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 Chill: Into the unknown
Sneak preview of the upcoming edition of the Chill role-playing game
Welcome to the world of CHILL. In this preview we going over the history of the world, explain the existence of SAVE, and the general tone of the game. Herein you will find 3 sections. The first goes over the history of SAVE and its impact on the world. The second covers the role of characters (Envoys), and the third is a brief introduction to some of the more esoterical weapons available to humanity in its fight against the Unknown. If you like what you see here, or are interested in learning more about CHILL and our plans for it, please visit our website at http://www.chillrpg.com . There you can learn more about CHILL and how you can join the official YahooGroup: owcchillrpg.
The world of CHILL is a world of horror. It's also the world where mankind fights to take back the night in the face of that horror.
In CHILL, you play an envoy, an agent of the secretive organization SAVE, dedicated to protecting humanity by rooting out and defeating the horrors of the Unknown. Your envoy was once a normal person, but exposure to the Unknown has awakened something heroic in him (or her). SAVE, in its fight against the Unknown, watches for people who have survived such encounters, and brings them into the organization to help with the fight. Now, your envoy and others travel the world in search of elusive clues and weapons to battle the horrors and defend against the magic and machinations of the Unknown.
SAVE is an organization dedicated to the observation, study, and eventual destruction of “the Unknown.” Now, what exactly is the Unknown? Well, SAVE isn't exactly sure. They have a working theory, but almost nothing can be said for certain of what SAVE's founder called “the Enemy” save one thing: it is a source of unspeakable evil.
In the world of CHILL, the Unknown spawns horrors both familiar and alien. Vampires, werewolves, zombies and the like come from the Unknown, but there are other horrors that defy description. One thing is certain. When the Unknown is present, nothing is safe or normal. If a vampire moves into town, the crime rate increases, domestic violence increases, the weather changes, children suffer nightmares and wake in cold sweats. When the Unknown enters our world from its shadowy plane of terror, it brings with it corruption that gets right into the marrow of our reality and starts sucking.
Since the mid 1800s, SAVE's mission has been the same: to seek out and combat the Unknown wherever it is found. But, in order to combat an enemy – especially one as formidable and alien as the Unknown – one must study its ways first. Simply throwing force at horrors of the Unknown is inviting disaster and defeat. It takes more than brute strength to defeat the Enemy; it takes perception, insight, and knowledge as well.
The History of SAVE
What follows is a very brief history of SAVE. A more extensive outline can be found in corebook. This history will give you an idea of SAVE's fight against its eternal Enemy as well the current state of the organization.
History - the 1500s to 1700s Pre-SAVE 1514 – In Pavia , a man claims to be a werewolf. His fur, he states, grows on the inside and he turns his skin inside out to change. Locals investigate by removing his arms and legs. The test proves nothing but the cause of death of the supposed werewolf.
1521 - The Inquisitor General Boin tries Pierre Bourgot. He is charged with being cursed by the devil, due to a broken demonic deal. He is cursed with lycanthropy, specifically, being a werewolf. He confesses to killing and eating two children and a young woman.
1558 – A hunter in the mountain village of Auvergne discovers his wife to be a werewolf who attacked him earlier.
1573 – Giles Granier is sentenced to death by fire after being convicted of devouring several children as a wolf.
1580s – The Roanoke , Virginia colony is founded and disappears, leaving only the word 'Croatoan' engraved on a post.
1577 – Sunday August 4 th brings a wolf attack on the services of Rev. Abraham Fleming in his church of Bungay , Suffolk , England . Several deaths were accounted for in the mass before the wolf fled the way it came in. There were reports of similar attacks on Blythburg Church a few miles away.
1598 – A demented girl named Perenette Gandillon was torn limb from limb by locals after she was accused of attacking two children in wolf form in the Jura Mountains of Central Europe.
Angers , France found a new inmate at the asylum, after Jacques Roulet was accused of killing a 15 year old boy while Roulet was a wolf. Roulet was sentenced to two years.
December 14 th saw a trial so horrible that the judge ordered the records burned. It was of a tailor who lured children into his shop and then changed into a wolf to eat them.
1600- the death of Elizabeth Bathory's husband, Count Ferencz, unhinges the woman and begins a trail of evil that may have not stopped through this day.
1675 - The King Phillip's War destroys and burns vast areas of the American colonies around Massachusetts and Rhode Island .
1688 – Mr. Boston Goodwin, of Boston , Massachusetts , consults with Cotton Mather concerning his nanny's strange fits. Mather exorcises the demon and later this year pens ‘Late Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possession'.
1692 - The Salem Witch trials occur, with a heightened hysteria not seen since the days of the Inquisition.
