’s five minutes until shift change. You’re not gonna change yer mind, are ye?”
Carl drives on steadily, killing the lights on the patrol car.
Bob: “Dammit. Better call it in so. Gloria*? You there hun?”
Gloria (over the radio): “You boys better hurry up, these pancakes are looking mighty good.”
Bob turns to Carl: “You hear that, we gonna miss the frikking pancakes. Gloria, we going to be a bit late, Kojak here wants to go check out the meat packing plant. He thinks there is someone in there.”
Silence.
Bob: “Gloria, you there?”
Gloria: “Sorry boys. Got a bit of a shock there. You two come back to the station. I don’t think there is any need going there tonight. OK?”
Bob: “Sure thing. We going to high tail it back before the syrup has melted.”
Bob switches off the radio and turns to Carl.
Carl: “No. I got a feeling about this.”
Bob: “Feeling? Man you get feelings all the time. This like the time you suspected Mrs. Brewski* of running a brothel?”
Carl: “She had S&M equipment outside her house.”
Bob: “It was a chairlift.”
Carl: “I know what I saw.”
Bob: “And when you accused the reverand of being a Vampire?”
Carl: “I know what I saw.”
Bob: “And when you thought that Ole Joe was in the Mafia?”
Carl: “Look. I know that something is up. Sssh… I seen movement inside.”
Both exit the car and walk silently up to the door. Carl motions with his hands that he is going to move around the back. He draws his gun. Bob raises up his hands to his mouth and shouts:
“OK, whoever you are in there. You have three minutes to get out!”
Carl (whispering angrily): “WHAT are you doing?”
Bob: “Don’t want to disturb them. They could be armed.”
Carl: “So are we.”
Bob: “Listen, when you been doing this job as long as I have, you’ll get to- “
Carl runs into the front door, which is hanging off it’s hinges.
Bob: “Darn stoopid young…” and runs after him.
Int: The main reception is a mess, and sprawled over the floor is the remains of what was probably once a human – or an uncooked beed lasagne. Its hard to tell. Carl is leaning against the counter, vomiting.
Bob: “Well, ole Joe probably won’t be worried about the mayoral elections next year anymore.”
Carl: “How do you know it’s him?”
Bob: “That peace of flesh over on the lamp has Ole Joe’s buttocks tattoo on it. He got it for his 70th birthday.”
Carl vomits again.
In the back room they hear a loud crash, and a growling sound.
Bob: “OK whoever y’all are. Come out with yer hands up!”
Something reaches from the backroom and grabs Carl around the ankle. Carl falls face forward into his vomit, and is dragged back into the room. He grabs the side of the reception desk.
Carl: “Arrgh.. It has me…”
Bob draws his gun and fires into the room. There is no reaction from whatever is inside.
Bob: “It’s trying to get the paper stuck to your other shoe. Give it to it!”
Carl: “You *(&£$(* crazy?”
Bob rushes over, graps the paper from Carl’s free shoe and throws it into the room. Whatever it is, it lets go of Carl’s ankle. They both run outside and get into the car.
Carl: “What the hell was-“
Bob: “Drive, you idiot. Drive!”
Int: Police station, an hour later. There are two plates with half eaten pancakes on them.
Gloria: “You boys are lucky to be alive. So this is what was on the paper then?”
Carl is holding a scrap of paper in his hand.
Carl: “Yeah, it seems to be the start of an email Ole Joe printed.”
Bob takes the paper and starts reading: “You are all domed.”
Gloria: “Ole Joe was never good with the spelling”
Bob reads on: “The plant it closing. Damn those vegetarians to hell. They have killed us all. I have kept it at bay for nigh on the last fifty years, but now they are hungry again, and I can’t stop them myself. But I know who they are, they are -“
Carl: “What a place to get ripped off. It looked like he was going to spill the beans.”
Bob: “I know. If only he had emailed it to someone.”
Gloria goes and checks the computer: “He did. He emailed it to us.
They all crowd around the computer. The email is in the Junk folder.
Bob: “That was send over a month ago.”
Gloria: ” Yeah, it went straight into the spam. Maybe that is why Ole Joe wanted to print it off?”
Carl: “Is that the confession from the guy we let off for the Macy Murders last year?”
Bob: “Oh, why yes it is. That went into the Spam folder too.”
Carl: “Didn’t we hang someone for that?”
Bob: “Yup. He did say he was innocent right till the end. Well, ye wins some, ya loose some.”
Carl: ” – ?!”
Gloria: “Here is his email. All the same up until… yadda yadda, Domed, hungry, ah, here.
But I know who they are, they are –
…
Hah ha ha I ain’t going to tell you, you bunch of halfwit hicks. Making my damn life a misery stuck in this bloody backwater for decades. Go to hell every last one of you moth*S&**(ks!”
Carl: “That was written by Ole Joe? But he does Father Christmas at the Store.”
Gloria: “He always seemed like such a nice old man…”
Carl (whispers): “I used to sit on his knee and tell him my secrects”
Bob: “I reckons, we better call a town meeting.”
Gloria: “What we gonna do now?”
Bob: “I reckons, we better call a town meeting.”
Carl: “I think we are all in big trouble.”
Bob: “I reckons, we better call a town meeting.”
Gloria: “We better call a town meeting.”
Carl: “Good idea Gloria.”
Bob (watching them walk off to the Air Raid Siren): “What am I, chopped liver?”
Gloria: “Only one REAL cop in this whole town sonny, and you KNOW who that is? Um hmm!”
Bob (under his breath): “Ah well, may as well go to Mrs. Brewski’s whorehouse. The Rev and his Vamps will have finished their weekly card game with the Mob by now. Bar should still be open.”
Bob grabs his coat, and walks out into the early morning. At least he knew he was sorta safe-ish from the wolfen – if they were back.
*Not his real name.
Victor Gannon Games 