Motorcity Monster Hunters
The story so far…
S1E1 – An unlikely group is formed when their separate investigations lead them to a nest of Vampires that have impacted each of their lives. The new friends find strength in numbers and uncover not some feral nest of blood suckers, but an intricate organisation involved in both legitimate and illegitimate business activities. The Reinhardt Inc and Night Owl Security becomes a larger focus for future investigations.
S1E2 St. Aubin Street Massacre – Benny the Evangelist is said to haunt St. Aubin Street walking the area headless.
S1E3 The Michigan Dogman – The ten year cycle is upon us and the Michigan Dogman has come out to terrorize Northern Michigan. Reports of wild dog attacks uncover an ancient curse on a local spirit. The players attend and appease the spirit causing it to retreat.
S1E4 The Strange Case of the Melon Heads – Two teenagers are found murdered in the old Junction Insane Asylum in Ottawa County. Upon investigation the group finds strange demonic creatures which were the result of a medical doctor, Dr. Crowe, in 1948 using the occult in an attempt to cure Hydrocephalus and Acromegaly. Dr. Crowe eventually went insane and an Orderly by the name of Tobias Guthrie stopped Dr. Crowe in the middle of a ritual. The spirits took this as a breach of contract and took Dr. Crowe to whatever dimension they originated from. Now the Melon Heads are attempting to bring Crowe back by using a distant relative that still lives in the area as an anchor. The characters have intervened and stopped the plot and ended the threat of the Melon Heads, at least they think they got them all…
S1E5 If Books Could Kill – A budding occultist makes several attempts to steal a rare set of books from an antique dealer.
Caleb is in his office assisting Will with I.T. upgrades. At 13:15 there is a knock at the office door. Mr. Edward Milligan, Age 43, is a book dealer and collector is waiting nervously in the hall. Clutched in both hands is letter size stack of papers.
Once settled Mr. Milligan will explain that he has recently purchased several crates of books from a blind auction. He catalogued about a quarter of them when he came across an unfinished manuscript of a book written by Archibald Montgomery III. This is the man whose library was up for auction.
Mr. Montgomery recently passed away and the executor of his estate had placed a certain number of items of for auction per instructed. Curious Mr. Milligan started to read the book. The first chapter wasn’t at all that interesting. Just some background information about the main character.
What was interesting was the similarities between the main character (who is never given a name) and Mr. Milligan himself. They both went to school in North Detroit (again no school name is mentioned) both attended Michigan State University and receiving an MA in History. Then it got weird. In Chapter
2 the main character purchases a shop and starts a new/used/rare book store and lives above the shop as well!
Well he just thought how fantastic! What an odd coincidence! However, Chapter 3 is when stuff got down right freaky. The Main Character purchases a large lot of books from an auction of an eccentric business man from Detroit. Purchasing exactly eighteen crates of books. Mr. Milligan became frightened and set the book down for a few days. When he returned, he finished the chapter and was down right terrified. At the end of Chapter 3 a second character is introduced. This character also is not named but the fact that he started stalking Mr. Milligan from the end of the auction is immediately apparent. He followed Mr. Milligan to his shop and watched as he supervised the movers bringing the books through the loading dock in the back of the shop. It goes on from the view of the stalker on how he will wait patiently while he sleeps and learn everything about Mr. Milligan as he is sure Mr. Milligan will prove to be perfect.
Mr. Milligan then put the manuscript away and ignored it for another three days before picking it up. There was now a Chapter four which switched between what Mr. Milligan was up to and the Stalker following and researching him. At the end of chapter 4 the stalker murders a homeless man near his shop in a gruesome manner. He ties the victim between two chain link fence posts almost in a ballerina pose then strips open the belly stapling the skin to the arms to make wings. Then he braids the intestines to make a tail coming out of the rectum.
The following day (Friday 8th of June) Mr. Milligan found out about the exact same murder. It happed by the Dues Playfield. He only waited until today to come to the P.I. as he fears the Police won’t believe him
and arrest him.
Over the course of several days the manuscript keeps getting more pages added about more grisly murders in Detroit. The players catch Tobias Hampton breaking into the apartment above the book shop in an attempt to steal some books. Fearing for his life Mr. Milligan runs out of the apartment, and is not seen until the following day. It turns out Tobias Hampton is the grandson of Archibald Montgomery III the original owner of the books and manuscript.
