TEXT: New Bedlam
  Asylum
  ™
  By Chris Avellone
  By Chris Avellone
  ™
  HERO   GAMES
  HERO   GAMES
  
  Editor/Developer: Matthew D. Grau
  Illustrations: Derek Stevens
  Cartography: Chris Cox
  Fuzion Conversions: Bruce Harlick
  Pagemaking & Layout: Matthew D. Grau
  Original Hero Plus Layout: Karl Wu
  Managing Editor: Bruce Harlick
  Version 1.0
  Copyright @1998 by Hero Games. All rights reserved.
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  By Chris Avellone
  New Bedlam
  Asylum
  ™
  
  Contents
  0 PRELUDEZ ............................................1
  How to Use This Book ........................................ 1
  Asylum Dreams................................................... 1
  Shreiver................................................................ 1
  Sally...................................................................... 3
    Sally Anne Robinson .......................................... 3
  1 ASYLUM GROUNDS ............................9
  The True Path ...................................................... 9
  Introduction ........................................................ 9
  Appointments ..................................................... 9
     In Case of Emergency (Sidebar) ...................... 10
  Map: Fell’s Point Peninsula............................... 10
  Peculiarities ....................................................... 10
  Canto One: The Dark Wood of Error .............. 11
    Sally.................................................................. 12
    Distraction ....................................................... 13
    Sally.................................................................. 13
    The Poet ........................................................... 16
  Canto Two: The Descent .................................. 16
    At the Wall ....................................................... 17
    The Front Gate ................................................. 18
    Past the Wall..................................................... 18
    The Grounds .................................................... 18
  Fringes ............................................................... 18
  Sites .................................................................... 19
    The Hill ............................................................ 19
    The Farm.......................................................... 19
    The Pier ............................................................ 20
  The Asylum ....................................................... 20
  Map: Asylum Grounds ..................................... 20
  Terror Incognita ................................................ 21
  Note on Maps within Text (Sidebar) ............... 21
  Main Buildings.................................................. 22
    Central Administration Building ..................... 22
    Steward Building.............................................. 23
    Bourne House................................................... 24
    Ross House ....................................................... 25
    Power Plant/Laundry/Utilities ........................ 25
  Service Building ................................................ 26
  Admissions Building E...................................... 27
  Canto Three: The Vestibule .............................. 27
    First Floor ......................................................... 28
    Sharon Ferry .................................................... 29
    Upper Floors..................................................... 31
    Basement .......................................................... 31
  Ward One .......................................................... 31
  Canto Four: The First Ward ............................. 31
    Sally.................................................................. 32
  Map: The Eastern  Division .............................. 33
  Eastern Division ................................................ 33
    Description ....................................................... 33
    First Floor ......................................................... 34
    Second Floor ..................................................... 35
    Third Floor ....................................................... 35
    Fourth Floor ..................................................... 36
    Basement.......................................................... 36
    Dr. Masters....................................................... 36
    Reclassified ....................................................... 36
  Western Division............................................... 39
  Map: The Western Division.............................. 39
    History ............................................................. 39
    Description ....................................................... 39
    First Floor......................................................... 40
    Second Floor ..................................................... 40
    Third Floor ....................................................... 40
    Fourth Floor ..................................................... 40
    Basement.......................................................... 40
  2 STAFF ...................................................41
  Morning Conference ........................................ 41
  The Hierarchy ................................................... 44
  Asylum Staff ...................................................... 44
  Physicians .......................................................... 45
  Specific Physicians/Administrators.................. 46
    Dr. Masters....................................................... 46
  Nurses ................................................................ 47
  Orderlies ............................................................ 48
  Domestic Staff ................................................... 50
    Benjamin Brown .............................................. 50
  12 Hours From Midnight ................................. 51
  Escape ................................................................ 54
    Inside the Ward ................................................ 54
    Outside the Ward ............................................. 54
  Doctor Shreiver ................................................. 55
  3 PATIENTZ ...........................................59
  Routine Admission ........................................... 59
  Introduction ...................................................... 67
    Patient Presentation ......................................... 67
  Male Patientz..................................................... 67
  Female Patientz ................................................. 79
  Heathen ............................................................. 90
  4 TIMELINE ...........................................94
  Introduction ...................................................... 94
  Eldritch Era: 1600-1900 .................................... 94
    The Mount Colony ........................................... 94
    The Fell Point Asylum ...................................... 95
  The Fell’s Point Asylum .................................... 95
    The Founder ..................................................... 95
    The Fell’s Point Asylum .................................... 95
  Asylum Structure .............................................. 96
  Map: Eldritch Era Asylum ................................ 97
    The First Decade .............................................. 97
  i
  
  Pulp Era: 1900-1945 ......................................... 99
  Asylum Structure: Pulp Era .............................. 99
  Map: Pulp Era Asylum ...................................... 99
    Special Cases .................................................. 100
    Census and Admissions .................................. 100
    The Pulp Era Timeline ................................... 101
     World War I................................................... 102
    Studies ............................................................ 106
    World War II .................................................. 106
  Modern Era: 1945-1970.................................. 107
    The Modern Era Timeline.............................. 108
    The Fire of 1969 ............................................. 115
  5 WARDS ..............................................116
  Introduction .................................................... 117
  Map: Sample Wards ........................................ 117
    Ward Building Blocks ..................................... 117
    Seclusion Rooms ............................................. 118
  Ward Two ........................................................ 119
    Canto Five ...................................................... 119
  Ward Three...................................................... 120
     Canto Six....................................................... 120
  Ward Four ....................................................... 121
    Canto Seven ................................................... 121
  Ward Five......................................................... 121
    Canto Eight: The Great Tower ....................... 122
  Ward Six .......................................................... 125
    Cantos Nine and Ten ..................................... 125
    Canto Eleven .................................................. 127
  Ward Seven and its Wings .............................. 128
    Canto Twelve .................................................. 128
    The First Wing [7A] ....................................... 128
    Canto Thirteen: The Second Wing [7B] ........ 129
    Canto Fourteen & Fifteen: The Third Wing
  [7C] .......................................................... 130
     Canto Sixteen and Seventeen: The Third Wing
  Elevator [7C] ............................................ 131
  Ward Eight ...................................................... 131
    Canto Eighteen............................................... 131
  The Eighth Ward ............................................. 131
  Map: Ward Eight ............................................. 132
    Ward Eight: Subdivision One [8A] ................ 133
    Ward Eight: Subdivision Two [8B] ................ 133
    Canto Nineteen: Ward Eight: Subdivision Three
  [8C] .......................................................... 133
    Canto Twenty: Ward Eight: Subdivision Four
  [8D] .......................................................... 134
    Cantos Twenty-One and  Twenty-Two:  Ward
  Eight: Subdivision Five [8E] ..................... 134
    Canto Twenty-Three: Ward Eight: Subdivision Six
  [8F]........................................................... 135
    Cantos Twenty-Four and  Twenty-Five:  Ward
  Eight: Subdivision Seven [8G] ................. 136
    Cantos Twenty-Six and  Twenty-Seven:  Ward
  Eight:Subdivision Eight [8H] ................... 136
    Canto Twenty-Eight:  Ward Eight:  Subdivision
  Nine [8I]................................................... 137
    Canto Twenty-Nine:  Ward Eight:  Subdivision Ten
  [8Ji] .......................................................... 137
    Canto Thirty:  Ward Eight:  Subdivision Ten [8Jii,
  iii, iv] ........................................................ 138
  6 HERESIES ..........................................139
  Canto Thirty-One: The Giants....................... 139
  Map: The Cocytus ........................................... 140
    Canto Thirty-Two: The Cocytus [9A-9D] ..... 141
    The First Division: Caina [9A] ...................... 142
    Canto Thirty-Three: The Second Division
  [9B] .......................................................... 143
    The Third Division [9C] ................................ 143
    Canto Thirty-Four: The Fourth Division
  [9D] .......................................................... 143
  The Ninth Ward .............................................. 144
    Reality ............................................................ 144
    Surreality........................................................ 144
    The Wall ......................................................... 145
     The Escape..................................................... 146
  Descension ...................................................... 146
  Dr. Adolph Gans ............................................. 147
  The Heretic...................................................... 151
  Truths .............................................................. 153
  Perspectives from the Inside Out ................... 154
  Schizophrenic Psychics ................................... 155
    Mental Perception .......................................... 155
    Powers ............................................................ 156
    Power Limitations .......................................... 157
    Disadvantages ................................................ 157
    Conclusion ..................................................... 157
    Psyciks ............................................................ 157
  The Hallucination ........................................... 159
  Mental Powers ................................................. 160
  Timelines: Libations ....................................... 161
    Eldritch Era .................................................... 163
    Pulp Era ......................................................... 163
    Modern Era .................................................... 164
  Asylum Finale: Grounded .............................. 170
    Sally................................................................ 171
  APPENDICES .......................................172
  Appendix 0: Psychotech .................................. 172
  Appendix 1: Playgrounz of the Mind ............ 175
  Appendix 2: Other Genres.............................. 194
  Appendix 3: Other Inmates ............................ 199
  HANDOUTS.........................................203
  Handout #1: Asylum Exam Record................ 203
  Handout #2: Word Association Test .............. 204
  Handout #3: M-M Sentence Completion
  Test ........................................................... 205
  Handout #4: Staff Rules .................................. 211
  Handout #5: Character Cards ........................ 212
  FUZION INFORMATION ..................236
  iiii
  
  A Word of Warning
  New Bedlam Asylum deals with mature themes,
  and GMs should be aware that using such subject
  matter in role-playing games requires a certain level
  of maturity and caution. Some players may find the
  subjects contained herein uncomfortable, and GMs
  should take this into consideration.
  Sensitive readers, however, should also keep in
  mind that New Bedlam Asylum is a work of fiction.
  Neither the author nor Hero Games condones any of
  the activities mentioned in this book... except, of
  course, compassionate care for the mentally ill, mak-
  ing sure the criminally insane are properly confined
  and treated, and spreading the knowledge of what con-
  stitutes mental illness so that others may learn from it.
  Author’s Note: There has been a tendency on the part
  of the media and Hollywood to portray mental insti-
  tutions in a negative light; nevertheless, while mental
  health care still has a long way to go, it has improved
  vastly since the days of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
  Nest.” The Asylum in these pages is an unconventional
  institution and should not be seen as a realistic depic-
  tion of a modern-day mental hospital.
  Dedication
  First of all, this book is dedicated to everybody
  who has driven me crazy over the years. You know who
  you are. Rest assured that I will find you and destroy
  you.
  Second of all, this book is dedicated to the fol-
  lowing people, without whom this book would have
  lacked something special. For their time and help, I
  am grateful. Thanks.
  Brad Reed provided the personalities of Dr. Masters
  (Hegemon), Jimmy the Kidney-Eating Killer, and doz-
  ens more clever, creative and amusing patients who
  did not have a chance to appear in these pages (stay
  tuned). He is also responsible for naming some of the
  sections of Fell’s Point and for fleshing out various in-
  habitants of the peninsula. He is talented and gifted.
  Ask him... he will tell you so.
  George and Kristine: George “Albert E. Jones”
  Sedgwick and Kristine “Lion” Evans provided me a ton
  of research material that came to comprise a majority
  of the raw data for chapter three. On top of that, they’re
  great friends and really nice people.
  Steve Long took a break from writing the next hun-
  dred Hero books to provide the research material for
  “Insanity and the Law,” editing suggestions, and held
  competency hearings on most of the characters in this
  book and in Underworld Enemies. You may not have
  seen these things in the text, but they’ll be coming along
  in some form soon.
  Amy Crittenden: Nurse, author, superheroine... in ad-
  dition to her help with the Psychotech appendix, the
  Staff chapter, and general editing, Amy also made a
  concise “quick sheet” for the Horror Hero Shock and
  Stress rules that helped me actually understand the
  Hero Insanity Rules.
  Mark Arsenault provided Asylum security, editing, and
  laid down the law throughout the text.
  Thuy Dang just because he’s cool.
  The Fell’s Point Jerky Boys: To the players who plunged
  into Fell’s Point after the Fall: Glenn “Tertius Krieg”
  Andrews, Dale “St. Jude” Glasier, John “Buddha” Davis,
  Art “Annihilation” Lathrop.
  The AOL Crew: Many people on AOL took the time
  to suggest material, references and provide criticism.
  Rob Barnes, Steve Barr, J. Crocker, James Davis, Mike
  Dean, Al Dickerson (thanks with interest), Sean “Mas-
  ter of My Domain” Fannon, Fernando Vigil, Joe “I *am*
  The Average Man!” Genero, Sonia Handforth-Kome,
  Bruce Harlick, Greg “Bonehead” Lloyd, Bob
  (Disinformer in Russian is...) O’Neal, Bruce Neidlinger,
  Robert Neumann, Marty ‘Starjammer’ Nix (Science
  god of the Hero System, Inspiration, and True Friend,
  without whom I never could have done this, and would
  have had to give up my writing career, such as it is),
  Steve Peterson, KC Ryan, Mark “Spence” Spencer, Bruce
  Tong, and David Utter. Thanks for the input, all. I ap-
  preciate it.
  APA Central: Thanks to the following Hero APA au-
  thors for specific suggestions and criticisms: EROICA:
  Andy Mathews, Tim “Presence Defense is a bad, bad
  power” Binford, Greg Smith, Scott Jamison, Gary
  Mitchel, Martin Maenza, and David Utter. Rogue’s
  Gallery: Will Geiger, Scott Heine, Steve Perrin, Nonie
  Rider, and Scott Bennie. Clobberin’ Times: Brian
  Curley, Kaye Dunham, Joel Levy, Troy Hickman, KC
  Ryan, and Charles Brown. Thanks, all.
  Foreward
  iii
  iii
  
  Thanks also to Mitch Michaelson whose review of
  Underworld Enemies in Morningstar Rising helped con-
  vince me that a story format could work within a Hero
  book.
  Last, but not least, thanks also goes to my good friend
  Lisa Reneé Butler, who always reminds me that I’m
  going to hell for writing books like this.
  Abbreviations
  Throughout the book, some supplements and
  campaign books are referred to extensively. For the sake
  of convenience, and to allow more new material to be
  presented, the title of the books have been reduced to
  the following abbreviations:
  A
  =
  New Bedlam Asylum
  (self-referential)
  DC
  =
  Dark Champions
  I4I
  =
  An Eye for an Eye
  JNL
  =
  Justice Not Law
  MR
  =
  Murderer’s Row
  SS
  =
  Shadow Syndicates
  UE
  =
  Underworld Enemies
  UM
  =
  The Ultimate Mentalist
  UMA
  =
  The Ultimate Martial Artist
  These references, whenever possible, include a
  page number for convenience.
  Note: All references to the “Champions
  Rulebook” in the text refer to the Champions Fourth
  Edition Rulebook.
  iv
  iv
  
  1
  Chapter Zero:
  Preludez
  How To Use This
  Book
  The heading of this section is something of a
  misnomer, for any GM or player reading New Bedlam
  Asylum will know how to use this book far better than
  the author will. Although a summary of what this
  book was intended to provide follows, GMs should
  take what they wish from New Bedlam Asylum, tailor
  it to their campaign, and disregard the rest.
  (A) New Bedlam Asylum provides details of a sample
  mental institution, complete with staff, patients, and
  encounters that can easily be removed and placed in
  the GM’s campaign. While there is a connection be-
  tween the Asylum’s characters and encounters for the
  sake of story and campaign purposes, they can easily
  be separated and inserted into a preexisting campaign.
  [1]
  (B) New Bedlam Asylum tells a story about the char-
  acters and locales in the text, primarily for flavor and
  entertainment value. As a result, some of the factual
  information herein is presented in narrative form. Any
  details omitted from descriptions or backgrounds can
  be filled in by the GM or the players. [2]
  (C) Sections of New Bedlam Asylum were written to
  supplement the material introduced in Horror Hero,
  notably the random notes and events contained in the
  Asylum and the Asylum timeline. While it is written
  in a Dark Champions “format,” the Asylum could ex-
  ist in Dark Champions, Horror Hero, and/or Champi-
  ons.
  (D) New Bedlam Asylum employs many rules and
  clarifications provided in the Ultimate  Mentalist, and
  can be used as a potential setting for GMs running
  psychic campaigns.
  As a final note, the Asylum itself does not have
  a proper name; this is done for a reason. If the lack of
  a specific name disturbs either the GM or players, give
  it one.
  Asylum  Dreams
  Shreiver
  Diary of Dr. Shreiver
  April, 1995
  I still dream of the Asylum.
  Not as it is, but as it was... in its infancy
  with Gans, the shadows cast by the flickering
  candlelight unable to hide the despair etched
  into his face. The silence of the dining room,
  the two of us sitting in the hard wooden chairs,
  separated by more than distance... I remem-
  ber how the wine had distorted his reflection,
  the ripples from every movement of the glass
  sending new lines of worry across his features.
  This had been our ritual, the way we
  marked the passage of days at the Asylum. The
  evening came, darkness fell, and the gates were
  closed fast. We assumed our wooden thrones
  in the dining room, and as the silence and the
  shadow stretched between us, I watched Gans
  die.
  It was inevitable. It seemed that Gans’s
  body had always betrayed him, denying him
  just enough strength to realize what his fe-
  vered mind desired. And so he dwelled among
  1: As scripted, New Bedlam Asylum is set in the fictional city of
  Fell’s Point, a Dark Champions city south of Hudson City. Do not
  be alarmed. “Fell’s Point” could just as well read Hudson City, New
  York, San Francisco, or the GM’s own campaign city. For the sake
  of story (and to try to appeal to as many genres as possible), “Fell’s
  Point” is assumed to exist simultaneously in Dark Champions,
  Champions, and Horror Hero.
  2: The Asylum, Dr. Shreiver, and Sally Anne Robinson, Crusader’s
  lover, were introduced in Underworld Enemies. The events in the
  New Bedlam Asylum take place after the events in Underworld En-
  emies have run their course; Crusader (Sam Saunders) is dead and
  his murderer either punished or running free in the depths of the
  Underworld.
  Although New Bedlam Asylum is the second in a series that elabo-
  rates on events and characters established in Underworld Enemies,
  GMs and players do not need Underworld Enemies to use this
  book. New Bedlam Asylum stands on its own, providing a cam-
  paign setting, foes and adventures for Champions, Dark Champi-
  ons, and/or Horror Hero.
  