1701 – Mather writes ‘Magnalia Christi Americana' about the struggle of colonists against the devil and his servants.
1734 – ‘Travels of Three English Gentlemen' is published, introducing the word ‘Vampire' to the English language.
1738 – The ship Princess Augusta from Palatine , Germany , runs aground on Block Island , Rhode Island . Most passengers survive but the ship is ravaged by hordes of locals scavenging. The ‘Palatine Lights' are occasional seen in the vicinity – a spectral ship and crew – ever after.
1751 – Dom Augustine Calmet's “Traite sur les apparitions” notes the Eastern European/Balkan region as the ‘Cradle of Vampires'.
1767 - ‘The New Book of Knowledge', a guide to the translation of dreams, is published in Boston , Massachusetts . People report strange, disturbing dreams after reading it. Few copies exist today.
1770 – The Boston Massacre takes place. SAVE has sketchy evidence of a creature called a ‘Hate' might have been involved.
1777 – Henry Wells, commander of the British forces in the Severn area of Massachusetts attacks a town hall meeting that he thought was a colonial rebel gathering. The town meeting inside consisted of men, women and children. A local man and wife, the Warwicks, are convicted of deceiving the commander and hung.
1784 – Newly founded Severn College receives the donation of the Warwick House.
1786 – Shay's Rebellion occurs in western Massachusetts , pointing to weaknesses in the new Articles of Confederation.
1789 - Almeria , Spain . First printed reference to human use of The Art, by one Dr. Alfredo Fernandez Ruiz, is cataloged. This account fascinates and inspires Charles O'Boylan to hone his own Psychic powers. Due to this, O'Boylan will be urged, by disastrous events, to found his own group in the years to come. Spain is also the home of the symbol, the Indalo, which O'Boylan would use for his own organization .
1794 – Mr. Patrick O'Hara, of Northern Ireland , dies in his sleep on Christmas Eve. SAVE believes he was the victim of a Bansidhe.
1813 – The Spanish ship, Sagunto , capsizes ten miles off shore at the Isle of Shoals near Portsmouth New Hampshire . Ghosts are frequently sited there to this day.
1827 – Edgar Allen Poe returns to Boston , and resides there for three years before moving on to Baltimore .
1856- On the Belle Marche plantation, Pointe a la Hache , Louisiana , the funeral of twenty-year-old slave Jackson De La Croix goes bad. A broken slave ritual turns the man into a vampire. The plantation, owned by Christopher Rochateau, is so savaged by the vampire, it is destroyed by the time the Civil War breaks out.
Charles O'Boylan's SAVE (1844 – 1846)
SAVE began in 1844 with a single man: Professor Charles O'Boylan. Living in Dublin , Ireland , O'Boylan was fascinated with the possibilities of the brain. Not content to experiment with “occult mumbo jumbo,” he was convinced there was a scientific explanation for psychic phenomenon, and he set his mind to finding it. What he found instead was something entirely different.
O'Boylan had experimented with his own seemingly supernatural powers of perception to a small degree, but he insisted on making his experiments “things of Pure Science,” and so, for almost a year, he carried out objective studies on psychic phenomenon.
No one is really sure of the outcome of these studies, because at the end of the year, O'Boylan destroyed all his notes and abandoned his studies. “I have found a new and more worthy cause to champion,” he wrote in his new journal. “And my Enemy will regret showing His face to me.”
The “Enemy” O'Boylan wrote about was a seemingly intelligent and malevolent force he dubbed “the Unknown.” He wrote:
It is from this Source of Darkness that all Evil flows. It is not from Here, but from There, that dark place where mine eyes peered, my magical eyes that made me so proud… So vain.
O'Boylan recruited two other men – Henry Boulton and Richard Arthur (Lord Strange) – to create a secret society devoted to fighting this Enemy. O'Boylan dubbed the organization “SAVE,” or Societas Albae Viae Eternita (the Eternal Society of the White Way ). O'Boylan's scientific knowledge coupled with Lord Strange's understandings of the occult and Henry Boulton's skills at gentlemanly combat formed a perfect circle to study and do battle with the Unknown. The year was 1844. By 1846, Charles O'Boylan was dead at the hands of his Enemy.
Richard O'Boylan's SAVE (1847 – 1889)
Although he was not the scientist his father was, Richard O'Boylan was a man who understood how to get things done. He was a barrister, a man with an organized and rational mind that refused to accept such ridiculous notions as “ghosts and ghouls.” Refused to accept them, that is, until the Unknown – in the shape of his father's animated corpse, personally assaulted him. It wasn't long after, that he was joining with Boulton and Strange in the fight against the Enemy.