Night Owl security are hired by Mr. Milligan to upgrade his security systems. The players become suspicious in their sudden involvement.
As the manuscript records more murders Mr. Milligan’s paranoia becomes increased and is suffering from lack of sleep affecting his mental wellbeing. The manuscripts states he is getting closer to the character representing Mr. Milligan in the story and that soon it would be his turn.
All the murder victims have a criminal past.
Eventually the characters get the proof they need that that manuscript is cursed and Mr. Milligan has been committing the murders while possessed.
The players take the following books
- Hermetic Arts, Alchemy, Occult. 3 Volumes of 3 bound in one, 1786, First Edition $150,000
- INSTRUMENTUM 9 Vol. 36 Issue Full Set Michael Bertiaux OTOA Kenneth Grant $4,800
- SIGNED, 1 of 200, MIGLIUSSI, OCCULT, DEAD ENDS, AN APPRECIATION OF KENNETH GRANT $100
Later the last evening of the scenario while the group is having a debrief at Gabriel’s home an unknown male occultists invades the home, shatters Gabriel’s shields and causes the group to undergo some sort of paralysis. The male talks to the group as if they were children and takes the Hermetic Arts book for ‘safe keeping’ and leaves.
S1E6 “Witches Game”
A witch named Tituba fixes high school games by having spirits of deceased NBA players possess the players. The characters investigate purchasing the Laredo Apartment that is currently abandoned and need of repair.
While inspecting the property they encounter a dark grey cat who can telekinetically speak who goes by the name of Grimalkin. Grimalkin has a Brooklyn accent and will only speak to Regina, Ashley, and Prudence. A bit old fashion in his speaking as if it was the 1930’s and calls the women ‘toots’ all the time. Grimalkin gives them some advice on Tituba but wants a ‘card reader’ collar and possibly one of Tituba’s hex bags in return then tells them he will be seeing them around.
The group agree to purchase the building with Gabriel and Daniel providing most of the initial down payment.
It is soon discovered how Tituba has been ‘fixing’ the games. By sewing a piece of actual NBA jerseys into the inside of the school basketball uniforms she was able to get one or two players possessed to increase their game. It is suspected that Tituba has made hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years by doing this. Will makes the card reader cat collar for Grimalkin as promised.
S1E7 – “Ashes of the Apocalypse
Following update provide by Caleb: Caleb is investigating poltergeist reports in that are being published in The Motor City Murmur , the local tabloid August 2016. They learned that all four households had a recent death in the family and that their urns contained ashes from a number of different people who had been cremated that day. Regina discovered that the spirits were upset, but mostly because they had to share existence with an especially nasty dopehead who was the one doing all the breakages. Dopehead managed to cause a fifth death before we discovered him. What all four household had in common was that they used Armitage Funeral Services, an old family firm which had fallen on hard times and was now offering cut-price cremations
to poorer families and unclaimed municipal stiffs. A number of swaps, thefts and exchanges (some quite exciting until Miss Ashley mastered the containment field) resulted in the four urns being retrieved and stored in Gabriel’s coal cellar.
Further investigation of Mr Armitage’s firm was undertaken. Our paramedic Daniel gleefully inserted Will’s tracker/mic into another municipal ‘John Doe’ and drove it to Mr Armitage’s for disposal. He discovered that the building was a splendid Art Deco block with an especially pretty morgue. It was clearly a cut above the rest of the neighbourhood. Few staff though; just a couple of interns. The hidden bug emitted static and went off the following day without picking up anything of interest. Meanwhile the rest of the gang learned that the restless spirits would be permanently put to rest on simple removal from
the urns. However the urns were interesting, having four different Egyptian symbols hidden inside. They were, in fact, Canopic jars. Regina managed to get a critical vision from handling them:
1: Current Mr Armitage discovering them in the attic with Relief as the main emotion.
2: His 1950s ?Dad putting empty jars away in the attic with Pride.
3: A group of costumed cultists (including Granddad?) capturing an angry spirit in them in the 1920s.