  2
  the dead, dying... the all-powerful lord of the
  world that surrounded him, yet forever alone
  and isolated from it.
  I am afraid to die here, he had told me
  on our last night together.
  His breath was ragged in his throat. It
  was the toll the Asylum winters had placed on
  him. He did not look at me as he spoke, and I
  did not look at him. This was the way we com-
  municated.
  I fear death, he spoke again, and a tremor
  passed through his body.
  I worry that when my shadow steps out
  from within me, that I shall find that I can
  never leave the Asylum. And I shall surely go
  mad.
  For this is EREBUS, he said. It is HA-
  DES. All the hells of the world. And more.
  His voice was a rattle in his throat.
  The shadows lengthened across the table
  upon which we ate, and Gans spoke no more.
  That night I laid him to rest in the heart
  of the Asylum. Within his mouth I placed a cop-
  per penny, but his eyes I left open.
  I wanted him to see death coming for him.
  I wanted him to see what he had feared
  so much, yet had sent so many to before their
  time.
  There was no anger left in the gesture, I
  discovered. It gave me no satisfaction.
  And so I bent and let my lips, which had
  never touched him while he lived, brush his
  cold forehead.
  And there I left him, in the cold and the
  dark.
  That was many, many years ago.
  • • •
  And thus the world changed hands, and
  the house of the dead was passed on to me.
  I am its caretaker now, and I tend what
  has been sown here. I care for the shades that
  fill these halls. They inhabit the cells and wards
  in numbers almost too great for the stones to
  bear, yet the shadows make room, always, for
  one more.
  In my youth, I had taken the miracle of
  consciousness, the miracle of organized con-
  sciousness, as something that just was. It was
  sinews that held bone and flesh together and
  made life.
  And now, in my old age, slow realization
  has finally buried this belief of my youth, as it
  has so many others. I have come to the under-
  stand that it is the mind which makes life.
  It has taken many broken minds for me
  to see this, to see what death is. It fills the Asy-
  lum and resides in these human shells.
  Dr. Reeves, who no one can look at with-
  out going mad, Percy, who believes the world
  to be nothing more than a huge game played
  by vengeful, uncaring Gods, Manns, who em-
  barks on mad schemes to raise the conscious-
  ness of humanity... and Gans.
  Gans, trapped in the labyrinth.
  • • •
  He came to me last night as I was read-
  ing in my office, a faint whisper that made me
  tremble with implications. He invited me to the
  nail-studded oak door that opens to the preci-
  pice beneath the Asylum, the abyss that falls
  the distance of the sky into the depths of the
  Earth. And I went to him, as I had thirty years
  before, reminding myself to take nothing he
  offered.
  When I descended the steps to the Ninth
  Ward, I found the door open, and only dark-
  ness beyond. After a moment, I stepped inside.
  Gans was there, and yet not; most of his
  presence was still caged in the paradox, but
  the echoes of his mind wanted to talk of things,
  of distant places and far-off times. Marvelous
  tales he related, of how he had communed with
  the mists of Avalon, how the Progenitors came
  to Earth and bestowed their libations, of long
  dead Kings that fought and died in battle
  against the slithering blasphemies of
  Tyrannon, of the shattered pillars held by
  bleeding Taurus in the labyrinths of ancient
  Greece, of a simple farmer in Yugoslavia with
  the power to end creation in his two hands, of
  immortals who gazed down on humanity from
  the peak of Olympus.
  And he spoke of us. He spoke such words
  that brought tears and a fierce hatred that
  burned the sentiment and his words from my
  mind even as he spoke them.
  There are other worlds, Gans told me.
  Worlds with mysteries the scientists with
  their crude instruments and castrated minds
  will never unlock. Unless made to see, they will
  die in mediocrity, encased in their mortal clay.
  I will shape them, free them until they
  are exquisite perfection, true in thought and
  deed, raise them to the pinnacle of human
  awareness and beyond. As they are destined
  to be.
  History does not treat kindly those who
  try to hurry it along, Gans, I replied.
  And he laughed.
  I AM history.
  
  3
  Sally
  I dream of Sam sometimes. Not so much
  anymore, but sometimes.
  Its always the same dream.
  Im lying in bed, somewhere gray - a fea-
  tureless gray. And Im watching myself from a
  distance, watching myself sleeping in the middle
  (?) of an indistinct landscape, with a mist -
  no, not a mist, really, just a gradual gray that
  fills every corner of the world.
  Suddenly, silently, Sam walks from the gray,
  his form slowly resolving itself. Hes wearing
  the Crusader costume, the shield gone, his face
  troubled. I have only seen the costume twice.
  Once when he came to my apartment, its surface
  cut, torn and bloodied. When I first found out
  who he really was.
  The second time was in the morgue.
  Sam doesnt say anything. He comes to-
  ward the bed and kneels beside it, watching
  me, asleep. I want to say something, but I cant
  move. He brushes the hair away from my face and
  then bends down to kiss me on the forehead.
  His lips are cold, freezing. Then he stands, and
  walks away again, into the gray, except there is
  something else there this time. Something else
  in the gray.
  The Asylum.
  come to the Asylum sallee
  And then I wake up. And I remember it
  perfectly, clearly.
  Sally Robinson
  10  STR
  12   DEX
  11   CON
  10   BODY
  15   INT
  15  EGO 13   PRE
  10   COM 2     PD
  2     ED
  2    SPD
  4     REC
  22   END
  21   STUN
  Powers and Skills: Contact: The Idiot King (Under-
  world Enemies, p. 14) 8-; Contact: The Poet (see Asy-
  lum Grounds) 11-; Contact: (Investigative) Reporter
  (either Clayton Cooper, Normals Unbound, p. 16, if
  in the Dark Champions universe; a member of SA-
  BER [e.g., Jim Bob Barnes], Horror Hero, p. 199, if in
  the Horror Hero universe; or Jimmy Dugan from the
  Champions Rulebook, p. S39, if gaming in regular
  Champions) 11-; Contact: Dr. Shreiver 8-;
  Bureaucratics 12-; Criminology 12-; Deduction 12-;
  Language: Latin (Fluent); Oratory 12-; Persuasion 12-
  ; KS: Law 11-; KS: Library Research 11-; KS: Under-
  world Enemies 11-; PS: Defense Attorney 11- [1]; SC:
  Computer Science 12-
  25+ Disadvantages: DNPC: Carol Robinson, mother
  (Normal) 8-; Hunted by Crusade (Mo Pow) [2] 11-;
  Physical Limitation: Near-Sighted (Wears Glasses, In-
  frequently, Slightly); Psychological Limitation: Living
  in the Past (Common, Strong); Psychological Limita-
  tion: Obsession with the Asylum (Common, Strong);
  Public ID: Sally Anne Robinson (Sally is now a public
  figure); Watched by the Asylum (The Idiot King
  among others, including staff members such as Dr.
  Shreiver and Dr. Masters; Mo Pow, NCI) 11-; Watched
  by the Central Intelligence Agency (Mo Pow, NCI) on
  an 11 or less.
  Background: Sally was born in Geor-
  gia. Not long after she was born,
  her family moved north to Ohio,
  where her father served as a judge
  for several years. He died of can-
  cer when Sally was in her teens.
  His skin had been like pol-
  ished ebony, and when she had seen
  him at rest in the coffin, he re-
  minded her of a statue that had
  flickered to life, briefly, then
  had returned to stone. He had not
  smiled in all the time she had
  known him.
  She suspected that perhaps he
  had seen too many things for him
  to be able to smile anymore.
  • • •
  Not long after her father’s
  death, Sally decided to pursue a
  law degree at Hudson City Univer-
  sity; unable to secure a scholar-
  1: Sally has been disbarred, for reasons revealed below. She retains
  knowledge of the profession, but she cannot legally practice it.
  2: If this is not possible, replace Crusade with the American Flag
  (AC#23). In this case, the American Flag is working for the CIA.
  SALLY ROBINSON
  
  4
  ship on her grades, she was forced
  to work her way through college,
  and was forced to drop out of
  school for a semester at a time,
  resuming her studies when her loan
  checks cleared. After several
  years of hard work, she gradu-
  ated, then moved south to Fell’s
  Point after being offered a prom-
  ising job at a small firm.
  This was not much of a sur-
  prise; lawyers filled the penin-
  sula. In Fell’s Point there was
  always someone to prosecute.
  Most of her professors at
  Hudson City University never re-
  membered her as being anything
  other than quiet and attentive.
  She was not their best student
  and was soon lost in the school
  yearbooks, one unperson among many
  that filled the University
  shelves.
  • • •
  Fell’s Point had never had a
  reputation for being a safe place
  to live... or even a safe place
  to practice law, for that matter.
  That may have been what lured her
  there; a job in Fell’s Point prac-
  tically guaranteed a full work
  load, and with it, perhaps the
  chance to do some good. And she
  liked the city. Rural life had
  lost what little charm it had when
  she was twelve.
  Nevertheless, there were dan-
  gers to living in the city, and
  she took it upon herself to make
  sure she was able to defend her-
  self.
  She signed up for self-defense
  classes at the local community
  center.
  • • •
  The first sessions were unre-
  markable, more of a chore than a
  learning experience. She found
  that the classes to be a distrac-
  tion in her already busy work
  schedule. The instructor, Mr.
  Saunders, was a little too in-
  tense. He was, as her father might
  have said, disciplined.
  Sally thought he was an
  asshole.
  • • •
  After a month, she was sur-
  prised to discover his intensity
  had a much different effect on
  her. The sessions took on a dif-
  ferent light, and where she was
  once irritated with him, she found
  she was more curious about him
  than anything else. She struck up
  a few conversations, and when he
  was tight-lipped and deflected her
  questions, it only fed her curi-
  osity.
  She invited him to dinner once.
  He turned her down, somewhat
  abruptly.
  At the next class, he asked
  her if she wanted to have lunch.
  She turned him down, feigning in-
  difference.
  They compromised. One after-
  noon, after the class had ended,
  they toured the city, and he showed
  her some of the brighter places
  of Fell’s Point. She was surprised
  by how much he knew about the
  city... and that despite his knowl-
  edge of it, that he hated it, in
  some quiet, secret way.
  She asked him once if he had
  ever thought of moving. North,
  perhaps to Hudson City.
  He looked troubled. He said
  he belonged here, in     the Point.
  When he spoke, she felt this
  great weight descend on him, and
  his features became heavy. She
  wondered if Sam had meant what he
  said, about belonging in Fell’s
  Point.
  Or whether he was trapped
  there.
  • • •
  They became involved. Looking
  back, Sally felt that neither of
  them had meant it to turn out that
  way; it simply happened. They had
  both expressed disdain for “rela-
  tionships.” Nevertheless, he
  seemed to understand what many of
  her previous lovers had never been
  able to accept; her devotion to
  the law. No matter how busy it
  kept her, he never complained.
  They disagreed on a number of
  things, but both had a preoccupa-
  
  5
  tion with justice, sometimes dis-
  turbing in its intensity. It gave
  them both an emotional charge.
  She fell in love with him.
  • • •
  Sam was killed.
  • • •
  His murder ate at her. That
  he had not had the chance, the
  choice, to die, if such a thing
  were possible. The fact that he
  had been killed made all the dif-
  ference in the world. Natural death
  had an inevitability about it that
  seemed to resist all attempts to
  rage against it. Murder was dif-
  ferent.
  To describe what it had meant
  to her, the feelings it had given
  birth to, was impossible. She could
  not convey the meaning with words.
  But there was one thing that stood
  in her mind.
  She had never known him. With
  the thought came anger, frustra-
  tion and helplessness.
  The helplessness that she
  would never know.
  That she would never be able
  to know.
  • • •
  Not long after Sam was killed,
  Sally met his murderer.
  The killer spoke in a calm,
  clear voice about what had tran-
  spired. According to him, Sam had
  not been capable of putting mur-
  der in its proper perspective.
  Killing human beings was a matter
  of context.
  The killer wore a mask and
  called himself a hero.
  • • •
  Sam’s death left a wake that
  ran through every part of her life.
  Nothing remained untouched.
  The polite meeting at work was
  not a surprise, but it came sooner
  than she had expected. They had
  presented her with options and
  suggested she might seek employ-
  ment elsewhere, perhaps with some
  of the firms in Hudson City who
  could use someone with her tal-
  ents. But the references they gave
  were token gestures, and they made
  it clear they had no need for the
  attention her presence generated.
  The acquaintances she had chosen
  to keep had tarnished her reputa-
  tion... if she remained, it would
  damage the firm. She was sure,
  looking back, that there was an
  implication that she had somehow
  aided Sam in his illegal activi-
  ties, that she may have provided
  him with information on clients,
  their activities, and perhaps
  more, but they did not take the
  implication far. They seemed to
  know her that well, at least.
  She chose not to fight it.
  She was tired of fighting. She
  just wanted it to be over. All of
  it.
  But there was a dangerous un-
  dercurrent in the conversation,
  the hint that something else had
  affected their decision and forced
  their hand. Sally was certain that
  an outside pressure had been ap-
  plied.
  With it came the sense of be-
  ing watched.
  • • •
  There was a brown paper bag
  in Sally’s apartment. She kept it
  tucked in the closet, next to boxes
  of old files and papers from her
  University days.
  Inside the bag was a costume
  of red and black fabric, neatly
  folded. Within the costume were
  two bandoleer straps, a belt, and
  three holsters. The holsters were
  empty.
  The brown paper bag sat pa-
  tiently in Sally’s closet.
  • • •
  Sally had once held the cos-
  tume in her arms and had wondered
  what it would feel like to wear
  it. She thought that to wear it
  would come close to how Sam had
  felt under his mask. For that rea-
  son alone, she had almost put it
  on.
  The costume was light, made
  of what seemed to be a ballistic
  mesh. When she held it in her
  
