My last post was primarily a brain dump in response to a friend telling me he's running his first WoD game, which he intends to be a zombie holocaust-esque game (of the Dan O'bannon variety rather than the Romero type), and was looking for ideas.
Having written the post, I find that I like the idea of sharing ideas. Especially ones I'll no doubt not get round to running.
Sorry for the double negative there...
So, let me tell you about my Alien vs Predator idea. In World of Darkness game terms, it's Werewolf vs Azlu, or, more specifically, a Predator King vs a swarm of Azlu, with humans in the middle.
I kind of see the start of the game in two threads. I'd have the players create two characters each, and split them up into two teams.
The general set up would be an archaeological expedition to the rain forests of South America and some recently uncovered Aztec ruins.
The cast would range from guides and jungle survivalists to archaeologists and documentary camera crew to security and porters.
To maintain the parallels with the AvP film (there was only one, right... la la la I can't hear you), one group will uncover some ancient sealed pottery jars that, when opened, contain large, soft eggs.
These eggs hatch into the immature Azlu, which quickly grow into obscene spider type things.
Azlu can do a number of things. When small, they can burrow into a persons brain and take full control.
When larger, they're massive, horrific spiders the size of dinnerplates (or face huggers) and can encase a human in a web cocoon and transform and take over their body, becoming a humanoid insect (like an Alien).
I hope you can see where I'm going with this.
I opted for a Predator King Pure Tribe Werewolf because these are the tribe with the most disdain for humanity and most likely to hunt and kill humans for the thrill.
There's little danger of a Predator King allying itself with humans, even if it's life counted on it.
So, why have the players stat two sets of characters? Glad you asked. I'll tell you why.
Having a bunch of parasitic aliens invade the bodies of the expedition is horrific in itself, and even more so if it happens to the players characters.
The down side is, those characters are dead and our of play very quickly.
My solution to this is the doubling up of characters and then splitting them off into two separate groups.
During the initial exploration of the ruins the narrative will jump between the two groups.
One will find the sealed pottery jars. The other will find a repository of ceremonial silver daggers. One group will open the jars back at base camp, the other will discover evidence of recent blood sacrifice. One group will be infected by the Azlu. The other group will have to fight to survive as their colleagues turn on them and lone hunter starts killing everybody.
It's probably worth including some supporting NPCs like local porters and tribesmen, faceless jungle guides and sexy college interns who can all die as the need arises.