Further speculation was interrupted when the corpse tracker came back online again in the night, moving at 2mph in a demolished neighbourhood across town. The gang piled into their van and tracked it to a break-in at a (fortunately uninhabited) pawnshop with a smashed in door. Its security cameras weren’t working and neither did Will’s drones when he tried to send one in. Caleb barged in and discovered the John Doe corpse shovelling jewellery into a bag, but a shotgun blast to its head put a stop to that and also to the possibility of any further interrogation.
Red mist went everywhere in the pawnshop which caused Daniel to have a bit of trouble bleaching everything down, but happily Caleb was in a hazmat suit and there were no nearby neighbours to be nosing about. The corpse was taken back to Gabriel’s garage where it resides behind some plastic sheeting pending further tests by Daniel. No-one has bothered to send a warning note to Gabriel and Pru before they drive back home from the airport, but there *is* some yellow tape outside the plastic sheeting.
Will and Caleb were able to find out that the Armitage Funeral Home was designed and built by George Mason. The same architect that designed the Masonic Temple in Detroit and who committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the Temple after its completion in 1929.
Gabriel and Prudence come home from their Paris vacation to find a dead, headless, zombie corpse in his garage. After some consideration of how to dispose of it Gabriel transforms the corpse into a mannequin and Daniel then chops it up with a chainsaw, and disposes it in an abandoned building where after an hours duration the bits of mannequin reverts to chunks of dead zombie.
There is a flurry of investigation by everyone on Armitage, his interns, the building, and it is found that he sold his home after his wife died two years ago to support the business and now lives in the apartments at the top floor of the funeral home. Further investigation shows that Alistair Armitage Sr. the Grandfather and the first person to own the funeral home went missing in the late 1946. They also discover that within eight months of the funeral home being built the local church moved the graveyard 8 miles away.
1927-1928 Armitage Funeral Home is built
1928 1st Lutheran Church (now First Community Church) exhumes the graveyard and moves it eight miles away.
1927 Alistair Armitage Jr. is born
1946 Alistair Armitage Sr. goes missing
1963 Restoration for the 1st Lutheran Church is complete
1970 Alistair Armitage Jr. gets married
1971 Douglas Armitage is born
1984 Mrs. Lillian Armitage dies
1993 While in University Douglas meets his future wife
1995 Douglas Armitage gets married
1996 Douglas Armitage takes over the family business.
2003 Alistair Jr. dies
2014 Douglas Armitage’s wife dies
2014 Douglas discovers ‘The Morbid Embrace’ in the attic.
2014 Douglas sells his house and moves into the Funeral home apartment.
2014 The seals on the Church foundations are vandalised.
Prudence goes to the Pawn Shop to find that there are two police cars and a forensic van in attendance. The owner of the shop is brought in for questioning as to why there are shotgun blast damage and a sanitised store room sprayed down with bleach.
Regina, Ronnie, and Gabriel go to the First Community Church, Lutheran denomination, to find out if any bodies remain under the car park where the cemetery used to be. Gabriel senses the presence of a Ley Line that runs directly through the Armitage Funeral home and that when he walks into the church the presence of the Ley Line is muted. Regina discovers 30-40 spirits under the street to the side of the Armitage Funeral Home. They are all clumped together and only moving about slightly. Summoning up a spirit Regina finds that the spirits are being bound against their will and they are unable to move on to the next world. Their existence is constant torment. Meanwhile Gabriel finds out some gossip on the Armitage family and that Alistair Armitage Jr. was a patron to the church and had paid to have the church restored. It is agreed further investigation is required as something truly sinister is happening.
Posing as gas workers Ronnie, Caleb, and Daniel have a look in the sewers using a periscope that Ronnie had built. They see what appears to be zombies painted up as clowns with some of them dressed in cheap Halloween clown costumes. Douglas Armitage spots Daniel and is looking at him. Daniel waves at him and walks over explaining he has two jobs, one with the Ambulance services and another working for the gas utilities and that he would appreciate it if he didn’t mention his second job to the Ambulance company. Armitage looking nervous tells Daniel to be careful as sewers can be dangerous.