  6
  hands, the temptation to put it
  on became strong, almost insis-
  tent. It bothered her. The black
  face mask, the vivid, almost blood-
  red armor, was not something a
  hero would wear. It looked dan-
  gerous and threatening. It felt
  threatening.
  And so it was folded neatly
  and placed within the brown paper
  bag and placed in the closet. It
  sat there with the rest of Sally’s
  memories.
  Later, Sally could not recall
  why she had not gotten rid of it.
  • • •
  The red and black costume be-
  longed to a vigilante called
  “Purge.” Sally thought that was a
  pretty stupid name, but consider-
  ing that Purge seemed to spend
  most of his time putting holes in
  random citizens, she supposed he
  had thought that his name was ap-
  propriate. To her, it sounded like
  the wearer had had Bulimia.
  Sally really didn’t know why
  she didn’t tell the police about
  the armor. She had certainly had
  ample opportunity to do so once
  Crusader’s identity had been un-
  covered. The Fell’s Point Police
  Department had had many questions
  for her.
  It may have been their atti-
  tude that caused her to remain
  silent about the Purge armor. Sally
  had never cared for the FPPD; an
  honest Fell’s Point cop wasn’t much
  better than a dishonest one. While
  she had had a job, she had en-
  countered a wide variety of Fell’s
  Point's finest and had quickly
  learned that the surly officers
  often took out their frustration
  at their low pay and long hours
  by padding their pockets and dis-
  regarding basic police procedures.
  As a general rule, they didn’t
  care for defense attorneys much
  either, especially those that
  shacked up with non-sanctioned
  vigilantes. They'd had a number
  of non-constructive comments to
  make on this point.
  Still, that had only been a
  part of their anger while they
  had been questioning her. As Sally
  had been at the station, one of
  the officers had mentioned that
  they had run into some “red tape”
  while trying to identify Sam’s
  body, and once they had sent his
  prints to the FBI, there had been
  a long lag time (to her knowledge
  he'd had no criminal record and
  no fingerprints were on file) and
  some feds had made an unscheduled
  visit to the morgue.
  According to the officer, the
  feds hadn’t been FBI, and they
  hadn’t had much to say when exam-
  ining the body. Eight days after
  viewing the corpse, the FPPD was
  informed that the body was that
  of a “Sam Saunders.” There was
  little elaboration on this infor-
  mation, other than he was believed
  to have lived in Fell’s Point for
  a number of years.
  “It doesn’t take eight goddamn
  days for a name and a one-line
  profile,” one officer remarked.
  “And you know what that bastard
  told me... he told me ‘we could
  deal with the body as we saw fit.’”
  The officer had become quite
  angry at this.
  “What the hell does he think
  we do down here? Toss the bodies
  in the river? Christ.”
  • • •
  So Sally had not told them
  about the Purge costume. At first,
  strangely enough, with everything
  else that had been going on, it
  had slipped her mind.
  She had found the armor in
  Sam’s apartment though, and as that
  fact sunk in, she decided that
  she would keep it for a while. It
  had probably been with Sam shortly
  before he had died.
  Her first thought was that Sam
  might have been Purge, but she
  recalled his distaste of firearms
  and abandoned that idea. Purge shot
  a lot of people.
  Her next thought was that Sam
  had probably captured Purge and
  kept the costume as some sort of
  trophy.
  But that didn’t sound like Sam.
  At least, the Sam she had
  known.
  To her knowledge, Sam had never
  encountered Purge. At least pub-
  licly. She wondered what he had
  
  7
  done with the costume’s owner if
  he had encountered him. That
  thought led her to wonder what
  Purge looked like beneath the mask.
  And if he looked anything like
  Sam. If Purge had had a family.
  If he had loved ones. If he was
  still alive, or whether he had
  been killed on the streets like
  Sam.
  The Purge armor gnawed at her
  for many weeks.
  The brown paper bag sat pa-
  tiently in Sally’s closet.
  • • •
  Sally had spent most of her
  days after the loss of her job
  sifting through Sam’s things.
  There wasn’t much. She suspected
  he'd had a cache of items else-
  where, perhaps some workshop or
  “Crusader cave.” If he did, he
  hadn’t kept any record of it.
  Research had shown that Sam
  had worked with some Fell’s Point
  vigilantes in the past. He had
  attacked others. Purge wasn’t
  among them.
  Sam had generally acted alone.
  There was one vigilante, Sniper,
  who was believed to have assisted
  Sam, but Sally could not find him.
  Sam and Sniper had parted ways
  many years ago, though Sniper was
  rumored to still be in Fell’s
  Point. If he was, he made no at-
  tempt to contact her.
  She supposed he had his own
  life beyond the mask.
  • • •
  It was not until summer that
  Sam’s killer resurfaced. He had
  traveled north, to Hudson City,
  where he had been identified, at-
  tacked, and arrested by the po-
  lice.
  His name was Daniel Sheridan.
  It had taken fifteen officers and
  several vigilantes to subdue him.
  As she watched the news, Sally
  thought again about the Purge ar-
  mor. She felt something stir, some
  trace of anger, but she quickly
  repressed it.
  She was just glad that Daniel
  was no longer on the streets.
  • • •
  Sally continued sifting
  through Sam’s past. He seemed to
  have a pattern of tracking down
  criminals, beating them up, then
  tossing them in jail. Or the Asy-
  lum.
  Whether in jail or in the Asy-
  lum, however, they inevitably came
  back for him. It seemed that Sam
  attracted a number of colorful
  personalities. The capture-escape-
  capture cycle went on for a num-
  ber of years, until Sally was quite
  bored with it. They acted like
  children.
  She wondered if Sam had been
  bored with it. If he had thought
  about quitting.
  There were a number of people
  who had hated Sam. The police had
  detested him because he hadn’t
  Sanctioned himself and joined the
  ranks of the “official Vs” in
  Fell’s Point. This in itself was
  admirable... Sally had met many
  of these official Vs.
  Many civic groups hated Sam.
  Almost every criminal hated him.
  And it seemed the Asylum pa-
  tients had hated him. He had cer-
  tainly fought a number of them.
  Repeatedly. Sally had flipped
  through their encounters without
  much interest.
  It took a while for the gap in
  Crusader’s activities to sink in.
  He hadn’t made the papers at
  all in 1989.
  • • •
  There had been an explosion
  in Fell’s Point in early 1990, a
  riot of such proportions that the
  National Guard had been deployed.
  There had been many factors con-
  tributing to it as far as the so-
  ciologists had determined. Unem-
  ployment had been high that year,
  there had been some questionable
  activities concerning the trial
  of some Vs at the time, and sev-
  eral penal code patients that had
  escaped from the Asylum were caus-
  ing a great deal of trouble, and
  the FPPD was having difficulty
  tracking them down.
  
  8
  Sally had always nursed the
  suspicion that most of the people
  in Fell’s Point simply hadn’t had
  a very good Christmas and an even
  worse New Year’s.
  The only thing of interest to
  her was that Crusader had been
  involved in quelling the riot, his
  first public appearance after his
  yearlong absence. There were sev-
  eral articles about him in the
  Fell’s Point Dispatch. According
  to the articles, it seemed that
  the vigilante had tracked down many
  of the Asylum patients by him-
  self, and in several instances of
  uncharacteristic brutality, had
  beaten many of them to near death.
  This had gone on for a number of
  days.
  Sally scanned through the ar-
  ticles on microfiche at one of
  the public libraries in Fell’s
  Point. She could remember the smell
  of wood and glue in the tiny stall
  as the words and pictures had
  marched past her eyes. Some of
  the photographs were very graphic,
  and it bothered her. She hadn’t
  thought that Sam could bring him-
  self to do the things he had done
  during the riot. It was as if he
  didn’t care anymore.
  On her third run through the
  pictures, she suddenly realized
  that one of the early pictures of
  Sam showed him out of costume.
  She had missed it before.
  The fact that Sam had been
  using his shield was what had
  caused the photographer to recog-
  nize him. Sam’s face had been cov-
  ered with a ski mask.
  And he had been wearing an
  Asylum patient uniform.
  Personality: It has been more than a year since Sam
  Saunders’ death, and Sally’s confusion has cooled be-
  neath a slow remorse. Her misfortunes, both Sam’s
  loss and the loss of her job in Fell’s Point, has left her
  empty; seeing little hope for the future and unable to
  reconcile the past, Sally’s life has reached a stalemate.
  Before her experiences in Underworld Enemies,
  Sally experienced the world of Dark Champions only
  through the media and secondhand sources, and she
  had previously maintained a black and white view to-
  ward vigilantism. In the wake of Sam’s death, she has
  become obsessed with case studies of vigilantism and
  Sam in particular, attempting to piece together what
  could have fed his obsession with crime-fighting for
  nearly two decades.
  Following 
  her 
  discovery 
  in 
  the
  Background above, Sally has been troubled by a recur-
  ring dreams, urging her to come to the Asylum (see
  Dreams, above). She has discovered that she is unable
  to discuss the dream with anyone, except in the most
  general terms. When she attempts to describe it, words
  fail her, and the memory of the dream slips away.
  Quote: “I’m trying to find out who Sam Saunders
  was...”
  Powers/Tactics: Sally has no superhuman powers and
  no combat training. She functions primarily as an ad-
  venture catalyst, a contact for PCs, and a means by
  which the reader can experience New Bedlam Asylum
  as fiction. She also provides an example of how a lone
  PC, super-powered or not, could adventure here.
  Appearance: Sally is a slight black woman, 35 years
  old, with long black hair (usually fastened behind her
  head with a bow or a clip). She wears thick glasses
  and dresses in business suits. She looks perpetually
  uneasy, with a slight nervousness in her face and un-
  dercurrents of tension running through her body that
  make her jumpy and uncomfortable around others.
  Her expression becomes intense and focused when she
  is pursuing an investigation.
  Dark Champions Continuity: New Bedlam Asylum occurs after
  the events in Underworld Enemies have run their course; what oc-
  curred at the end of Underworld Enemies varies according to the
  campaign. In the published universe, Daniel Sheridan (Crusade)
  was attacked and captured during the events that took place in Ed
  Carmien’s Hudson City Blues (p.46). As of autumn 1995, he awaits
  trial in the Longview Correctional Center.
  The Background listed above takes place after Underworld Enemies,
  through the summer of 1995 (Hudson City Blues), up until just
  before Sally has her conversation with Terry (the Tramp) in Shadow
  Syndicates (SS, Clown Alley). After her conversation with Terry,
  Sally travels to the Asylum.
  As of New Bedlam Asylum, Sally is still in possession of the Purge
  armor.
  
  9
  Chapter One:
  Asylum Grounds
  The True Path
  Sally had not thought that
  finding the Asylum would be much
  of a problem. It was presumably
  located at the edge of the penin-
  sula, and everyone in Fell’s Point
  had a general idea where it lay.
  Sally suspected none of them
  had ever tried to drive there,
  however... though no one would re-
  ally admit going to the Asylum in
  any event. It just wasn’t the sort
  of place you told people you were
  going to. They would look at you
  like you were diseased.
  She had tried to call the in-
  stitution several times, speak to
  the Medical Director, speak to
  anyone at all, but she had not
  been able to get through... so
  she had decided to drive there.
  The thought had just surfaced in
  her mind; she had set down the
  phone, taken her briefcase and the
  brown paper bag from the closet,
  gotten in her car and had set out.
  She left Fell’s Point behind.
  The road rolled beneath her as
  she drove, and the day stretched
  into afternoon. A light rain be-
  gan to fall, becoming stronger as
  the day wore on, but she did not
  stop driving.
  The thought that she might
  become lost, that she might be
  lost, did not even occur to her.
  It was one of those things
  that one seems to see only in ret-
  rospect.
  Introduction
  Finding the Asylum would not seem to be a
  major difficulty. It is not hidden, and characters may
  either arrange an appointment by phone or stage an
  impromptu visit. If in need of directions, almost any-
  one in Fell’s Point can give a character general direc-
  tions how to reach the Asylum. If the GM does not
  want the characters to find the Asylum, have NPCs
  give contradictory or false directions, or else rule that
  the characters become lost trying to find the Asylum
  due to extenuating circumstances (a road sign has
  been stolen or turned ninety degrees, a detour has been
  set up, and so on). If none of the suggestions above
  would dissuade characters from trying to find the
  Asylum, arrange a distraction to reroute the charac-
  ters (a sudden villain attack, a serious crime overheard
  on the police radio, a clue turns up that leads the char-
  acters in another direction, and so on).
  Appointments
  Calling the Asylum is an experience in frustra-
  tion. Callers will face a maze of multiple transfers,
  holds and disconnections, followed by a buzzing dial
  tone. If characters call the Asylum, the GM should
  keep the following rules in mind:
  • The caller can never obtain any information on a
  patient over the phone; in fact, the staff will go so far
  as to “neither confirm or deny” that a patient is even
  interred at the Asylum. (It is a violation of the Nurse
  Practice Act in all fifty states to give any information
  out over the telephone, even if the caller is a guard-
  ian/parent/spouse of the patient.) Even if the staff
  wanted to convey information to the character, they
  will be unable to do so; the line will either be discon-
  nected or the staff member will be distracted and hang
  up on the character. To learn about a patient, charac-
  ters have to come to the Asylum.
  • Visiting the Asylum always produces more results
  than any attempt to call the institution.
  When characters are lucky enough to have
  someone at the Asylum pick up the phone (some call-
  ers have had the phone ring for hours with no one
  answering), the secretary will place callers on hold for
  five to ten minutes, after which the connection will
  
  10
  10
  be broken. If the characters call back, the process will
  be repeated.
  The GM should vary the response of the Asy-
  lum secretary with every call so that the same process
  is not repeated the same way; occasionally the secre-
  tary may ask the characters for personal information,
  their business with the Asylum, offer to let them talk
  to a physician or a charge nurse on duty, place them
  on hold for several minutes, then the phone will be
  disconnected again, leaving the characters with a dial
  tone.
  If the staff is ever asked to account for their
  phone difficulties, they will state that the telecommu-
  nications system at the Asylum is substandard; in ad-
  dition, phone lines are frequently going down in
  storms and are subject to power outages. The staff will
  claim to know nothing about the other disturbances.
  Peculiarities
  The Asylum has some unusual features that
  GMs may wish to be aware of:
  Stress: Each area of the Asylum has its own General
  Presence Attack and can also generate Long Term
  Stress if the GM is using the Long Term Stress rules
  described in Horror Hero, p. 29. The level of the stress
  (see the Horror Hero, pp. 25-29) is labeled by an ad-
  jective. According to the charts in Horror Hero, sample
  labels include “Spooky,” “Wrong,” “Threatening,” and
  so on; these adjectives can be cross-referenced on both
  the General Presence Attack chart and the Long Term
  Stress chart to measure the effects of stress on charac-
  ters depending on which set of rules the GM is using.
  The intensity of stress varies depending on the PCs’
  proximity to the Asylum and in which wards they find
  themselves. [1] When possible, descriptions are pro-
  vided with each stress listing to help the GM convey
  to the players what is disturbing or frightening about
  the situation.
  As the PCs proceed to the lowest wards of the
  Asylum, the intensity of the stress will increase dra-
  matically. If the GM plans to run New Bedlam
  Asylum all in one go, he may wish to consider lower-
  ing the level of stress by one or two levels throughout
  the Asylum or else the PCs may no longer be able to
  function at the end of the adventure.
  Hallucinations: In addition to the stress that sur-
  rounds characters as they enter the Asylum, some
  characters may manifest psychotic symptoms in the
  Asylum (i.e., experience auditory and visual halluci-
  nations, delusions, and so on). These hallucinations
  generally occur with characters with Strong or Total
  In Case Of Emergency…
  Player characters may call
  the Asylum in desperate
  need of information on
  an escaped patient or to
  warn someone in the Asy-
  lum of an impending di-
  saster. The GM should de-
  cide if the call goes
  through based on the
  amount of horror or un-
  certainty that can be
  added to the adventure
  depending on whether or
  not the PCs can reach the
  institution. If the PCs are
  calling the Asylum to
  warn them of an immi-
  nent escape attempt by
  the patients, then not be-
  ing able to get through
  might add to the tension
  of the adventure. On the
  other hand, having Jimmy
  the Kidney-Eating-Killer
  answer the phone and in-
  forming the caller that the
  escape plan is progressing
  nicely might be equally ef-
  fective.
  In addition, if the adven-
  ture is in danger of bog-
  ging down because of a
  lack of information on a
  patient or a missing a clue
  that a staff member can
  provide, the call should go
  through.
  1: GMs may wish to increase the level of stress by one if the char-
  acters are in the Asylum during the night and add another level of
  stress if the character is alone.
  Portion of Cover
  THE ASYLUM
  