Richard O'Boylan brought more than just a keen mind for logistics, he also brought with him contacts in the social circles Boulton and Strange simply did not have. He raised money for SAVE, expanded its membership and organized a system for cataloging and recording encounters with the Enemy. Within two years, the organization had grown from three men living in the O'Boylan estates to nearly a dozen SAVE chapter houses across the continent and in North America .
Richard O'Boylan seldom went out on expeditions, but remained behind to organize SAVE and maintain its growth. He wrote:
What courage my father had is not mine. But I will give to these brave men what courage I have and all the other virtues I may bring to task. I may not fight at their side, but I swear by my father's good name and the courage that boils in these men's veins, that I will ensure they do not fight empty-handed. And they will not fight alone.
During Richard's reign at SAVE, both Henry Boulton and Richard Arthur were lost to the Enemy. All three original members were dead or missing. Richard remained at the head of SAVE for nearly forty years. At the end of his term, he commissions a statue to be placed in the front foyer of the O'Boylan estate. The statue depicts the three founders of SAVE standing boldly together. At the foot of the statue read the words, “No man need stand alone.”
Richard O'Boylan retired in 1869, passing SAVE to his second-born son, Michael.
Michael O'Boylan's SAVE (1890 – 1923)
While his father was a man of logical precision and organization, and his grandfather a professor and scientist, Michael O'Boylan was a poet, playwright, and author of some small regard. His tales of fantasy were a small success in England ; just enough to bring him fame and a meager fortune.
When his father revealed the nature of his secret life to him, Michael was astonished, awed, and curious. His mind was open to the notions of monsters, ghouls and goblins, and while he suspected there was some truth to the folktales of his homeland, he never suspected what horrors awaited him.
It has been said that of the three O'Boylans, Michael was the least ready to take the mantle and face the Unknown. He was no man of action, no scientist, no great organizational thinker. But, more than his father or grandfather, Michael O'Boylan understood the Unknown. Not only that, but because he was an author, he was able to articulate its threat better than either of his predecessors. A scientist may have found it, but it took a poet's mind to see the Unknown for what it truly was.
In his book, Devices of the Enemy , Michael O'Boylan discussed the nature of the Unknown. He drew from dozens of envoy reports, focusing his mind not on the scientific study of the Unknown, but to understand its heart. He wrote:
I have seen our Enemy, and I think, at last, I know what it might be. Our Enemy is ourselves. It is our own fears, our own darkness. The Unknown is formless Hate. It is we who give our Enemy its shape.
The Great War dealt a heavy toll on SAVE. The European Continent was ripe with Unknown activity, all but unchecked due to the chaos of the war. Michael O'Boylan was particularly damaged by the conflict as all three of his sons were killed in the line of duty. His spirit never recovered, and a deep depression all but removed him from SAVE's activities. At the end of the conflict, Colonel Benjamin Wellborne, O'Boylan's most trusted confident, took the reins.
On September 2, 1923 , Michael O'Boylan died unexpectedly in his ancestral home. He was found in his bed, his fingers clutching the sheets, his eyes wide open, his tongue bit in two. Control of SAVE passed to Wellborne. This was the first time since SAVE's inception that it was not headed by an O'Boylan. A long period of decline began.
Benjamin Wellborne's SAVE (1923 – 1944)
Benjamin Wellborne was a Colonel in Her Majesty's Army. His regimented standards kept SAVE together during the dark shadow of O'Boylan's death. Unknown activity increased dramatically during this time, nearly crushing SAVE under its weight. Thanks to Wellborne's conviction and courage, SAVE survived, albeit in a much weaker state.
New chapter houses were founded, old chapter houses lost. Focus turned to America where the New York , Chicago and Los Angeles chapters grew at an unprecedented rate. Unknown activity in America was beyond anything ever encountered in the past, and envoy attrition rate was high. North American coordinator Thomas Runton was a flamboyant, confident figure whose enthusiasm quickly spread through the North American chapters. He attracted the attention of America 's nouveaux riche, bolstering his chapter houses' funds higher than any of Europe 's Old Money contemporaries. More cases were investigated and solved in North America than all other countries combined ... until the bubble burst in 1929.
The Stock Market Crash destroyed America 's economy and the North American SAVE bureaus felt the impact. Of the seven American bureaus, only three remained: Chicago , Los Angeles , and New York . Atlanta , Boston , San Francisco , Dallas , and Portland were lost. A long, cold shadow fell across North America , for SAVE's loss only exacerbated the already rabid Unknown activity in the United States .