While keeping eyes on Armitage Will and Miss Ashley watch Armitage leave in his 2010 Buick Lucerne sedan. Will hacks into the traffic cameras, those that remain working, and find that he went to the Pawn Shop that the zombie was found at two days before. Using his skills to create green lights for them Miss Ashley drives to the Pawn Shop in record time without speeding. Will goes into the shop to find that Armitage had pawned off his Grandmothers broach, for the second time, and paid $800 to get it out of hock.
Will does some searching on what he saw, and utilising his photographic memory finds some information on the dark web about a broach called ‘The Morbid Embrace’
The Morbid Embrace was crafted in the late 19th century by Victor Lemarchand, a French occultist living in London. Lemarchand was obsessed with overcoming death, and he infused the brooch with necromantic energy during a ritual that cost him his life.
The brooch passed through several hands during the Victorian era, its powers drawing necromancers and collectors alike. After disappearing for decades.
The artifact has since become a sought-after item among necromancers, as its abilities greatly simplify and enhance the creation of the undead. However, its misuse often leads to catastrophic results, as the brooch’s power can spiral out of control.
Further research by Miss Ashley on clowns indicate the specific face paint style is French from the 1800’s. There is a recent urban legends in the last few years about ‘Scary Clowns’ showing up in Detroit and other cities in the USA. Daniel goes to the Motown Witch, Metaphysical Supply Shop to speak to Maeve “Mama Mae” Delacroix to find out if there is a history of clowns in Detroit and if she has any items which can be used to help free spirits. Mama Mae says she does not believe so but then remembers that she has something in her personal collection. She goes to the back store room and retrieves an old morbid looking circus poster from the late 1800s she got at an Occult swap meet in New Orleans.
The Cirque des Morts. Mama Mae does not know much about them. Mama Mae tells Daniel she does not have anything in stock that for what he requires, nothing with near instantaneous results, only ingredients for rituals but can look for the requested item for him.
The group spends more time at the archives, personal libraries, and the internet doing more research. What they further discover is
- When necromancy is cast there is a decay in the immediate area which can affect electromagnetic field, minor electronics, radio and Bluetooth signals, as well as WiFi.
- Will states it is truly evil!
- Gabriel’s brief research on Ley Lines is difficult due to all the crackpot books and research available but does discover there are multiple Ley Lines converging on Zug Island.
- Miss Ashley discovers a rare book on Cirque des Morts but will take three days to arrive.
- Alistair Armitage Sr. was a member of the Free Masons
While others are researching, or taking Mama Mae out to lunch, Ronnie gets busy building Acetylene flame throwers. Regina goes to the church cemetery to speak with Douglas’s deceased wife. She tells Regina there is no way her ‘Dougie’ could be involved in such a horrible series of events and that Doug’s father never spoke of his parents to Doug. She then tells Regina she could ask Alistair Armitage Jr. herself as he is buried in the same cemetery.
Armitage Jr. tells of his families vile past. That his father was a Necromancer and his mother was considered a witch of great renowned. He himself had no ability for such occupation and no desire. Once old enough he sought those who could assist him in cleaning up his families mess. He teamed up with Father Gomez where they sealed his father’s spirit and body up in the canopic jars, which were then transferred to a holy containment box and sent to the Vatican for proper, and immediate disposal. Father Gomez then helped Armitage Jr. with the ‘refurbishment’ of the nearby church which created a Holy field supressing the Armitage Funeral Home and most of the ley lines influence.
Armitage Jr. makes a request of Gabriel. Help his son, but if Douglas has gone too far then deal with it.
The group, over an encrypted chat, discuss and argue on how to proceed. It is finally agreed they need to confront Douglas Armitage. It is decided Caleb’s means are too aggressive and that Ronnie, Gabriel, and Regina will confront Armitage. Regina states it might be best to allow the spirit of Armitage’s mother to possess her body in hopes to convince him of the error of his ways. They all descend on the funeral home at 18:00. Gabriel uses a detect magic item spell and is shocked and horrified to see that the entire building is an artifact of great power!