  11
  11
  Stress, Dark Wood of Error: Entering the dark woods around
  the Asylum (either walking or driving) is a 2D6 General Pres-
  ence Attack (Spooky). By the end of Canto One, the intensity
  will have increased to a 4D6 General Presence Attack (Wrong).
  Characters will be unable to isolate the source of their unease.
  Near the end of Canto One, they will be certain the woods are
  either hiding something threatening or the woods are somehow
  threatening in themselves. Paranoid characters will find them-
  selves on edge throughout this entire scene.
  Themes to be emphasized in this section should include
  confusion, loss, losing one’s way, festering doubt, and error. The
  roads to the Asylum weave and dip through dark, heavily-for-
  ested areas of gnarled and twisted trees, their trunks grasping up
  from the ground lining the road. The thick woods are dreary,
  and the tree trunks are so close together they look as if they would
  be impossible to navigate on foot; even the flashes of lightning
  penetrate no more than a few feet into the wilderness surround-
  ing the road. No matter what direction of travel, the characters
  should have the growing feeling that they are becoming more
  and more lost, compounded with doubts and fears that every
  choice they made while traveling to the Asylum was a mistake.
  The GM should reinforce this with hints (“...this doesn’t look
  like the right road... it has been miles since you’ve seen a road
  sign or even a speed limit sign... you’re not even sure people use
  this road...”). Have the characters slowly run out of gas, and give
  them the impression that if they become stranded out in the for-
  est, no one will ever find them.
  horizon, she felt the coming of
  night, and her anger left her.
  • • •
  The car tires plowed through
  the muddy water of the road ahead
  of her, and the windshield wipers
  jerked frantically back and forth
  to push the downpour off the wind-
  shield. Next to her on the car
  seat lay her briefcase and the
  brown paper bag, folded at the
  top.
  The road dipped beneath her
  tires again, and the jagged sil-
  houettes of the trees seemed to
  rise higher around her in response.
  She kept her eyes focused on the
  road ahead of her and tried to
  ignore the knot that was growing
  in her stomach.
  How she had come to the road
  she was driving on, she could not
  remember. The drenched roads
  turned and bent like snakes, form-
  ing a warren within the woods.
  Whenever it seemed that the for-
  est was thinning out up ahead,
  the trees would press in closer,
  like walls.
  The overhanging limbs and
  thick trunks of the forest formed
  corridors through which her car
  drove. Occasionally a gnarled
  branch would fall from above, be
  dragged beneath her tires and snap.
  Intensity Psychological Limitations (especially anxi-
  ety, dissociative and psychotic disorders, see Eye for
  an Eye, pp. 24-28) or characters suffering from Tem-
  porary or Long Term Psychological Limitations. These
  hallucinations are extremely vivid, and GMs should
  take pains to make sure that once unstable characters
  enter the Asylum, they can no longer draw the line
  between reality and the “hallucination.” These hallu-
  cinations may also come to characters in their dreams,
  whether the PCs have Psychological Limitations or
  not.
  The psychotic symptoms and dreams that oc-
  cur in the Asylum are explained further in the
  Heresies chapter.
  Canto One:
  The Dark Wood
  Of Error
  Sally found the idea of being
  lost quite irritating.
  She had been no more than a
  hour’s distance from the Asylum,
  she had been sure of it, but a
  wrong turn and the slow pounding
  rain had conspired against her.
  She suspected that a new road must
  have been added, or a road sign
  stolen, because there was no way
  she could have missed the access
  road to the Asylum... according
  to the map, it was almost a
  straight line from the highway to
  the institution. She had checked
  and rechecked the map in her glove
  compartment, and every time she
  had consulted it, it had told her
  the same thing: nothing. She should
  be at the Asylum already, the map
  goaded her. There was no such road
  as the one she was on. She was
  obviously stupid to have messed
  up such simple directions.
  Her only conclusion was that
  somewhere down the line, she had
  gone astray from the true road
  and somehow woke up in the dark
  woods. The thought made her an-
  gry.
  Hours later, as the last rays
  of day were dragged beneath the
  Note: The following section describes what may happen the first
  time characters approach the Asylum. It should be modified for
  subsequent visits.
  
  12
  12
  Sally was positive these roads
  were not on any map she had ever
  seen. The roads that she drove
  over felt like mud and gravel,
  not asphalt, and this did not bol-
  ster her confidence. If the roads
  seemed to lead anywhere, it was
  down... it was a slow, gradual
  slope, but Sally could feel it.
  The ground was giving way inch by
  inch.
  She felt drugged, tired, and
  her eyes felt like lead weights,
  but she kept driving. Several hours
  ago, she had found it had become
  impossible for her to take her
  hands from the steering wheel.
  The rain fell in sheets against
  the windshield and formed a gray
  mist in the high beams of her car.
  No matter how much the rain and
  wind raged outside, however, the
  world inside her car was silent,
  and the rain and wind fell against
  her car like a blanket. Sally did
  not turn her head to look out her
  side windows... she was afraid that
  she would see something in the
  rain, something waiting in the
  woods that lined the muddy road
  that she traveled on.
  The rain fell in such amounts
  that Sally thought she would soon
  be swimming... great sheets of wa-
  ter were kicked up from her tires
  and mud sloshed against the side
  windows, doing their part to ob-
  scure her vision. She did not even
  glance in the rear view mirror.
  It had stopped showing her any-
  thing except the gray curtain of
  rain hours ago. The dim red tail-
  lights seemed lost in the lake of
  night that flowed around her tiny
  vehicle.
  Her passenger seat and back
  seat were thick with shadow, but
  she knew the brown paper bag was
  beside her, and it provided her
  with some reassurance.
  The road bent and wove through
  the black woods of Fell’s Point.
  The PCs will not reach the Asylum area until
  nightfall. No matter what time of day they leave, a slow
  rain begins to fall minutes after they start their jour-
  ney (the famous Fell’s Point peninsula weather blow-
  ing in off the coast), accompanied by heavy wind and
  lightning. The rain picks up intensity until it becomes
  a blinding downpour. Even with high beams, charac-
  ters cannot see the road more than a few feet in front
  of them, and whether traveling by foot or by vehicle,
  characters will quickly become lost in the darkened
  back roads of the Point. Allow PER Rolls for Charac-
  ters who have the Bump of Direction Talent to help
  find their way, but no matter what the roll, tell them
  they cannot orient themselves (or even better, tell them
  what direction they are traveling in and then disori-
  ent them by changing the area, having them retrace
  their steps, circle the same roads, all the while telling
  them they are certain that they traveling in the right
  direction).
  Sally
  Sally watched the gas needle
  trail near E. It had been dip-
  ping, almost in tandem with the
  road’s gradual descent, and with
  every drop of the needle, the knot
  in her stomach tightened.
  She was not even sure she was
  on a road anymore; if there was a
  road, it had been slicked over
  with mud and rain. She dimly won-
  dered what she would to if the
  car got mired, then pushed away
  the thought. One thing at a time.
  The Asylum had to be close
  by... and she should be able to
  find help there. At the least,
  they should be able to lend her
  some gas, allow her to call a cab,
  or something. If she could just
  find the Asylum. Why did the sim-
  plest things always become so
  complic—
  When the figure stepped out
  of the curtain of rain ahead of
  her, it did not register at first.
  The figure was so frail and thin,
  he might have been a sapling grow-
  ing in the middle of the road. He
  was walking toward her car, seem-
  ingly oblivious to her.
  It suddenly occurred to Sally
  that unless she swerved, she was
  going to kill him.
  Without a sound, her hands tore
  at the steering wheel, forcing it
  to the left, as she slammed her
  foot on the brake. There was the
  sickening feeling of free fall as
  the car spun in the mud, and the
  black teeth of the forest rose
  and spun around her, swallowing
  her. There was a lurch as the car
  struck something solid, and the
  steering wheel plowed into her
  forehead.
  
  13
  13
  Distraction
  As the characters are driving on the back roads
  in an attempt to reach the Asylum, the GM should
  ask how they plan to proceed once they get to the Asy-
  lum and engage them in conversation. Encourage the
  players (especially whichever player’s character is driv-
  ing the vehicle) to get involved in a discussion of what
  they plan to do once reaching the Asylum. Just as the
  players are outlining their plan and getting into the
  discussion, turn to the player whose character is driv-
  ing the (lead) vehicle and tell them, as clearly and
  calmly as possible, that someone is standing in the
  road directly in front of them and they are about to
  hit the figure. Ask them immediately what they will
  do, then count to three out loud. By the end of the
  count, if the character who is driving has not taken
  action, they will strike the figure. See below for de-
  tails.
  If the driver attempts to avoid the figure, have
  them make a Combat Driving roll. If they succeed,
  they will swerve off the road and plunge into a muddy
  ditch. If they fail their roll, they strike the figure. See
  below:
  If Characters Strike the Figure: There is a heavy
  thump, the crunching of bone, and a black shape
  tumbles over the hood and across the windshield, leav-
  ing a bloody smear. Characters who stop the car after
  striking the figure will be unable to find the body, but
  the blood (and the dent in the front of the car) is very
  real. The blood on the windshield streaks in the rain,
  running down the glass in rivulets and becoming
  smeared by the wipers.
  If the PCs stop to check the surrounding area
  for the figure they struck, the Poet (see p. 17) will be
  waiting for them when they return to the car (he is
  not bleeding or wounded, so it is unlikely that he is
  the one they struck). If the PCs continue driving with-
  out stopping, he will appear farther up the road, shuf-
  fling along the muddy shoulder, his head bowed down.
  If they ignore him, they will continue to pass him far-
  ther up the road, still walking in the same direction
  (away from the Asylum).
  If Characters Miss the Figure: The character swerves
  off the road and the vehicle plows into a muddy ditch,
  sending streams of mud splattering against the side
  of the car and the windows. The characters will be
  knocked unconscious for a moment (no longer than
  a minute), then will slowly regain consciousness. It is
  important that characters blackout in this scene, even
  if only for a second (see Stage Directions, side-bar). As
  they awaken, there is the sound of someone moving
  outside the vehicle and scraping at the handle of the
  car door (this is the Poet, below, who is checking to
  see if the characters are okay). In the rain and dark-
  ness, he appears as a frail ghost.
  As the characters are pulling themselves from
  the vehicle, they will feel dizzy and drugged. This leth-
  argy will not affect any of their Skills or Characteris-
  tics, however, and it will slowly pass as the scene con-
  tinues.
  The Figure: The figure on the road was the Poet. He is
  dressed in a black three-piece suit and doesn’t look
  like a patient (unless the characters look at him care-
  fully... see below). He was trying to escape the Asylum
  when he encountered the characters.
  If the characters miss the Poet and plow into
  the muddy ditch, they will be unable to get their car
  or vehicle out. Characters determined to reach the Asy-
  lum will have to proceed on foot through the thick
  forest, over the rise of hills and across the valley to
  make it to the crag upon which the Asylum lies. If
  they intend to give up and attempt to hike back to
  civilization, they will find that they keep returning to
  their vehicle... as soon as they are out of sight of it,
  they encounter it farther ahead on the road. The Poet
  stands next to it, trembling in the cold rain and watch-
  ing them with wide, dark eyes.
  Sally
  Sally awoke, her head throb-
  bing; it felt like all the blood
  in her body was rushing through
  her ears and pumping its way out
  her eye sockets. The slightest
  movement sent pains through her
  neck and skull, and she gasped as
  she lifted her head from the steer-
  ing wheel. She fumbled for her
  seat belt and found it curiously
  loose around her chest... it had
  remained tight around her waist,
  so tight that it hurt, and Sally
  absently fumbled for the catch on
  the door, her fingers scrabbling
  at the lock and forcing the door
  open. There was a slow metallic
  grinding as the door opened, then
  a dull splash as the bottom half
  sunk into the mud that had gath-
  ered outside the car... rain formed
  small ripples and circles in the
  surface of the mud, and...
  God, her head hurt.
  She lifted her hand gently to
  her head, and found it sticky.
  She drew her hand away and her
  fingers glistened red. She stared
  at the stains on her fingers for
  a moment, listening to the rain
  pounding in tempo with the blood
  in her skull.
  She tried to lift herself out
  of the seat, tried to get herself
  outside, and found that she
  couldn’t move. There was a press-
  ing weight, almost pinching her
  Stage Direction: At some
  point after the characters
  are on the dark road and
  before they actually reach
  the Asylum they should ex-
  perience a “blackout.” The
  blackout does not have to
  last long, a few seconds will
  do, but the characters
  should all fall unconscious
  for a time, either because
  of sleep, head trauma, or
  some other means. It is up
  to the GM to decide when
  and how the blackout takes
  place... some suggestions
  are listed in The Distrac-
  tion, above (i.e., if the char-
  acters swerve to miss the
  figure, they are knocked
  unconscious when they
  strike the dashboard or the
  seat in front of them). The
  PCs should not be aware
  how long the blackout oc-
  curred and may not even
  be aware what caused it.
  
  14
  14
  middle that was preventing her from
  moving... she might have hurt her
  legs, or...
  She looked down and unfastened
  her seat belt, almost crying with
  relief. There was a slight rattle
  as the seat belt released her.
  It was raining outside, and a
  small trickle dripped from the top
  of the car and fell onto her face.
  She took a deep breath, and her
  thoughts stopped racing and her
  heart beat calmed.
  She could not see out of the
  windshield in front of her. It
  had been plastered with mud, like
  a cast. The headlights had been
  buried too, but she couldn’t hear
  the engine running, so she ab-
  sently reached over and turned off
  the ignition. It made a strange
  kind of sense to her at the time...
  she felt a need to minimize all
  outside distractions. Like turn-
  ing off the car engine that wasn’t
  running. Perfect sense.
  It was dark outside. She would
  need a flashlight. There was a
  flashlight in the glove compart-
  ment. She would reach over, open
  the compartment and get the flash-
  light. Then she would get out of
  the car and see how deeply she
  was in trouble.
  She looked slowly to her right,
  onto the passenger seat. The brief-
  case had fallen to the floor. The
  brown paper bag, however, was open.
  She knew without looking in-
  side that its contents were gone.
  • • •
  She staggered from the car,
  her feet sinking into the mud out-
  side the vehicle. She almost fell
  into it (sending shooting pains
  through her head as her body
  lurched), but she clutched at the
  side of the car at the last mo-
  ment and used it to hold herself
  upright. After steadying herself,
  she used the edge of the car to
  slowly pull herself upwards... the
  car had plunged headfirst into a
  muddy ditch just off the shoul-
  der. The front of the car was bur-
  ied in the mud, and the tail end
  of the car was thrust up in the
  air.
  Sally clawed her way up to
  the level of the road, and took
  another deep breath as she looked
  down at the car. The rain contin-
  ued to fall around her.
  It seemed thicker than before,
  the raindrops falling like stones
  into the mud and gravel around
  her.
  Like footsteps.
  • • •
  Sally blinked, then turned,
  glancing around her. She was not
  alone. Where was the man she had
  seen—?
  The forest moved.
  Sally froze. Through the gray
  sheets of rain, Sally saw the shad-
  ows in the forest move and peel
  away from the bark and trunks, to
  step towards her. She knew in-
  stinctively that the shades were
  moving to cut off her escape.
  The first shadow moved in front
  of her, keeping a steady six paces
  distance. Even as close as the
  shadow was, it took Sally a mo-
  ment to register the shadow... when
  she did, she took a step back,
  frightened.
  As she did, Purge took a step
  forward, mocking her movements.
  The armor, now with substance and
  form and weight, moved with a ca-
  sual and sensual murderousness.
  Its limbs seemed to flow rather
  than bend, and the forest sur-
  rounding Purge seemed to be in
  league with it, flanking its move-
  ments.
  Sally instinctively knew that
  she did not wish to move forward,
  but there was sense of pain in-
  side her that pulled her like a
  magnet toward the red and black
  shape before her. Fighting it with
  her fear, Sally took a step back,
  then turned to run... where she
  did not know.
  But the second shape was there
  as if he had burst from the ground,
  crouched on his legs, his thick
  hands drenched in the mud of the
  road surface. As he raised his
  hands and balled them into fists,
  the mud ran from between his fin-
  gers like brownish blood. The shad-
  ows obscured his face, but Sally
  recognized the inhumanly muscu-
  