Europe did what it could to help the United States , but the combination of envoy attrition and resentment toward the attitude of the American bureaus further deepened the rift between the Old World and the New. As Europe slowly re-built after the chaos of the Great War, America tried to hold on with both hands. It was a dark time for SAVE, a period of time that nearly destroyed the organization. And just as it appeared the European bureaus were beginning to get a foothold again, a second war threatened to destroy O'Boylan's dream forever.
In 1939, Germany invaded Poland , and the beginning salvo of World War II drew Colonel Wellborne back into combat; his duties to SAVE once again suspended. In his absence, SAVE was almost dormant. The O'Boylan estate was emptied of personnel except for a few envoys. In 1942, Wellborne was wounded in battle and died shortly thereafter.
SAVE had no direct heir, and for twenty-two months, a bitter internal struggle for its destiny commenced.
Two SAVEs (1944 – 1946)
For two years, SAVE was divided in half. North America 's Regional Director, Reginald Baxter, insisted control of SAVE be transferred to the New York bureau. Meanwhile, the Dublin bureau struggled to find a new National Director. For the first time, politics became a factor in the fate of SAVE, and the organization suffered for it.
It wasn't until August 8, 1946 that the matter was finally settled. A vote of all bureaus gave control of SAVE to the New York office. Control was firmly in Baxter's hands. The Dublin bureau, still divided by internal politics, became the European focal point of SAVE activity, but all bureaus reported directly to Baxter's New York bureau.
Reginald Baxter's SAVE (1946 – 1958)
As control of SAVE moved to North America , the continental bureaus became more independent. Baxter's SAVE was aggressive, seeking out the Unknown and destroying it wherever it could. Envoy attrition rate was high, but Baxter knew what he wanted: a full-fledged war against the Enemy.
For a while, it seemed his ruthlessness was effective. Unknown activity died down considerably after his first year as World Director. While many bureaus tried a more cautious approach, Baxter trumped their authority. When they reported Unknown activity, he sent in squads of heavily armed soldiers to deal with the situation, wrecking havoc on the local populace as well as the Unknown. Baxter's reasoning was simple:
We are at war. The Enemy has walked too long behind our front lines. We will take the fight to them, root them out, drag them into the sunlight and show the world for what they are: abominations that can no longer be tolerated for what they are.
Although his initial push against the Unknown effectively cut occurrences by a third, an enemy Baxter never counted on arose to smite him. The enemy was Joseph McCarthy. And Baxter was on the top of the Senator's list of men to question regarding “suspicious activity.”
McCarthy's search for Communists drove SAVE even further underground. Once again, the North American continent was all but silent in its fight against the Unknown, and reports of supernatural activity picked up once again. Baxter was ruined by McCarthy's quest to discover “the truth behind the mysterious Mr. Baxter.” In the end, Baxter threw himself off the Bay Bridge in San Francisco , leaving the question, “Who shall lead SAVE?”
SAVE Alone (1958 – 1981)
For over twenty years, SAVE stood with no World Director and no World Headquarters. The Continental bureaus also fell by the wayside as the smaller bureaus moved toward autonomy. The reigning philosophy was simple: no national or worldwide bureau could understand or appreciate the needs of the smaller bureaus. Thus, every local bureau was given complete autonomy. This also meant each bureau had to raise its own funds, recruit members, and handle all other bureaucratic needs.
The move had mixed success. Some bureaus thrived while others failed. While the bureaus were autocratic, they were also isolated from each other, which led to drastic envoy attrition. Recruitment was also up, however, which stemmed the tide of bloodshed a little. But not enough.
After twenty-five years, it was decided a central authority was needed once again. The strong bureaus disagreed, but eventually (and reluctantly) accepted the move. A World-Wide Bureau opened once again on the O'Boylan estates and a new Coordinator was chosen. This time, he was elected by the membership. His name was Robert Davidson.
Robert Davidson SAVE (1981 – 1989)
In 1946, a young Robert Davidson had his first encounter with the Unknown. He lost his father in the war when he was only a child, leaving him and his mother alone. At the age of fifteen, he watched helplessly as an invisible force attacked his mother in her bed, throttling her to death. The sight scarred his psyche for life. Three SAVE envoys rescued him from the creature and brought him back to the headquarters for questioning. It was there his long relationship with SAVE began.
By 1981, Davidson was the Unknown's most potent foe. His record listed an unprecedented seventeen investigations in a scant few years – fourteen of them deemed “successful” by his superiors. In 1981, Davidson was fifty, the Deputy Coordinator of the Los Angeles bureau, and the most obvious candidate to become SAVE's new World Coordinator. When he was elected, he raised the man who got the second highest number of votes, Dr. Desmond Kearny, to position of Assistant Coordinator and also put him in charge of SAVE's archives.