Douglas at first refuses the group entry until the spirt of his mother utters the most feared incantation, using all three of his names! “Douglas Richard Armitage!” she shouts in her own voice not Regina’s. She then proceeds to tell him who she is, what is going on at which point Armitage allows them entry. Armitage tells the group this all started with him trying to contact the spirit of his dead wife but instead the dead at the funeral home began to come back! He found he could control the dead for some time and repurposed them for light breaking and entry to help his dwindling funds. He would then sell the items at the pawn shop. He stated he was feeling guilty and stopped doing this with the exception of sending a zombie to steal back his Grandmothers broach which he pawned for a temporary loan. When asked about the Clown Zombies Douglas is alarmed that the group knows about them. He states they just started showing up! He had no idea where they were coming from.
Gabriel and Miss Ashley go to the basement where there is a room of power allowing them direct access to the Ley Line and they start an exorcism and protection fields.
At this point the zombies, which have been dormant, start coming through the manhole cover. Daniel already covering the location shoots the first zombie as it’s head pops up. He is later surprised to find it flying several meters from the blast being hit in the chest. Latter drone footage shows the clown head leapt up with incredible speed before being shot. The same clown then rises up appearing to have no damage and starts to mimic being a marionette. Daniel feels the unnatural attempt to control his body but practice with Gabriel and Miss Ashley allows him to mentally fight the attack and instead shoots another slug at the clown, the force knocked it down again. Caleb hearing the blasts was already coming up from the opposite side and unloaded with a shotgun of his own. This third blast tore the creature to bits.
More zombies were coming out from the sewer, Ronnie was putting his tactical vest on and getting his acetylene flame thrower and the welding nozzle in case they needed to weld the manhole cover shut. Every time a zombie started to climb up the ladder Daniel would fire another round. “Like shooting ducks in a barrel” he replied. Will, who has been listening to the police radio and viewing the area with two drones calls out over the comms that more clown zombies are coming out of the sewers from two different directions and heading towards them.
Prudence caught up with Caleb, Ronnie with Daniel who was still shooting into the sewers. Ronnie slides the manhole cover closed and starts welding it shut, just enough to hold it in place. Daniel starts walking towards the new group of zombies while reloading his shotgun.
Miss Ashley risks a quick and dirty exorcism feeling there was some malevolent spirit within the building controlling the zombies and successfully banishing it assisted by the extra power from they ley line and the ritual room. At which point the zombies stop moving. Not stopping to count their blessings the group waste no time in attacking the zombies felling a few more when they just turn around and start shambling back towards the sewers. Miss Ashley starts another exorcism focusing on the Zombies.
Will shouts out ‘My god it is Alfred Hitchcock the birds!’ and tells the group that a cloud of flying birds are heading their way. Looking up they see thousands of birds heading their way at great speed. Ronnie heads for the van to collect Daniel who is still shooting at zombies, however shotgun slugs at that distance he misses them. Caleb and Prudence make it to the Mustang and Ronnie to Daniel just before the birds hit. after 45 seconds of shear noise, panic, and almost utter darkness do to the volume of birds it clears up. The zombies, the remains, all gone. The manhole covers are closed.
Epilogue
- Gabriel, keeping his promise to Armitage Jr. assists Douglas on getting the business back on track.
- Gabriel purchases the Morbid Embrace and puts it in a safe with wards
- Further research shows necromantic energy was used to summon the birds which followed the path of the ley line. The ritual required would have taken several practitioners to pull it off or a very powerful entity
- It is unknown if the banished spirit summoned them
- It is unknown if an unknown allied force summoned them
Miss Ashley gets her book which basically provides the following information.
The History of Cirque des Morts
The Grand Guignol of the Occult (1880s-1920s)
The Cirque des Morts traces its origins to Paris in the late 19th century, a time when spiritualism, occult societies, and dark theatre flourished. Founded by a group of hedonistic necromancers, the Cirque began as an underground cabal of stage performers and death-worshippers, using their knowledge of the arcane to blur the line between performance and ritual.
Their earliest performances in the Grand Guignol theatres of Paris featured real corpses, animated for the amusement of secret, wealthy patrons. They explored resurrection, puppetry of the dead, and soul-binding magic, using the energy of the horrified audience to power their experiments. Over time, their rituals became stronger, their magic darker, and their obsession with bringing back the dead permanently grew.
By the early 1920s, the French authorities attempted to shut them down after rumors spread of missing vagrants being used in their macabre performances. However, the Cirque had already perfected their escape act—they fled Europe and began traveling the world, performing in secret for those willing to pay the price.