  15
  15
  lar frame, the body that looked
  like it had been pulled from a
  comic, and the fevered eyes. Tilt-
  ing his head back, Crusade screamed
  into the sky, as if to strike ter-
  ror into the storm that raged above
  him.
  From behind him stepped the
  third shape and Sally stared at
  herself.
  It was a starved horror, a
  ravening she-beast, wasted, gaunt
  and craving. Her hair was unkempt
  and wild, like a nest of snakes
  and branches, and the fingernails
  of her hand were so long they might
  as well have been claws... her
  clothes were tattered, wrapped
  around her emaciated form like
  bandages. As soon as Sally saw
  her, a terrible weight descended
  upon her, and she knew that she
  would not be allowed to continue
  on the road... if she survived at
  all. The beast advanced on her,
  her feet sinking into the mud, as
  Crusade howled behind her and Purge
  watched silently. The two of them
  might have let her go, but Sally,
  it seemed, had no intention of
  letting herself go unscathed.
  As Sally wavered, her reflec-
  tion smiled. The reflection’s fin-
  gernails were encrusted with blood
  and dead skin. The bandages were
  red and black, torn and frayed at
  the edges. They seemed to cover
  not only her body, but the ter-
  rible scars and injuries that
  scabbed  the skin beneath the re-
  flection.
  Sally retreated bit by bit,
  the reflection forcing her toward
  the forest, smiling and waiting
  for an opening.
  Sally turned to run, and al-
  most immediately, her feet skid-
  ded on the mud, and she stumbled,
  the world tilting as her legs
  twisted and her face bit the road’s
  surface. Her fall was followed by
  terrible, shooting pains that
  traveled from her neck and through
  her head and back again.
  She lay there, trembling, un-
  til she felt the hand touch her
  shoulder.
  • • •
  “Stop!” She found herself
  shouting. “Please, don’t...!”�She
  rolled and her hands rose franti-
  cally, as if to strike at the shade
  above her, but instead she folded
  back, cringing. Her voice was trem-
  bling. “Please... please save me
  from her... she is...” She blinked,
  the rain and fear clouding her
  features; she felt as if her in-
  sides were shaking. When a moment
  passed in silence except for the
  whisper of the rain and the drops
  upon the leaves of the trees, she
  retracted her hands from her face,
  frightened.
  She found herself staring up
  at a man, who was looking at her
  with concern.
  He was a terribly old man,
  Sally thought. His hand was no
  longer resting on her shoulder,
  but his touch seemed to have calmed
  her, and he looked as if he meant
  no harm.
  He opened his mouth as if to
  speak, but his words blurred in
  the storm, and Sally could not
  decide what he was really saying
  to her, or if it was what her
  hearing tricked and shaped into
  words. Was he even speaking...
  what...
  “Please... that woman... she
  is...” Sally gestured frantically,
  noting absently the blood on her
  hands, as her hand jerked in the
  direction of the road. “She...”
  The man looked around briefly,
  turned back to her and seemed to
  nod at her through the storm, his
  features pale but understanding.
  His hand reached out for her again,
  and he gently touched her fore-
  head.
  Sally found she was still trem-
  bling, and the wound on her fore-
  head was still throbbing.
  “Can... can you help me?” Sally
  managed. The rain was soaking
  through her clothes, and where she
  lay on the road, not an inch of
  her was dry. She was wet, cold,
  and the... the experience (the hal-
  lucination?) had frightened her.
  The man looked at her for a
  long moment, and Sally thought that
  he was about to say something,
  but he merely nodded.
  
  16
  16
  With his light touch, he helped
  her to her feet and let her lean
  on him.
  He seemed to weigh almost noth-
  ing, but he supported Sally as
  best he could.
  The Poet
               [WARD 1]
  10  STR
  13   DEX
  12   CON
  10   BODY
  10   INT
  15  EGO 13   PRE
  10   COM 2     PD
  2     ED
  2    SPD
  4     REC
  24   END
  21   STUN
  Powers and Skills: Danger Sense (Intuitional) 11-,
  Contortionist 12-, Criminology 11-, Deduction 11-,
  AK: Asylum 12-, KS: Asylum Subculture 8-, KS: Box-
  ing 11-, Paramedic 12-, Sleight of Hand 12-, Streetwise
  8-, and +1 Combat Level with All Combat.
  50+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Code
  vs. Killing (Common, Total), Psychological Limitation:
  Persona Personality Disorder [1] (Currently in Remis-
  sion; Uncommon, Moderate), Age: 60+, Monitored
  by the Asylum (Ls Pow) 8-, Mystery ID: J. Hess Curtis.
  Appearance: This emaciated figure looks as if he
  should have died many years ago. A wisp of a man
  with beady eyes and arthritic hands, his face is fur-
  rowed by worry lines and makeshift smiles, and
  strands of stark white hair cling to his head like cob-
  webs. His movements are slow and careful, as if he is
  dragging a great weight behind him. He typically
  dresses in an old three piece suit, worn through in
  several places. A red handkerchief is folded in his
  breast pocket.
  PER Roll: A character who carefully studies the Poet
  will notice each of his wrists have four identical scars,
  the last series of scars sealed with a new set of stitches.
  Beneath his clothing, his body is covered with nicks
  and scratches, some old, some new, as if he crawled
  through a thorn bush, and there is a wound in his
  side (a bullet hole) that has healed badly, leaving a
  purple scar.
  Notes: The Poet will forward no information about
  his past to the characters. As he will not speak when
  he first meets the characters (see Quote, below), this
  may hold at bay any questions the characters may have
  about him. If the characters probe him too deeply, the
  Poet will become visibly upset, and may even go cata-
  tonic (GM’s discretion).
  The Poet will not use his real name (Mr. Curtis)
  while he is with the characters. If they should find it
  out by chance (say, by records), they will feel that there
  is something familiar about it, but they will not be
  able to recall what.
  When the characters enter the Asylum, they will
  notice that the other patients at the Asylum call Mr.
  Curtis “the Poet.” When they do so, it sounds like a
  derogatory nickname (probably due to his reluctance
  to speak). Still, as with his real name above, every time
  the characters hear Mr. Curtis addressed as “the Poet,”
  the same nagging feeling of familiarity (as with his
  real name, above) will surface in their minds. Attempts
  to research his past in the Asylum records and in the
  campaign city libraries will only lead to dead-ends
  (i.e., no information is forthcoming in this text).
  Within the confines of the Asylum, the Poet functions
  as a guide and an unknown quality that should make
  characters wonder whether he can be trusted or not.
  The Poet is allowed to wander wherever he
  wishes in the Asylum, and no matter where he goes,
  he is recognized, usually with catcalls and scornful
  laughter. If the characters are trapped in the Asylum
  and are being harmed by the staff and the inmates,
  the Poet will do his best to aid them, even going so far
  as to sacrifice his life for theirs.
  Quote: The Poet will not speak when the characters
  first encounter him (they may believe him to be mute,
  as he will communicate only with hand gestures). Only
  after they have spent some time around him, will he
  speak; his voice is rusty and cracked with age, as if
  throat is parched, and he may respond to many of their
  questions in sentence fragments. PCs may initially be-
  lieve the Poet is schizophrenic (i.e., disorganized
  speech) or affected by some form of dementia, but
  the longer they stay with him, he will slowly become
  more coherent. In no instance will he ever speak in
  metaphor, simile, or use colorful description... he
  seems to be purposely avoiding it.
  Canto Two:
  The Descent
  They moved ahead in silence,
  and she followed where he led.
  The air amongst the trees was
  a dull gray mist, and Sally could
  hear creatures silently settling
  in the surrounding blackness.
  Sally half-stumbled, half-fell
  through the underbrush, led by the
  steering hand of the elderly fig-
  ure. His feet seemed to glide over
  the ground, moving as if the roots
  and stretches of forest were not
  there. As she tried to match his
  pace, she slowed and hesitated.
  Her head still throbbed, and the
  wet blood that had covered her
  forehead had crusted over. The rain
  trickled down in light drops from
  Stress, Dark Wood of Er-
  ror and the Poet: While ac-
  companying the Poet,
  characters will not be sub-
  jected to more than a 2D6
  General Presence Attack
  (Spooky) until they reach
  the Asylum. They feeling of
  being watched is still with
  the characters, but the
  sense of imminent threat
  has abated. Any injuries
  the characters suffered
  during the crash or the at-
  tack should also distract
  them from their surround-
  ing, deadening any of their
  fears or insecurities. The
  Poet’s presence seems to
  ground any flights of anxi-
  ety.
  1: A Persona Personality Disorder results from an over-identifica-
  tion with a costume or piece of apparel. The disorder is usually
  split into two different Personality Disorders... one while the char-
  acter is in costume, and the other when the character is out of
  costume. As the Poet’s Personality Disorder is in remission, the
  “split personalities” in the disorder are not really important.
  
  17
  17
  the forest canopy, and from the
  downpour of the road, the rain
  had become a light drizzle. The
  forest seemed to lose some of its
  malevolence... her traveling com-
  panion seemed to help steady her.
  She dimly realized that she
  had traded one companion for an-
  other, and her thoughts turned to
  the brown paper bag that still
  rested with her car, back in the
  storm.
  She felt fuzzy, as if cloth
  had been pulled over her eyes;
  the wool was thick in her thoughts
  and in her mouth, and it took her
  a long time to realize that a ques-
  tion lingered in her, one she had
  meant to ask much sooner.
  She took another look at her
  guide, more carefully this time.
  Beneath his faded jacket, he was
  wearing a faded green uniform of
  some sort, like –
  a hospital patient.
  A cold panic suddenly seized
  her. “Um...” she faltered for a
  moment, feeling an extraordinary
  tightness and weight pulling at
  her. She swallowed. “I’m not sure
  I should be going... to the Asy-
  lum... I... the main road...?”
  Without meaning to, her statement
  became a question; her words
  tumbled over each other, superim-
  posed with the slow dull thought
  that she had hurt herself more
  than she knew in the crash. “I’m
  not sure if I should... be...”
  She glanced at his uniform be-
  neath the suit; it seemed a deep
  sea green in the low drizzle. “If
  I should be going there...? I don’t
  want to go there... to the Asy-
  lum. I’m...”
  The man did not turn around
  and continued to guide her through
  the woods. He seemed certain of
  his destination.
  Sally blinked and a feeling
  of dizziness overcame her; the
  shadows of the trees became mo-
  mentarily blacker as she felt the
  salty taste of blood on her lips.
  “I’m not sure if I should... be...”
  He turned when as she spoke.
  Her eyes flickered, and his grip
  graced her arm to help steady her.
  After making sure she was still
  able to walk, he continued to si-
  lently guide her forward.
  At his back, Sally entered on
  the hard and perilous track.
  At The Wall
  Characters approaching the Asylum, whether
  from the woods or the Access Road, will eventually
  find themselves at the great gray wall that encircles
  the institution (the front gate has its separate descrip-
  tion, below):
  Huge blocks of granite, ten feet high and two feet
  thick, have been mortared to raise the gray wall that
  encircles the Asylum. For all its great weight and thick-
  ness, however, the wall’s crumbling moss-covered stones
  and the long coils of rusted barbed wire draped limply
  across its top lack strength, as if the wall has long since
  given up hope of keeping the Asylum within its bounds.
  Clinging brown vines wind through cracks in the wall
  and pick at its mortar, slowly widening the hairline frac-
  tures and loosening the ties that hold the great granite
  blocks in place. It looks as if a single stone was dislodged
  from its expanse, the wall would collapse and the rubble
  would be lost in the weedy grass and dead leaves that
  have shored themselves at its base.
  The Wall, Technical: The stone sections of the wall are easy to
  climb, and the vines and projecting stones give a character +2 to
  their Climbing Skill (it is an Easy Task; see Hero System Rulebook,
  p. 18). Once on top of the wall, it is a simple matter to pick one’s
  way through the barbed wire. If the character is in a rush, how-
  ever (i.e., they are being chased), the GM should have the charac-
  ter make a DEX Roll to thread their way through the barbed wire,
  assigning penalties if necessary... anyone caught in the barbed wire
  (i.e., fails the DEX Roll) will be hit with a 1/2D6 HKA attack and
  must spend one Phase disentangling themselves for every point
  of BODY damage they took (GMs may also wish to roll randomly
  to see if the character contracts lockjaw from the encounter with
  the barbed wire).
  Nevertheless, while the wall is easy to climb from the out-
  side, characters who scale the top and land on the other side will
  notice it appears much stronger from the inside; projections are
  few, and the barbed wire is more densely packed than it first ap-
  peared. PCs who attempt to jump the wall from the inside have a
  -2 to their Climbing Skill and -2 to their DEX Roll to navigate the
  barbed wire.
  Patient NPCs will not be subjected to this modifiers men-
  tioned above; for them, the reverse is true: they suffer a -2 to their
  Climbing Skill when trying to climb back into the Asylum, and
  +2 when trying to escape.
  NPC Patients who make it to the gaps in the fence (men-
  tioned above) will automatically escape;  Hospital Security are
  reluctant to scour the back woods unless they are in a large group,
  and even then, they will remain in a thick clot for the entire search
  (they do not spread out under any circumstances... years of expe-
  rience have taught them that this leaves them vulnerable). Many
  of the police will not go too far into the woods: they will simply
  wait at the fringe, then head back to the main buildings after fif-
  teen or twenty minutes to report that the patient has escaped.
  PCs who flee into the woods will become lost and have
  considerable difficulty in finding the gaps that the patients seem
  drawn to so easily; in addition, the Hospital Police have no fear of
  entering the woods if they are pursuing a PC.
  Stress, Wall: Seeing the
  wall for the first time is a
  3D6 General Presence At-
  tack and entering the
  wooded areas bordering
  the wall is a 4D6 General
  Presence Attack (Wrong).
  If the characters are being
  chased by the staff as they
  are trying to escape in the
  woods, tension and uncer-
  tainty will cause the Gen-
  eral Presence Attack to in-
  crease anywhere from 5D6
  or 6D6 (Threatening) de-
  pending on the circum-
  stances; if the PCs are be-
  ing pursued by patients,
  the General Presence At-
  tack will jump to 7D6 or
  8D6 (Dangerous).
  
  18
  18
  Thematic: No matter what the season, the Asylum wall
  looks out of place in the surrounding landscape; it
  feels as if nature itself is trying to scour the crum-
  bling structure from the Earth. In winter, great drifts
  pile against the Asylum wall, and come spring and
  summer, the vines renew their assault on the wall as
  the sun beats down upon the weathered stone as if to
  split it apart with its blistering heat.
  The Asylum wall was originally supposed to en-
  circle the entire grounds, but the ambitions of the
  builders and the state legislature ran out long before
  the acres of woods beyond the buildings did. While
  the characters cannot see this from the entrance gate,
  the stone wall abruptly gives way to sections of wire
  fence amidst the trees. Furthermore, there are large
  gaps in the fence, torn and hidden in areas of the
  woods so thick they have never been adequately sur-
  veyed by the Asylum grounds crew.
  The Front Gate
  In the distant past, the stonework at the front
  gate was beautiful to behold, complemented by land-
  scaped grounds with tall, attractive trees. Now, the
  stonework has faded into a dull grotesqueness barely
  discernible to visitors, and the trees have all been lev-
  eled in the wake of the fires that have plagued the Asy-
  lum.
  The rusty iron gate that stands at the Asylum
  entrance has long since lost the proper name of the
  institution it guards. Only the word Asylum remains
  embedded in the wrought iron crowning the entrance.
  While the gates are chained and padlocked at
  10 PM every night (by a pair of hospital police from
  the Admissions Building), the characters will find that
  the gates offer little resistance to anyone wishing to
  enter. Even if padlocked, there will be just enough
  space between the gates to slip through.
  Characters who examine the wall where the
  hinges of the gates are located should make a Sight
  PER Roll. If the roll is successful, they will find some
  evidence that another pair of gates may have once
  guarded the entrance of the Asylum, for some old
  marks in the stone suggest another, older pair of hinges
  may have been set in the wall.
  Past The Wall
  Entering the Asylum should not present a diffi-
  culty. There are no guards to stop the characters, and
  even if the gate has been closed and locked for the
  night, the wall is easy to scale. At the most, characters
  will suffer only a few scrapes and bruises climbing the
  wall.
  Once past the wall, however, characters may find
  that they are unable to leave.
  Every hour the characters spend within the
  grounds lessens their chances of escaping from the
  Asylum. This chance may be affected by staff or pa-
  tient escorts, who will “allow” the characters to leave,
  but characters who sneak onto the grounds in the dark
  hours will become residents if they stay too long. There
  is no hard and fast rule for determining the character’s
  chance of escape... role-playing and cinematic flavor
  should be the deciding factors as to whether the char-
  acter will be allowed to return to the outside world
  once they have crossed over.
  The Grounds
  Once past the crumbling stone wall, almost a
  mile separates the characters from the Asylum. From
  the gate, a rutted road runs along the base of the crag.
  The road is flanked by withered fields of sickly brown
  weeds and clumps of dead grass, interrupted with
  rocks gouged from the earth floor or dragged from
  the cliff farther to the west. If the characters travel on
  the road, they will barely be able to see the thin strand
  of the river that flows in the distance, winding its way
  to the drop hundreds of feet below the crag to the
  west.
  As characters near the Asylum, the thick weed-
  choked fields recede and are replaced with brown
  crabgrass, cut close to the ground so only the tips of
  the stems are visible in the dirt and gravel surround-
  ing the Asylum buildings.
  Fringes
  The road that curved through
  the Asylum grounds was black and
  wet. Mud washed from the surround-
  ing fields was spread thinly across
  its surface.
  Stage Directions: If the GM wishes, choose a PC in the party to
  experience a “hallucination” when they see the gate for the first
  time (see Hallucinations, above). When possible, choose a PC who
  is considered to be “disturbed” (i.e., has a Psychological Limita-
  tion, preferably a phobia or anxiety, in the Strong or Total range)
  or is suffering from a Temporary or Long Term Psychological
  Limitation. If none of the PCs fit the bill, choose a character with
  Mental Awareness, some form of mental power, or a high EGO to
  experience the “hallucination” when they approach the Asylum
  gate:
  Everything around you goes still, sounds fall from your senses,
  thoughts recede from your mind, until only the iron gates before you
  command your attention. As you watch, paralyzed, an oily black-
  ness crawls at the edges of the gates where the hinges touch the wall.
  First only a flicker at the edge of the gates, the blackness seeps up and
  through the arches and bars of rusted iron, changing them to a slick
  ebony, then stretches from the iron to fill the space between the bars
  until the gates are submerged in a glistening wall of darkness. Be-
  fore you, for the barest second, there is only a deep, impenetrable
  black... then the gates slowly reappear, except this time they are not
  of iron, but are two nail-studded oak doors of unusual thickness, so
  thick they might as well be extensions of the wall itself. The doors
  look impenetrable, their surface blackened and charred as if from
  some terrible fire.
  If the GM wishes, the character can either interact with
  the hallucination, or may simply “snap back to the real world.” In
  the hallucination, the doors should be impregnable and impos-
  sible to open; the doors radiate malevolence, but the malevolence
  does not seem to stem from the doors themselves but from some-
  thing behind them.
  