Davidson accepted the office with some trepidation. “I belong in the field,” he wrote in his journal. “Not behind a desk.” His fears were soon put to rest. Dr. Kearny, not at all what one would consider a “man of action,” maintained the bureaucracy of SAVE while Davidson went with fellow envoys out to do battle with the Enemy. Kearny and Davidson did well together for the eight years they managed SAVE. Perhaps a bit too well.
In 1984, with the help of an independent publisher, SAVE established a line of adventure novels based on their investigations. The line sold well and helped fill SAVE coffers around the world ... for about three years. In 1987, the publisher mysteriously disappeared. Davidson himself investigated the disappearance, but no evidence led to any substantial conclusions.
The two-year period between 1986 and 1987 showed the greatest amount of envoy casualties in its history. SAVE lost 30% of its membership in less than twenty months. Both Davidson and Kearney were pushed to the limits of exhaustion trying to keep SAVE together.
In November 1988, while aiding the Sydney bureau, Davidson came across something he claimed would change SAVE's war against the Unknown forever. Exactly what that object was, not even Kearney knew. None of the envoys on the expedition survived except Davidson. He flew back to Ireland immediately without even logging a report with the Sydney bureau. He retreated into his private chambers and refused to see or speak with anyone.
A year later, the O'Boylan estates were quiet. Unknown activity was strangely low for the year. Kearney wrote in his journals:
It is quiet, but it feels as if a storm is building on the horizon. I can smell the rain. I think I hear the thunder. It is a storm we will not be prepared for. How can we prepare?
Kearney 's friend had not moved from his home since he returned. He refused any visitors, ejected his staff. When Kearney tried to force his way into the home, he was met with a mad-eyed Davidson, armed with a shotgun. “Almost finished,” Davidson told Kearney . “Just go away.”
On November 4 th of that year, almost one year to the date of Davidson finding his mysterious artifact, the boiler in the ancestral home of Charles O'Boylan exploded. Twenty envoys were killed, dozens injured. Over two million pages were burned in the fire; over one hundred and fifty years of knowledge destroyed in a single night. Desmond Kearney had been away, tending to his wife who had complained of chest pains and migraines. His office sat directly above the boiler room. Of the dozens of injured and dead, five bodies were missing. One of those counted missing was Robert Davidson.
That same night, attacks against all SAVE headquarters were reported. Los Angeles lost ten envoys. New York lost fifteen. Boston was burned to the ground, every life inside lost to the fire. Paris reported a pack of loup garou charging into the bureau, killing seven. The ten envoys staying in the London office were found dead from asphyxiation; their faces twisted and awful. The Madrid office was the only bureau without casualties; every envoy was off site investigating a poltergeist in Brussels .
Kearney had little choice. He had to protect those who entrusted him with their lives. He ordered all SAVE envoys to abandon their bureaus, change their identities if possible, and remove themselves from public life. “SAVE will die so it may live again,” he wrote. “But it is not dead. Only sleeping. Waiting for the right moment to awaken again.”
That moment would be ten years in the making.
SAVE Underground (1990 – 1999)
Under the direction of Kearney , SAVE broke itself up into clandestine cells, free from hierarchy, structure, and (for the most part) detection from the Unknown. Each cell knew of its own members alone. There were no Headquarters. No Coordinators. Each cell operated independently with no knowledge of any other. Sometimes, cells bumped into each other on investigations, but for the most part, groups remained isolated. Even more so than before, SAVE was an invisible weapon against the Enemy, although this time, an unwieldy one.
Individual cells had to rely on themselves to fight the Enemy. Their own tools, their own resources, their own wits. The vast records of the O'Boylan estate were gone, making the Unknown even more dangerous than before. Knowledge was always SAVE's best shield, and without it, envoys suffered.
Without direct communication or coordinating offices, SAVE was a haphazard force of well meaning but poorly organized individuals fighting half-blind against the Unknown. Their efforts went largely unnoticed for a decade. And the shadow of the Unknown spread unchecked across the world.
Desmond Kearney spent this time attempting to rebuild the SAVE archives. A secondary archive was kept off-site, but almost all of it was damaged the heavy winter rains of 1998. Kearney spent ten years trying to collate the information from the secondary and primary archives, but his successes were limited. Eventually, he enlisted the help of Rachel Fortenbaugh, a young envoy from America whose computer skills greatly aided the task.
In January 1999, Desmond Kearney was diagnosed with liver cancer. Doctors said he had months to live. Within two weeks of that event, four very important events occurred which changed SAVE forever.
SAVE Reborn (1999)
The Lost Records
A British envoy named Richard Kincaid was searching through the ruins of the O'Boylan estate, investigating rumors of a ghost haunting the site. His group was asleep, camping on the second story, when he saw a spectral figure pointing at a burned out wall. Kincaid was convinced the vision was a dream; he was right. When he awoke, he searched the wall and found a small opening ... and wind coming from the opening. His team searched the house (overlooking the sea from a steep cliffside) and found a cave and study beneath the estate. There, sealed in plastic, were notes from World Coordinators dating back to Charles O'Boylan himself. The find was nothing less than epic.
The files were turned over to Kearney who turned them over to Fortenbaugh who immediately began transferring the delicate documents to an electronic format. The amount of information discovered would take years to transfer, but the find all but replaced the archives lost ten years before.
Strange
Meanwhile, an ex-cop from Los Angles named William Walker was living in London , in the ancestral home of the Stanley family. He had a small bit of fame writing crime novels and starting a small, non-profit company devoted to finding lost and abducted children. He was in London because he recently discovered he was the last known direct descendant of the aristocratic line that ruled the castle. He was the long lost 33 rd Lord of Strange. In 1993, he was attacked in his ancestral home by a vampire. But, something unexpected happened. Instead of turning to the will of the Unknown, Walker maintained his own mind and will. He fought against his attacker and drove her off. His encounter with the Unknown led him to SAVE. Or, rather, led SAVE to him.
Boulton
Meanwhile, a SAVE cell went to Africa looking for legends of dream-eating witches. What they found was a large white man, covered in tribal tattoos, leading the local tribes against the witches and their magics. When the battle was done and the witches killed or driven away, the white man's tribe was all but destroyed. When the envoys asked him to come with them, he nodded. When they asked if he had family back in Europe , he shook his head. He spoke French when he said, “My family is all dead.” When they asked his family name, the name he gave made them start. “Boulton,” he said. “Je mapelle Henri Boutlon.”
O'Boylan
In South America , a young doctor working for the WHO was doing research on a strange disease. She was unable to isolate its properties; the virus kept changing and changing and changing. She could not determine how it moved from host to host. She could not find a way to fight it. What's worse, the corpses that died from it had to be destroyed… because they rose back up twenty-four hours later. When a small group of “researchers” arrived offering help, she took it. She needed any help she could get. The leaders of the two groups introduced themselves. “Dr. Henry Gonzalez,” the newcomer said. The woman shook his hand. “Dr. Michelle O'Boylan,” she replied ... and felt his hand shiver.
These three events were immediately reported to Desmond Kearney in Ireland . He arranged for O'Boylan and Boulton to meet with him at the estate of Lord Strange. While waiting for the meeting, he wrote in his journal:
This cannot be a coincidence. It must be some sort of omen. Coupled with our recent discoveries in Ireland – I dare not hope. I dare not.
His hopes, it seems, were not ill founded.
SAVE Today (2000 – Present)
From the late Desmond Kearney's journals:
We lost our way in the dark. Lost our purpose. Now, I can feel something… something stirring. Like the storm from before. But a different storm. One that will bring fire and lightning, yes, but also rain. Rain to wash away the muck and filth left behind by our pride.
We are reborn.
On December 26, 1999 , Desmond Kearney died of complications due to his failing liver. His last will and testament put all his vast resources behind restoring the O'Boylan estate to its former glory. His family lawyer spent the year legitimizing the O'Boylan estate. The lawyer wore an indalo on his lapel.
In 2000, the three went out on their first investigation for SAVE.
Envoys
My training as an envoy for SAVE was, perforce, haphazard; the organization has varied widely in its resources and influence over both time and location. At the time of my introduction, SAVE had recently suffered several setbacks, and as a result most envoys found themselves remanded to their own capabilities. Fortunately, my encounter with the Unknown left me shaken, but not dead; and so I was pressed into SAVE in the only way that one becomes an envoy. Even though envoys come from all walks of life, everyone inducted into SAVE proves eventually to have some purpose or talent when the time is right. And, even those who give their sanity or their lives in service to humanity burn bright with the spark of heroism before they are gone. Perhaps something in the human spirit awakens in response to the touch of the Unknown.
Your alter ego in the world of CHILL is your envoy. This character, like a character in a novel, has certain foibles, traits, and capabilities, and it's up to you to decide upon them.
Every envoy in SAVE is automatically a cut above the norm. While many enter the career by accident (thanks to a brush with the Unknown) all eventually realize that they have a greater destiny, to protect humanity from the threats that endangered them. This process catalyzes something in the individual, awakening in the envoy a rare potential for greatness.
To describe your envoy, you use a set of traits. Traits can describe your envoy's natural capabilities, special training, or personal foibles. Different traits have different effects, but they're all important. It's up to you to choose the traits that will help your envoy to perform his (or her) job well.