  19
  19
  Through the light rain, the
  cracked asphalt track stretched
  on forever, lengthening as one
  walked upon its slick surface.
  Sally’s eyes blurred as rain ran
  in rivulets down her face.
  It seemed that she had been
  walking for days, and the distant
  crag upon which the Asylum lay
  was no closer than it had been
  from the gate. The road seemed to
  be trying to tire out anyone walk-
  ing upon it... more than once,
  Sally’s thoughts turned back to
  her abandoned car. She would have
  rather have tried to pull it from
  the mire than feel the throbbing
  pain in her head and the needles
  through her neck that accompanied
  every step she took.
  Her soaked clothes clung to
  her body like leeches, and when
  she was no longer able to focus
  on the buildings in the distance,
  she stared at her feet as she
  walked in the dim hope that keep-
  ing her eyes off the Asylum might
  allow her to make some progress
  toward the structure.
  Her guide walked on tire-
  lessly, and his hand still rested
  lightly on her shoulder. She had
  long since forgotten that it lay
  there, it was so light... and her
  head hurt so much that she found
  it difficult to pay attention to
  what was going on around her.
  Her feet wavered and blurred
  as she stared at them.
  As her pace slowed, her guide’s
  hand tightened on her shoulder,
  as if to restore feeling, or to
  reassure her. It did both.
  “Th... thank you ... th...”
  she mumbled. The rain was cold
  and tasteless upon her lips.
  She prayed that there was a
  physician on duty in the Asylum
  tonight. She was certain she had
  a fractured skull.
  Her feet continued to move
  along the road.
  Her muddy footprints filled
  in with water and were washed away
  behind her.
  Sites
  During the nineteenth century, several minor
  structures of wood and stone were constructed around
  the two main Divisions of the Asylum, including a
  barn, an ice house, stables, granaries, carriage and
  wagon sheds, a repair shop, and several farm houses.
  These structures may still exist in a dilapidated state
  somewhere on the Asylum grounds (or may be healthy
  and well in an Eldritch Era Horror Hero campaign)
  and can be used as hiding places or combat sites. The
  only structures that have survived the passage of time
  are the various houses and cottages that surround the
  grounds (see below) and the remains of the farm and
  pier on the eastern edge of the Asylum grounds (again,
  see below).
  The Hill
  The “hill” is something of a misnomer. It is
  wrinkled section of land West of the Asylum that holds
  many valleys and rises, hidden by thick forest. A weath-
  ered trail leads from the Asylum to a valley cemetery
  hidden by heavy trees and underbrush. While the un-
  dergrowth prevents characters from seeing too far, the
  cemetery seems to stretch down the valley, its small
  gray tombstones like road markers. Characters search-
  ing the cemetery will discover that many bodies have
  been unearthed, and bones and large holes lie scat-
  tered next to graves, as if the graves were burrowed
  into by some animal, perhaps a dog.
  In the past, if a patient died and had no family,
  he was buried in this cemetery. PCs in a Horror Hero
  campaign who enter a catatonic state in the Asylum
  may find themselves buried here.
  The Farm
  The farm is in disrepair... the walls stand, but
  only barely; it looks as if a strong wind could topple
  the beams and send the entire structure crashing
  Stress, The Hill: This area
  generates a 4D6 General
  Presence Attack (Wrong);
  the thick woods shield the
  characters from the out-
  side world, and the un-
  earthed graves and sickly
  undergrowth suggest that
  the area is somehow
  stricken with some wast-
  ing disease.
  Stress, The Farm: Once
  characters enter the farm
  house, the stress will rise to
  a 4D6 General Presence
  Attack (Wrong); if they fall
  into the basement and
  proceed through the tun-
  nel there, the stress rises to
  a 6D6 Attack (Threaten-
  ing).
  THE FARM
  
  20
  20
  down. The farm building needs painting, its leaks
  patched, the broken windows replaced, lights and
  plumbing repaired, and the overgrown grass cut away
  so that the buildings can be reached.
  The farm house is one and a half stories high.
  The second floor of the structure is claustrophobic,
  and the floor beams on the first and second floors are
  weak and unsteady. (Characters searching this struc-
  ture are likely to go crashing through the floors onto
  the first floor or crashing through the first floor and
  into the swampy basement.) Past a small door off the
  kitchen, rickety stairs flanked by warped railings de-
  scend to the water-logged basement. The rains and
  run-off from the Asylum have filled the basement with
  water to a height of three feet in places, and rats have
  made their nests here among the refuse and cluttered
  shelves. Characters who remain here too long will be
  attacked by the hungry vermin.
  Submerged beneath the water are several
  bloated corpses and an underwater tunnel (two and a
  half feet in diameter) that winds its way toward the
  Asylum from the basement (it rises above the water a
  few feet into the tunnel and allows a character to
  breathe the tunnel’s stale air). It looks as if the tunnel
  was clawed from the dirt by hand, but the effort re-
  quired must have been tremendous... the tunnel
  stretches hundreds of yards to the Asylum. Many false
  burrowed tunnels split off from the main tunnel, and
  sharp stones and roots jut from the walls and claw at
  the hands and face of characters. It is likely characters
  may encounter someone or something if they crawl
  through this tunnel.
  The Pier
  There is a small pier and launch here, next to a
  man-made inlet choked with reeds and algae-covered
  water. The pier is now in disrepair, and the planks are
  splintered and rotting. During the nineteenth and
  early twentieth century, the river saw a great deal of
  barge traffic and boats who would deliver supplies to
  the Asylum. This area may be used as an escape site
  for patients or PCs with access to some form of water
  travel.
  The Asylum
  When Sally lifted her head up
  from the rain-slicked road beneath
  her feet, she was there. They were
  there.
  They had reached the crest.
  At the crest, the top of the
  crag spread out, displaying the
  huge gray structures that rose from
  its surface... were it not for
  the grilled windows and the black
  slits of doors carved into the
  buildings, Sally would have mis-
  
  21
  21
  taken the buildings as part of
  the crag itself.
  The disturbing array of oddly-
  peaked roofs and aging, sharp-
  angled structures had been broken
  into three pieces.
  The extreme East and West Di-
  visions counterbalanced each
  other, and a central building had
  been forced between them like a
  wedge to keep the Divisions from
  crashing together.
  Sally thought that should the
  wedge be removed, the sound, the
  force of the two Divisions col-
  liding would be felt throughout
  Fell’s Point. The splintering
  walls, crumbling mortar, bricks
  ripped and torn from the walls in
  great strips and fractures, iron
  beams bending and twisting from
  the impact... the cries of the
  patients would be lost in the
  grinding thunder of the stones as
  the Divisions hurled themselves
  against each other.
  It would be a terrible sound,
  a terrible thing to witness.
  The building to her left, the
  Western Division, though, drew her
  eyes; even though it composed
  barely more than a third of the
  structures that loomed before her,
  it looked as if had more weight,
  that it was the core around which
  the others moved.
  The Western Division, Sally
  concluded, had gravity.
  There was the sense, much more
  so than the other buildings, that
  the Western Division was more of
  the crag... that the crag only
  allowed the tiniest glimpse of the
  Western Division and kept the rest
  of it carefully concealed and bur-
  ied under stone and key.
  Great wings of stone branched
  out from the ribs of the Western
  Division like crooked appendages.
  Windows dotted its walls like empty
  eye sockets.
  Sally turned to focus on the
  Western Division’s twin structure.
  While the Eastern Division
  appeared to be the same as the
  Western Division, it came across
  as smaller, colder, but more struc-
  turally sound. Where the Western
  Division seemed to sink into the
  ground, the Eastern Division
  seemed to be pulling itself from
  it, trying to achieve a defini-
  tion of its own.
  No matter what their charac-
  teristics, however, the dark stone
  and brick buildings had a common-
  alty that could not be ignored...
  they were heavily aged, bent...
  old. Very old. Older than Sally.
  They weren’t dead yet, but time
  had left its wounds.
  The structures looked terri-
  bly weathered, the roofs and walls
  scarred by storm and rain, and
  their stones infected by the same
  desolate gray as the crag upon
  which they lay. Sickly moss and
  creeping ivy gathered at the roots
  of the buildings and fed on the
  crumbling foundations.
  As she took in the Asylum,
  her guide stood silently by.
  The rain continued to fall,
  but it was not heavy enough to
  obscure the splintered gray mass
  that rose before her.
  Terror Incognita
  GMs should consider the following when char-
  acters set foot within the Asylum:
  General Stress: While each Asylum ward and Divi-
  sion has its own unique character and stress levels,
  the feeling described below is inescapable once the
  characters enter the Asylum walls. It can be used to
  reinforce a General Presence Attack or raise the in-
  tensity on the Long Term Stress chart to whittle away
  a character’s EGO and PRE.
  Stress: Something elemental and primitive permeates
  the hollows of the Asylum, a raw, inescapable sense of
  non-belonging that assails characters, penetrating their
  marrow and seeping into the tissues of their mind and
  body. This gravity will be present no matter where
  characters travel within the Asylum. Its intensity will
  ebb just when characters feel they can take no more,
  only to return, redoubled in force, when the charac-
  ter is about to release their built-up anxiety and ten-
  sion. Whenever players seem to be getting comfort-
  able, give them a sharp reminder that they are intrud-
  ers in the Asylum.
  Night: The “lid” of the Asylum loosens when night
  falls, and things begin to seep out into its corridors.
  As the patients drift into fitful sleep, the Asylum stirs,
  and subtle sounds creep and ripple from their niches
  in the Asylum. These sounds can never be heard while
  Note On Maps Within The
  Text
  GMs examining the Asy-
  lum maps will notice that
  while main buildings are
  labeled, there are no inte-
  rior keys, only general de-
  scriptions of the building
  floors within the text. The
  reason for this is in keep-
  ing with the Unfamiliarity,
  Hobson’s Choice and Your
  Own Private Asylum … the
  Asylum is not a static place.
  Divisions and wards seem
  to move within the build-
  ings (often causing the
  staff some surprise and
  concern), and there is no
  guarantee what is there
  one visit will be there when
  the characters return. [1]
  The GM always has the
  option of nailing down
  certain locales within the
  Asylum to suit their own
  campaigns; in the Asylum
  text, however, the “floating
  locale” syndrome is in-
  tended to reinforce the
  Asylum’s surreality.
  1: The wards and divisions do not physically move. Their move-
  ment can be attributed to staff disorientation and the transfer of
  patients within the walls.
  
  22
  22
  the sun burns in the sky... they are swallowed by the
  background noise and bustle of the Asylum as it la-
  bors beneath the sun.
  The Asylum becomes even more surreal when
  darkness cloaks its hard stone walls and muffles the
  sharp echoes born from the tile surfaces. When night
  falls, the Asylum becomes a place of fevered
  imaginings. There is the half-recognized sound of
  what sounds like relatives and family screaming and
  crying, unexplained footsteps (always carried through
  the ventilation shafts or taking place just out of sight),
  the squeaking wheels of stretchers as they are rolled
  to the morgue and distant peels of laughter. Some pa-
  tients keep their eyes open all the time, for it is when
  night falls that the most monstrous events occur at
  the Asylum. Patients are lost, killed or the floodgates
  of their minds splinter open, and they are assailed by
  horrendous nightmares.
  Unfamiliarity: The Asylum should never be familiar
  to the PCs, no matter how many times they visit. Un-
  dercut their expectations and force them to react to
  the unexpected. This constant “keep ‘em on their
  guard” can put a strain on the GM but is necessary
  for maintaining the Asylum “feel.” The Asylum should
  give PCs the creeps... every time.
  Hobson’s Choice: Characters may occasionally find
  themselves in sections of the Asylum that they did not
  mean to enter, even if they have visited the Asylum in
  the past and are certain of where they intended to go.
  For some reason, characters will find it impossible to
  do such simple things as “retrace their steps” or even
  find their way back to the front door unless the GM
  wants them to.
  Archaic Sanction: When characters step into the Asy-
  lum, it’s like stepping into the past. Despite grants and
  funding, the Asylum resists modernization; new paint,
  new structures, new furniture... all decay in the Asy-
  lum. Once inside, its primitiveness is astounding to
  visitors. The Asylum itself wages war on modern tech-
  nology and prevents it from operating within the walls
  of the institution. Gothic and Victorian architecture
  predominates.
  Telling Time: Time is not a constant within the Asy-
  lum walls. The difficulty of seeing the outside world
  in some of the closed wards, the psychogenic medica-
  tions inmates are forced to take, and the hallucino-
  genic pseudo-dream state that many patients are re-
  duced to all conspire against pinning down the exact
  time within the Asylum. This may become important
  in adventures where the characters are attempting to
  determine when an inmate died, how much time they
  have left before a criminal mastermind enacts his plan
  outside the walls, or how long they have been trapped
  within the Asylum. This “time distortion” is intended
  solely for cinematic effect... it is another constant, a
  sign of order, that is stripped from characters once
  they enter the Asylum. [1]
  Your Own Private Asylum: Not every corner of the
  Asylum is described, for several reasons. One is to give
  the GM (or GMs, if the campaign has multiple
  gamemasters) a chance to design their own sections
  of the Asylum... and the second reason is in the inter-
  ests of privacy and secrecy: even if the players have
  read this book, there is nothing here to tell them what
  your private wards and shadowy halls hold for their
  characters once they step past the heavy doors.
  See the Wards chapter for information on de-
  signing Asylum wards.
  Main Buildings
  Central Administration Building
  The construction of this building was spurred
  on by Superintendent Ross (the second Superinten-
  dent of the Asylum; see Timeline) during the 1940s.
  Confronted with the fact that the Western and East-
  ern Divisions were crammed with activities, offices
  and patients, so much so that the patient’s medical
  records had to be stored in the basements of the two
  Divisions, Ross advocated that this administration
  building be built.
  Interior: This Central Administration Building is three
  and half stories high but looks much smaller in com-
  parison to the two huge Divisions that flank it (to say
  that it is “dwarfed” by its neighbors would not be an
  understatement). The ground level contains a kitchen
  and dining room, and the remaining levels are
  crammed with offices. The first floor of the Central
  Administration Building is connected to both Divi-
  sions and to the Service Building by a covered corri-
  dor (see below).
  The wiring in this building is terrible. Lights
  flicker, phones become disconnected, and power out-
  ages and blown fuses occur regularly.
  Medical Records: A majority of the Asylum’s medical
  records reside in the Central Building. The Records
  Librarian usually sits at the desk that guards this sec-
  tion of the building, and he is responsible for the pro-
  tection and confidentiality of all patient records. His
  desk is littered with charts, graphs and an ancient type-
  writer (no computers are visible). The librarian will
  be rude to any characters requesting files and will
  hinder their search if the PCs somehow coerce him
  into helping them.
  Past the desk, is the workroom of the Medical
  Records division. No matter what time of day, how-
  ever, this area is strangely dark and silent. Desks are
  empty, typewriters and files lie discarded on the table,
  1: Absolute Time Sense will not work within the Asylum, although
  the PCs will believe it does. Any PC with this Talent can be given a
  “time” to work with, but it may not actually be the real time.
  Stress, Central Adminis-
  tration: The Central Ad-
  ministration Building gen-
  erates a 2D6 or a 4D6 Gen-
  eral Presence Attack
  (Spooky/Wrong).
  