Your Envoy's Background
Your first step in creating your envoy is to decide upon a background and story. Every envoy comes into SAVE thanks to a brush with the Unknown. After surviving that harrowing experience, usually due to the help of a SAVE team, that individual often finds an invitation to join waiting—and few pass it up. Once the Unknown has touched a person's life, there's no going back. The absolute knowledge that something horrible lurks in the putrid corners of the world means that everything else pales in comparison. The total re-evaluation of one's life and purpose almost always leads to one final conclusion: Something must be done. Those who take destiny into their own hands and join SAVE become its newest envoys.
It's usually easiest to start with a general idea, and then work to specifics. Once you have an idea of what sort of envoy you want to play, you can move on to develop your envoy's traits.
Envoy Roles
Since you're (hopefully) going to play your envoy through many stories, you want to make sure that your envoy fits into a specific role. While SAVE teams often have to make do with the people they can get—there are only so many agents, after all—the best teams manage to cover all bases.
Naturally, some teams are too small to have every role covered. Some envoys double up, using their skills to fill two jobs at once. These aren't formal roles; SAVE doesn't hand out membership brochures recruiting people into these jobs. Rather, these are the sorts of roles that tend to come up in the course of an investigation, and missing one or more can lead to potentially deadly oversights.
While you don't have to make your envoy fit neatly into a role ( Chill: Into the Unknown doesn't use classes) it helps for two important reasons. Firstly, you'll immediately have a handle on the sorts of skills and edges that will make your envoy better at his job, so he'll be more likely to help the team succeed and he'll have more chances to shine during an investigation. Secondly, you can make sure that you don't overlap with anyone in the team. It's useful to have a backup in case things go wrong, of course, but when two or more envoys overlap in skills, the result is usually that only one of them gets a lot of playing time and the other player winds up feeling left out—which is, of course, no fun at all.
Some typical roles include:
Face: A “face man” is the front for cons, grifts, and talk-work. Face men can be good leaders (since they're usually charismatic), but a skilled face man excels at clever stories, glib explanations, and witty repartee. The face man charms his way into places where he shouldn't go and seduces others to the envoys' cause. Face men were often politicians, salesmen, con artists, or gamblers.
Gunman: When a vampire is about to put the bite on you or a horde of zombies bursts through the gates, the gunman uses his amazing facility to put the enemy down. Of course, many horrors are resistant or immune to mere bullets, but the gunman's talents allow him to perform trick shots and covering fire as well. Gunmen usually come from police, military, or criminal careers.
Infiltrator: Often, learning about or confronting a particular horror requires breaking into places where you're not supposed to be. A SAVE team may need to steal police records, city maps, or keys; or enter locked buildings, blocked sewers, and abandoned homes. Infiltrators can get in, get the job done quietly, and get out. Most infiltrators were criminals, woodsmen, stunt men, or stage magicians.
Leader: The leader catalyzes the rest of the group, inspiring them and making them better at what they do. Leaders may have been businessmen, religious figures, team players, or motivational speakers.
Lucky: A few envoys seem to have incredible luck; they just happen into the right solutions for their situations. Lucky fellows may be klutzy, dumb, or foolish, yet somehow they pull through horror, because fortune favors this sort of fool. Lucky envoys often were perpetual students, whimsical travelers, lottery winners, or wealthy investors.
Scholar: The only way to fight the Unknown is to understand it. Every horror has a weakness, and the scholar is a master of the legends, history, and research necessary to discover such vulnerabilities. Scholars were often teachers, academics, scientists, or computer users.
Thug: When the gunman's bullets aren't getting the job done, the thug steps in to trade blows. It takes a strong, hearty, and foolish individual to dare to face off against a horror, especially since most of them are preternaturally strong and tough. Usually, the thug just buys enough time for the team to escape or trigger a contingency plan. Thugs were often laborers, criminals, martial artists, and athletes.
Envoy History
Once you've settled on a role, flesh out your envoy's history. Your envoy's former life will heavily influence the skills and qualities you choose. A police officer will have many different skills from a bartender. Your combination of mundane history and team role will guide you in choosing the skills useful to your envoy.
Of course, you can always play against type. Your envoy might have been the worst sushi chef in Tokyo before joining SAVE, thereby having a low Cooking skill—but a mean score with Knives. Just make sure that your envoy can fill his role correctly. Having very low scores in your key traits will lower the team's chance of success and bring the Unknown that much closer to taking over the world!
Your envoy's mundane history can come from any of the sorts of life paths that you'd find in the normal world. Your envoy may have been a bum, a store owner, a survivalist, a mountain climber, an engineer, a musician, an actor—all of this, however, was just the prelude to the turning point, when the Unknown changed his life forever.