  23
  23
  First Floor: The first floor is defined by a wide
  hall, large enough for light gymnastics, and several
  smaller rooms for games, music, a graphic arts center,
  sewing, a photography lab, reading and craft areas.
  Some spaces on this floor have fallen into disuse and
  are used only for storage.
  The Museum: Just past the main entrance of the build-
  ing (tucked in a small alcove that can almost be missed
  when the characters enter), is a heavy wooden door
  that reads “museum.” While the door is always closed,
  it is never locked, and swings open easily. Characters
  stepping through the door will find themselves in a
  small museum where works of art made by the Asy-
  lum patients are on display. The floor of this room is
  covered with a plush red carpet, thick enough to
  dampen footfalls, and the dimmed lighting, glass dis-
  plays, and the many floor-to-ceiling shelves prevent
  visitors from getting an accurate feel for the room’s
  dimensions.
  At first, the museum displays look unremark-
  able, with rows of baskets, books, paintings, pottery,
  carpentry, and sculpture. A series of portraits of all
  the Asylum Medical Superintendents, painted by the
  patients, dominates one wall, terminated at one end
  by a picture of Luther Steward himself (for some rea-
  son, this portrait looks half-finished, but characters
  will be unable to say why... it just doesn’t seem to be a
  true representation). [1]
  Still, this room is dangerous in its subtlety. Many
  characters who enter this room may not even realize
  that the door has silently closed behind them (it can-
  not be propped) and some paranoid characters may
  discover that any sounds that come from this room
  are difficult to hear past the door and walls... it is as if
  the walls and the exhibits themselves drink up any
  sounds or screams that may come from this room.
  Only when characters spend some time in this
  room that objects they hadn’t noticed before suddenly
  begin to catch their attention, one by one, as if they
  were waiting for just the right moment to introduce
  themselves. In one corner, almost lost on the shelves,
  is a dodecahedral chess board that looks like it can be
  played by nine people, and the pieces are carved in
  disturbing facsimiles of the Asylum staff (and perhaps
  Horror Hero Note: The museum is kept locked during the night.
  A year ago, one of the hospital police went mad in this room. He
  claimed that the bust of Dr. Shreiver was pleading to him in some
  language he couldn’t understand... when one of his buddies at-
  tempted to calm him, the man drew his pistol, shot his friend
  through the head, then inserted the barrel in his mouth and blew
  his brains out.
  GMs should include more disturbing pieces of artwork
  within the museum for their own campaign or to foreshadow
  themes and events that will occur in the future (or that have al-
  ready taken place in the past).
  GMs may also include some magical items from the list
  described on pp. 94-95 of Horror Hero and place them within the
  museum... some powerful artifacts may be resting upon the
  shelves, waiting for the PCs to discover them (the Deep Map and
  the Destiny Chess Set described on p.95 have many interesting
  applications if used within the Asylum... characters falling into a
  Deep Map of the Asylum may find they cannot escape).
  Several of the art pieces in the museum were actually
  sculpted by Gough Godfrey (see Patients). Despite his fascina-
  tion with human excrement, he is a talented artist.
  Horror Hero Historical Note: This building was the result of
  Luther Steward’s wealth and influence (see In the Shadow of the
  Civil War, Horror Hero, p. 96), and as such, could be considered
  the “Devil’s Workshop.” It served as a focusing of several ma-
  levolent energies over the past century, the most notable being
  the items that were fashioned here by the patients in Occupa-
  tional Therapy, including paintings, crafts and several psychoac-
  tive works of art that had the ability to curse their possessors and
  inspire evil acts in others. Steward would occasionally visit this
  building when he was on the peninsula and found many of the
  patients to be intuitively-gifted when it came to fashioning spell
  components and foci that could be used in rituals and in psychic
  divinations. Several of these items were used (and lost) in mag-
  ics throughout the Point or were otherwise seeded through the
  Fell’s Point population to cause misfortune. Some of these works
  of art are still in the building (in the basement and in storage in
  the first floor) and others have been placed throughout the Asy-
  lum to be found by PCs.
  1: Alternatively, characters looking at the portrait of Luther Stew-
  ard may see his snake or dog forms (see Horror Hero, p. 104). If
  they make a repeat visit to the museum, they may notice that while
  the painting still hangs in its frame, Luther Steward is no longer in
  the painting... it as if he stepped out for a moment, leaving the
  canvas and the painted background behind.
  Stress, Steward Building:
  Whenever PCs are in the
  Steward building, they will
  experience a 4D6 General
  Presence Attack (i.e.,
  something feels Wrong). If
  characters descend into
  the basement, it will rise to
  a 5D6 or 6D6 Attack
  (Threatening). There is an
  unnatural  something
  about the building, but the
  characters cannot pin it
  down, other than describ-
  ing it as “unhealthy” and
  “threatening.”
  Stress, Museum: The mu-
  seum is curious in that it
  generates “quiet stress”...
  the exhibits creep up on
  characters, slowly making
  the viewer uneasy and un-
  comfortable while luring
  them in. Characters may
  not even be aware that
  they are on edge while in
  the museum until they
  leave, at which point they
  will suddenly realize how
  tense they were while
  among the exhibits. The
  museum generates a 4D6
  General Presence Attack
  (something about the mu-
  seum is Wrong); see the de-
  scription below for details.
  and chairs are pulled back from the desk as if the em-
  ployees have stepped out for a moment. The lights
  over the desks have been dimmed... at night, only
  shadows fill this room.
  Past the records division is a corridor lined with
  rows of plain brown doors with little plaques that read
  “Records.” The doors can be locked (but rarely are)
  and open silently to the touch. The bulbs in these
  rooms seem to be of a low wattage, and they barely
  illuminate the rows and rows of files, and the sagging
  cardboard boxes crammed with old medical records.
  The stacks of boxes and filing cabinets have turned
  the records rooms into small mazes; several charac-
  ters could be searching for files in one room and not
  be able to see each other.
  Characters will find nothing in the records un-
  less the GM (or the patients) wants them to.
  The Steward Building
  (“The Central Services Department”)
  Description: The Steward Building (also called “the
  Gallery”) was built at the turn of the century from
  funds from the Luther Steward donation. It is a one
  and a half story building, sixty-nine feet long and forty
  feet wide, and rounded on all sides by a twelve foot
  veranda. The veranda has not been painted in a while,
  and the crusty white paint is peeling from the wood
  in several places. The top of the building rises to a
  sharp angle, and viewing it from the side, it looks as if
  someone set a cleaver in the earth so its edge was fac-
  ing the sky. Even during the day, the Steward Building
  looks dark and empty inside.
  
  24
  24
  the PCs). In another section, half-hidden in shadow,
  is a plaster bust of Dr. Shreiver, that, except for its
  chalk-white appearance, looks disturbingly alive. In
  front of it lies two fresh corn stalks, the stems crossed
  over each other like some kind of offering. Another
  piece of artwork, macramé, takes on a curious quality
  if one looks at it too long... almost a four dimensional
  quality, if such a thing is possible. One sculpture, [1]
  that appeared at first to be nothing more than a
  woman in a shroud kneeling, on further study, looks
  twisted somehow, as if the sculpture is in fact not one,
  but two people, the fringes of the second person blur-
  ring into the first.
  Basement: As far as the staff knows, the basement to
  the Steward Building has been sealed due to flooding,
  and all the doors to the basement have been rusted
  shut and locked. Characters who explore the lower
  levels of the Asylum may find some of the tunnel en-
  trances to spaces beneath the Asylum, as well less sa-
  vory items lying in the dirt and filth of the basement.
  Bourne House
  Hallucinations: Any character experiencing halluci-
  nations or under the control of a Temporary or Long
  Term Psychological Limitation will feel uncomfort-
  able in the Bourne house and will flinch around the
  lights in the house as they burn in their fixtures. The
  afflicted characters will be unable to explain why they
  find the lights disturbing.
  If any character experiencing hallucinations or
  a Temporary Psychological Limitation has the mis-
  fortune to fall asleep in this house, they will beset by
  nightmares of dancing flames and a black, shadowy
  figure that stands just outside the firelight. The air is
  filled with the cries of what sounds like a woman, the
  smell of burning flesh, candle wax, and the hissing of
  fat and oil being fed to the flames in the character’s
  mind. The dreams are so vivid that characters may
  jolt awake and still smell smoke and feel their skin
  flushed with warmth (some characters with Mental
  Awareness or Psychic Abilities, especially
  Clairsentience, will have minor burns and blisters on
  their skin).
  Notes: During the early years of the Asylum, most of
  the medical staff lived in the two main Divisions; af-
  ter a while, it was felt Dr. Bourne, the Asylum’s first
  Superintendent, deserved some relief from the con-
  tinuous care of the patients and a house was built for
  him and his family on the grounds. It was originally
  finished in 1904, but a fire burned it down shortly
  after it was constructed, requiring it be rebuilt at an
  additional cost.
  Description: The Bourne House is a brown shingled
  structure, two and a half stories tall with two brick
  wings set apart from the main house. Connecting sec-
  tions with high French windows have been inserted
  between the wings and the original house, as if to make
  the brick wings appear part of the original structure.
  Long windows to the rear of the House provides a full
  view of the Asylum fields as they stretch toward the
  East. A dilapidated barn lies in the rear of the struc-
  ture, its walls and roof sagging. The barn is old, un-
  pleasant to look at, and has obviously fallen into dis-
  use, but no one has torn it down.
  Main House: Before 1920, this House was a residence
  for Dr. Bourne. At this time, Dr. Bourne’s house was
  the model of a home, with high ceilings in all the first
  floor rooms, along with large drawings rooms, a din-
  ing room and a spacious kitchen. The second floor
  was home to several bedrooms. Eventually, the din-
  ing room of the Bourne House was made into a class-
  room and two wings for students were added to the
  residence in the 1930s. Furthermore, a new library was
  constructed for the nurses, and the entire house was
  carpeted and air-conditioned.
  In the modern day, the first floor of the House
  is now a series of classrooms and a library for nurses,
  and the second floor now serves as rooms for some of
  the Asylum nurses.
  There is room for about eighty nurses in the
  house. Each student nurse’s room has a sink and mir-
  ror, and is furnished with bed, study table, desk and
  chair. On the ground floor of the Western wing of the
  Bourne house are a set of offices that serve as the
  Asylum’s Out-Patient Center. This Center gives sup-
  port to Asylum outpatients, and provides an alterna-
  tive for the mentally disturbed who do not require
  full inpatient attention.
  Barn: This barn was built to be large enough for the
  Superintendent’s horse and carriage. It has long since
  become the nesting place of hundreds of pigeons and
  their refuse. Sunlight pokes through the holes in the
  roof. A broken old horse-drawn coach has been aban-
  doned in a corner of the barn, almost hidden by the
  dust and wreckage that has accumulated over the
  years.
  If the GM is playing a Horror Hero campaign in
  the Eldritch Horror Era, the barn will be in usable
  condition, and Bourne’s black coachman (with his dis-
  tinctive black stovepipe hat) will have a room in the
  barn, complete with a small fireplace and cot. [2] The
  1: PCs who study the sculpture will somehow be certain that the
  second figure is a male, and if the sculpture is viewed from the
  correct position, it is the male that is dominant in the sculpture
  and the female that is secondary. If a PCs make a Sight PER Roll,
  they will notice that the woman seems to be carrying what look
  like small seeds in her hands. The expression upon her face looks
  as if she might have just tasted one of them.
  2: The black coachman may be a servant of the Black Dawn or the
  Cult of Taxlan (see Horror Hero), stationed at the Asylum to look
  for victims or new recruits for his masters. When darkness falls,
  he often leaves his small residence in the barn and walks into the
  woods surrounding the Asylum, where he starts a small fire with
  animal fat, strips himself naked, then waits before the fire for signs
  from his masters, who communicate with him through the flick-
  ering flames. If the coachman is a member of the Cult of Taxlan,
  he will make his way to the water’s edge that borders the Asylum
  grounds and conduct his communications via the murky water of
  the river.
  Stress, Ross House: The
  Ross House generates a
  2D6 General Presence At-
  tack (Spooky) under nor-
  mal circumstances. The
  invalid wing on the first
  floor and the second floor
  of the Ross House gener-
  ates a 4D6 General Pres-
  ence Attack (Wrong).
  Psychics will feel extremely
  uncomfortable in this
  building... their nostrils
  feel as if they are filling
  with the thick smell of
  death and cleanser.
  Stress, Bourne House: The
  Bourne House generates a
  2D6 General Presence At-
  tack (Spooky).
  
  25
  25
  coach and its horse will be stabled in the barn, both
  of them a sinister shade of night-black.
  Ross House
  History: Earlier in the century, before rapid transit
  was available, many staff lived in the two Divisions
  on the Asylum grounds. In the early part of the cen-
  tury, however, it was decided that Superintendent Ross
  deserved a house on the grounds. Never achieving a
  title more glamorous than “Ross House,” the struc-
  ture was completed late in 1927.
  Description: Ross House is a spacious two and a half-
  story brick house, with a long eastern porch that pro-
  vides a full view of Fell’s Point Bay. Connected to the
  main house is a minor wing that looks like it was not
  added too long ago (at least in relation to the other
  structures on the grounds). While the first floor win-
  dows appear normal, the windows on the second floor
  are covered with security grills (as near as one can
  tell, there are grills on the exterior and interior of the
  window). Depending on when characters visit the Ross
  House, they may see elderly patients on the porch or
  walking slowly on the grounds surrounding the house.
  Other patients simply sit and stare into space.
  While this building originally served as quar-
  ters for Ross and his wife (they had no children), it
  was renovated to serve as a Geriatric Ward in the 1960s
  The House was intended to be a home for elderly
  people no longer able to live alone or bear responsi-
  bility for their own care. Thus, the Ross House has
  become a combination custodial residence, nursing
  home, and a mental hospital... facilities are present in
  the building to treat dementia and delirious patients
  as well as those with physical disabilities. Most pa-
  tient discharges from the Ross House go to the
  morgue.
  First Floor: The first floor of the Ross Building is for
  “well-integrated” elderly patients, who are generally
  alert, able to move around, and comfortable in their
  surroundings. Each patient on this floor has their own
  private room. This floor is relatively comfortable to
  take in with the eyes, but the bathrooms are harshly
  sterile, and the air in the building smells strongly of
  cleanser and disinfectant. If asked about the smell,
  none of the patients and staff claim to be able to smell
  it.
  The Second Floor: The second floor of the Ross House
  is reserved for confused and restless patients, and the
  heavy entrance door at the top of the stairs is usually
  kept locked and bolted.
  If PCs enter this floor, they will smell the faint
  odor of urine and feces, as well as catch what seems to
  be a trace of rotting meat lingering in the air (PCs
  will be unable to determine where these smells are
  coming from, but mentalists will smell them more
  strongly than other characters). While each patient on
  this floor has their own room, this floor is chaotic,
  and elderly patients roam the halls, wild-eyed, dart-
  ing into and out of rooms (and sometimes being
  chased out by screaming and howling from the room’s
  occupant). Other rooms seem like coffins. Behind the
  doors to these rooms come muffled cries, the scratch-
  ing of fingernails on wood, and tiny sobs... it’s like
  these patients have been sentenced to death in their
  rooms before their time.
  Power Plant/Laundry/Utilities
  Hallucinations: Any character experiencing halluci-
  nations or under the control of a Temporary or Long
  Term Psychological Limitation will feel “strange” while
  in the Power Plant. Goose bumps will rise on the sur-
  face of their skin, and they will feel curiously light-
  headed, then alternately tired, jumpy, lethargic, ner-
  vous, and hyperactive... their behavior may change
  radically from moment to moment the longer they
  spend within the Power Plant.
  If a character experiencing hallucinations or a
  Temporary Psychological Limitation falls asleep in the
  Power Plant or is knocked unconscious, they will be-
  set by a vision of falling through a hollow, bony col-
  umn that pierces the crag. Mildew and small flashes
  of lightning crosses the interior of the column and its
  exterior ridge pierces the Earth like some great stone
  spine, one end sinking into the depths of the crag, the
  other end snaking into the hemispheres of the West-
  ern and Eastern Divisions. The longer the character
  remains unconscious, the more their body will be
  drawn into the stones that compose the monstrous
  spine, their body decomposing and becoming part of
  the gray-green fungus that grows along the interior.
  Description: This building is 300 feet south of the
  Eastern and Western Divisions. Its most noticeable
  feature is its ninety-foot square tower, it walls pierced
  with narrow windows along its height and rising to a
  flat roof. The rest of the structure is partially set into
  a hill that rises toward the south, and this section is
  divided into three sections that form a rough “C.” One
  of the three sections (connected to the tower) rises to
  about one and a half stories tall, while the two remain-
  ing sections are two and a half stories tall. All have
  sloping roofs and the windows on the top half-story
  of each section project out onto the roof.
  Outside the Power Plant are long mounds of dirt
  where pipes, both for fresh water and sewer drains,
  are buried. At first glance, they look like grave mounds
  (or the tunnels of some large burrowing animal).
  These extend to the Service Building and the Western
  Division.
  Note: This is the Asylum’s power plant and laundry;
  the ninety-foot tower used to hold the Asylum’s wa-
  ter tanks (and still does in any campaign prior to
  1930). These outlying buildings are connected to the
  Western Division by an underground tunnel to ac-
  Stress, 
  Power 
  Plant:
  Whenever PCs are in the
  Power Plant alone at night,
  they will experience a 4D6
  General Presence Attack
  (Wrong). If the characters
  descend into the basement,
  it will rise to a 5D6 or 6D6
  Attack (Threatening).
  