Disciplines
The horrors of the Unknown use preternatural powers to terrify humanity, to hunt, and to spread their malefic influence. Some envoys, though, have their own special abilities, used to perform incredible feats. Collectively, these powers, which go above and beyond the normal run of simple skills, are Disciplines.
Each Discipline is a skill unto itself, but unlike mundane skills, the Disciplines often tap into primal powers or even the energies of the Unknown itself. Some Disciplines instead rely on human courage and inner strength. Regardless, the powers of Disciplines form a potent tool for battling the Unknown, though envoys must be careful not to become over-reliant on such powers.
The Art
Foremost among the Disciplines practiced by SAVE envoys is "the Art," a form of communion with and control over the energies of the Unknown. Just as the power of the Unknown seeps into our world and takes hold of imagination to form horrors that terrorize humanity, so too can sufficiently strong-willed humans pit their consciousness against those energies and mold them into desired ends.
The Art is sometimes considered "magical," though in truth it is merely another tool, like any form of science. The Unknown does not obey the physical laws of the mundane world, but it can sometimes be forced to obey other laws. By learning these rules and practicing their exercise, an envoy learns to exert powers of the Art.
The Art is a counterpart to the Evil Way. In both cases, the practitioner shapes energies from the Unknown. The Art simply does so in a manner consistent with the goals of humanity.
Disciplines of the Art are, for the sake of categorization, broken into four schools: Communicative, Incorporeal, Protective, and Restorative. Each school covers a set of invocations. Students of the Art can learn Disciplines from any of these schools.
Chi Kung
Ancient Asiatic civilizations have long studied meditation, self-reliance, and esoteric combat skills. The distillation of this knowledge over thousands of years led to the creation of many advanced martial arts. In several stories, martial artists perform supernatural feats thanks to their training. A practitioner of Chi Kung uses these exercises and techniques to perform such stunts, by drawing upon the innate power of the human spirit (or Chi).
The powers of Chi Kung form a body of mythology in many Asiatic and Near Eastern cultures, and the practitioner of these Disciplines shows the truth of such study. Of course, this is a taxing undertaking; many students spend years perfecting the specific kata or exercise that leads to a single power.
Because Chi Kung springs from an internal wellspring, it is not subject to the vagaries of the Unknown. However, humans have a limited pool of stamina and life energy. Over-reliance on Chi Kung can be exhausting, even debilitating. Nevertheless, an envoy with these Disciplines can face daunting challenges that would kill a lesser man.
Disciplines of Chi Kung divide among the schools of Biofeedback, External Chi, Hard Form, and Soft Form. Students of Chi Kung use these studies to perform phenomenal martial feats, and to regulate their own (and others') physiology.
Faith
Few in this modern, decadent age still retain the true wellspring of Faith, but even in black times there remain a stalwart handful who cling to the knowledge that some distant but benevolent Creator has a plan for humanity. This is not an internal strength; it is the secure wisdom that comes with placing one's destiny squarely in the guiding hands of some greater power.
While the faithful can sometimes perform miracles, it is the calm reassurance of a higher destiny that underlies their true power. Even in the face of adversity, the truly faithful have a courage and conviction that comes with their pious resolve.
The “powers” of faith are fickle, and the faithful would themselves claim that such miracles are merely a distraction from the true value of their communion with the Divine. Nevertheless, when all hope is lost, faith continues and sustains.
Because faith is not studied, it does not form a body of powers like the Disciplines of the Art or Chi Kung. Indeed, some envoys wonder if faith truly grants any real power at all. Regardless, the faithful cannot be shaken, for their conviction does not come from any proof or evidence; rather, it comes from their own sense of purpose.
Reason
Only recently have the envoys of SAVE recognized an important, powerful fact: That just as the Unknown seeps into this world to corrupt it with elements of horror from the imagination, so too can humanity bring the light of Reason forth to combat the Unknown. In categorizing and classifying the Unknown, envoys have learned ways to combat it. More importantly, the agents of SAVE have slowly learned that this is a key power of humanity as a whole: The ability to explore and understand the universe. Against the power of Reason, the Unknown is banished and horror cannot stand.
Unlike the other Disciplines, the power of Reason is far from supernatural. Still, those envoys that cling to the power of Reason often have a depth of wisdom, a complexity of thought, and a perspicaciousness that surpasses the norm. Only those learned few who are determined to classify their world and see truth brought to every unexplored corner can categorize the dark powers of the Unknown, and in turn name them and take away their power to terrorize.
The power of Reason does not have Schools, but there are some talents recognized among the few envoys with the most powerfully rational minds.
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