  26
  26
  commodate the heating, water pipes, and (later on in
  the century) the Asylum’s electric lines. The plant has
  been renovated many times, but the renovations never
  solve the Asylum’s power difficulties. [1]
  Floors: The rambling corridors and distant hum of
  machinery in this building make it seem much larger
  than it is. Only maintenance personnel can be found
  in this building (usually in one of the offices in the
  Western portion of the building) when the laundry,
  below, is not in operation. When the laundry is fully
  operational, the temperature in the building rises sev-
  eral degrees, and attendants pushing carts and carry-
  ing loads of sheets and uniforms bustle about in the
  eastern part of this structure, near the water tower.
  The Laundry: The laundry is 59 and a half feet long,
  25 feet wide, and has a ceiling that barely tops eight
  feet. No matter what time of day or night, the laun-
  dry is humid and smells thickly of cleanser and deter-
  gent. A number of the windows seem to have rusted
  shut, so that even with both doors to the laundry open,
  a large amount of heat and steam remains trapped in
  the building (pipes along the ceiling and some of the
  machines leak steam into the room, enough to cloud
  its dimensions). Washers and dryers extend the length
  of the room and are flanked by a number of drying
  tables, racks, and bins filled with patient “greens.” Ad-
  jacent to the laundry is a storeroom, where clothing,
  detergent, and other articles are kept on long shelves
  built into the walls.
  Basement: (The door to the basement is always
  locked.) Past the heavy metal door to the basement is
  a gridlock of thick iron pipes and dark, dust-filled cor-
  ridors whose silence is occasionally broken by the dis-
  tant sounds of groaning metal and hissing steam. The
  air is musty, and everything is covered with an oily,
  black dust. Antique boilers look like the husks of huge
  iron insects in the half-light of the basement fixtures.
  The construction of the plant makes it impos-
  sible to get the dimensions of the basement; the heavy
  network of pipes and machinery makes seeing more
  than two hexes in any direction impossible, and the
  heat coming from the pipes makes infrared vision near
  useless. Characters can wander through the maze of
  pipes and ducts for hours and not get an accurate feel
  for the place.
  In the northern section of the basement is a tun-
  nel that originally ran to both Divisions; it has col-
  lapsed several times, and is now only a reinforced crawl
  space, crammed with pipes and bundles of wires. It is
  large enough for a man to squirm through if neces-
  sary, although PCs may risk electrocution from the
  open wires that the patients have left as traps in this
  corridor.
  Service Building,
  The Block
  Description: It is not surprising that the Service Build-
  ing is tucked behind the Divisions and the Adminis-
  tration Building. The Service Building is an ugly, two-
  story, flat-topped structure of gray and ash-blackened
  brick, fashioned into a T, with the top of the T the
  dining room area, and the kitchen and annexes lo-
  cated in the stem. The building, about 45’ wide and
  132’ long, is located about 50’ south of the two main
  Divisions. A corridor runs from the Service Building
  and enters the Administration Building to the North.
  If the GM is running a Horror Hero “Beating it to a
  Pulp” campaign, the Administration Building is ab-
  sent, and a joined corridor connects the Service Build-
  ing to the Western and Eastern Divisions.
  Outside the Service Building are long mounds
  of dirt where pipes, both for fresh water and sewer
  drains, are buried. At first glance, they look like grave
  mounds (or the tunnels of some large burrowing ani-
  mal). These extend to the Power Plant and the West-
  ern Division.
  First Floor: This floor houses the Asylum kitchens and
  dining rooms. Four dining rooms are on this floor,
  two for men, two for women, each filled with small
  tables that can sit up to four people. The kitchens are
  40 by 30 feet and are well-lighted by large side win-
  dows. The white tile that covers the walls and floors
  seems more for convenience than anything else (stains
  and food come right off). Diet kitchens, auxiliary food
  preparation rooms, and storage spaces complete the
  first floor.
  From morning to evening, a clamor fills the Ser-
  vice Building kitchens; plates crash, pots and pans ring,
  and silverware clangs together, all of it mixing with
  the background hum of the dishwashers and hissing
  grills. The kitchen lights are extremely bright, the smell
  of burned meat fills the air, and puddles of milk lie
  on the floor, trod through by the hurried workers who
  jostle each other as they rush to finish their jobs. Ar-
  guments frequently break out among the kitchen staff
  (mostly among three or four heavily muscled cooks
  and servers), though only rarely among the patient-
  helpers who mull silently about their tasks. The doors
  to the kitchen are usually open to the outside air, in
  the hopes that some of the heat, the smell and the
  noise will leave the building.
  After dinner, the staff spends an hour and a half
  cleaning up the work area. The kitchen is then closed
  down and the staff and patients retire for the night,
  either going home or shuffling back to their wards.
  Stress, Service Building:
  PCs are in the Service
  Building will experience a
  2D6 General Presence At-
  tack (Spooky). If the char-
  acters descend into the
  basement, it will rise to a
  3D6 or 4D6 Attack
  (Threatening).
  1: Wires are strung from this building (and beneath it) like it was
  a marionette. Over the years the growing number of electric fix-
  tures added to the Asylum put a strain on the power supply, so
  much so that the electricity coming into the Asylum was insuffi-
  cient to serve the new fixtures. Although larger transformers were
  installed and wires run from the power plant to the new buildings,
  the electrical supply is still inadequate.
  
  27
  27
  Second Floor: The second floor of the Service Build-
  ing was originally designed to house Asylum employ-
  ees and release rooms in the Western and Eastern Di-
  visions for more patients. Rooms for dietitians and
  attendants were located on the southern portion of
  this floor, and bedrooms for nurses, a nurses’ parlor,
  dining room and pantry were located on the north
  side. Ever since the 1940s, however, these rooms have
  slowly been converted into additional offices for the
  Asylum Maintenance Personnel.
  Basement: As with many of the basements in the Asy-
  lum buildings, the Service Building Basement has a
  malevolence about it... although it can be difficult to
  discern past its sheer ugliness. The basement’s origi-
  nal design allowed for cold storage rooms, a meat cut-
  ting room, and a dining room for employees, along
  with a number of food storage rooms beneath the
  kitchens and extra tables and chairs for the dining area.
  In addition, during the Asylum’s early years, sections
  of the basement were partitioned off to be used as a
  dairy and a larder (they are now abandoned and sealed
  off).
  The smells from the kitchens filter down into
  the basement, whether they mix with the dampness
  and the mold to become nauseating. Rats, roaches,
  and other vermin and insects infest the basement, and
  particularly lucky characters may stumble across the
  nests of worms and grubs in the walls and in the damp
  spaces beneath the rubble. Bare light bulbs hang from
  the ceiling, stretching out in a faint line down the cen-
  ter of the basement area, and many of the rooms are
  dark (the light bulbs having either been shattered or
  the wiring pulled out). The staff does not come down
  into the basement without a flashlight, and some even
  carry filtration masks to keep out the stench that settles
  down here. Mold has grown over almost all the ex-
  posed pipes, and sickly weeds have even begun to
  sprout in some corners of the basement. The humid-
  ity is terrible, and small trails of steam leak from some
  of the pipes.
  Tunnels comb this basement, leading almost
  anywhere into the two Divisions, the power plant and
  the Administration Building, as well as to dead-ends,
  sealed wells, and large nests of rats that will swarm
  over any characters invading their territory.
  Admissions Building E
  Sally was still staring at the
  three splintered buildings when
  her guide touched her again, press-
  ing his hand lightly on her shoul-
  der and rousing her from the sight
  before her. The slow patter of
  the rain on her face and shoulder
  again registered, and Sally
  blinked, the chill of the wind
  and the mud beneath her feet re-
  turning to her senses.
  The buildings on the Asylum
  grounds seemed to have a strange
  hypnotic quality about them. She
  had no idea how long she would
  have stared at the buildings be-
  fore her had her guide not awak-
  ened her.
  He stepped lightly across the
  ground and nodded toward a build-
  ing she had not noticed before, a
  building that seemed lost in the
  shadow of the Western Division.
  Without a word and without
  risking a glance behind her, Sally
  followed her guide to the eclipsed
  building. Through the rain, dim
  lights flickered in its windows
  like tiny fires.
  Description: The Admissions Building, in the shape
  of the letter E, is three and a half stories high, 275 feet
  long, and rests on a natural plateau about a thousand
  feet from the Western Division. Its gabled roof is com-
  posed of brown shingles, with abscesses in several
  places where storms have torn shingles from the roof.
  The heavy brick walls have been tainted by the gray of
  the surroundings, so when night falls on the Asylum,
  the admissions building looks like a giant slab of stone.
  History: A young Fell’s Point architect, Thomas War-
  ren, designed this building in 1926, and the building
  was dedicated in 1929. It has room for ninety beds
  and was built with newly admitted patients in mind
  (i.e., it was in “reassuring” surroundings, out of sight
  of visitors, and away from the disorderly patients in
  the other two Divisions).
  The financial pressures and staffing shortages
  present during the Great Depression and into World
  War II combined to make the Admissions Building
  unusable for many years after its construction. Fur-
  thermore, the building itself seemed to be incompat-
  ible with the climate of the peninsula. The walls were
  easily damaged by moisture and wind, the floors on
  all three levels buckled, and much of the furniture in
  the building seemed to become old, worn, and drab
  within months of being purchased. Even after the
  renovations were completed near the close of World
  War II, the building maintained an unhealthiness
  about it, and many structural problems have resur-
  faced throughout its history.
  Canto Three:
  The Vestibule
  Sally heard the anguished
  cries first as they crossed the
  threshold of the Admissions Build-
  ing. It was like being swallowed
  by sound.
  
  28
  28
  A great confusion of voices
  and shouts echoed and twisted
  within the stone walls. Sally could
  feel the stomping of feet, the
  small whining, and even as her
  guide averted his eyes, she was
  drawn to the scene unfolding in
  the hall ahead of her. She stepped
  slightly behind her guide as they
  entered the room.
  As she stepped into the hall,
  she saw them, the five or more
  green-garbed patients running,
  stumbling wildly throughout the
  hall, so frenzied that they ap-
  peared as a great rout of limbs
  chasing each other in a maddening
  path. One of the shapes, his slack
  lip pulled down so far it seemed
  to touch his chin, was swatting
  at invisible shapes that seemed
  to be hovering about him, his skin
  a mass of welts and sores where
  some thing or things had bitten
  him.
  As she watched, the ghostly
  white shapes that pursued the pa-
  tients resolved into orderlies,
  their uniforms making their fea-
  tures pale in the shadowed hall.
  The orderlies brandished clubs as
  if to try and bring the patients
  down, but the clubs only seemed
  to drive the patients onwards. A
  foul scent filled the air, of urine
  and defecation, and it seemed that
  in the hall, things crawled and
  slithered in the foulness.
  As Sally watched, the madden-
  ing path of limbs rolled from the
  room, their green patient uniforms
  whispering as the legs and arms
  rubbed against the coarse fabric.
  On the heels of the rout followed
  the ghostly orderlies, and the mob
  was swallowed by the darkness of
  the Admissions Building halls,
  leaving her alone in the silence
  of the Vestibule.
  Her guide moved quietly to the
  great hall into which the mob had
  disappeared, beckoning Sally to
  follow.
  First Floor
  Reception Room: The Admissions Building can lull
  visitors into a sense of security. Its comfortable re-
  ception room is located on the east end of the ground
  floor and even has a fireplace to make the room seem
  more “homey.” Despite the cheerfulness of the room,
  however, the front desk is almost always abandoned,
  and the room itself seems unnaturally cold... with the
  fireplace thrown in as if to remind visitors that the
  room could be warmer. At night, this room loses all
  traces of friendliness and sounds echo alarmingly
  throughout the room and adjoining halls.
  Although the windows to the Reception Room
  are closed, the curtains are stirred by some invisible
  wind. They constantly shift between white and gray,
  like wavering spirits, tut-tuting as the wind blows
  through them.
  Hallway: A large wooden door just past the admis-
  sions desk leads to a wide, spacious hallway that runs
  the length of the Admissions Building. Hardwood
  benches line the hall, and the tall ceiling only seems
  to emphasize the building’s hollow immensity. There
  are no patients or staff to be seen in the hall... the Asy-
  lum appears deserted. Whenever a character enters this
  hall, it seems that they are the sole admission; the wide
  hallway and tall stone ceiling is akin to entering a
  tomb.
  The long hall is flanked with admission rooms,
  examination offices, conference rooms and doctors’
  offices. Rooms for visiting specialists (orthopedists,
  gynecologists, neurologists, optometrists, dentists,
  urologists) are spaced intermittently down the hall,
  including rooms that contain various medical equip-
  ment such as X-ray and ECT apparatus (most of these
  rooms, except for the ECT room, are labeled in large,
  bold letters). Several closed laboratories are also lo-
  cated on the ground floor, along with all other neces-
  sary service rooms, including the nurses’ stations, sun
  rooms and some additional Occupational Therapy
  rooms, which are located close to the first floor wards.
  Some specific rooms off the hall include the Triage
  Station, the Shock Shop, and Solomon's Ward.
  The Triage Station: A small area just to the left as char-
  acters enter the great hallway is the “Triage Station.”
  This small lobby-like area adjacent is where potential
  admissions can come in and talk to a psychiatrist on
  duty, and it’s where the decision is made to hospital-
  ize a character or not... from there, patients are usu-
  ally admitted to a locked holding area (i.e., the Ad-
  missions Ward). The Triage Station is usually manned
  by an intern and a resident on call.
  The Shock Shop: A featureless steel door marks the
  entrance to this room. Beyond the door lies the ECT
  (electroconvulsive therapy) equipment for the Asy-
  lum. Any patients sent to the Shock Shop are usually
  escorted by a pair of orderlies or wheeled there
  strapped in a gurney. Characters who must wait on
  the benches for a “buzz” are usually flanked by order-
  lies to prevent them from escaping before they receive
  treatment.
  Solomon’s Ward: In a remote corner of the first floor,
  past several featureless metal doors lie “Solomon’s
  Stress, Admissions Build-
  ing: Characters in the Ad-
  missions Building will be
  subjected to a 2D6 General
  Presence Attack in the day-
  time (the Admissions
  Building is Spooky) and
  4D6 at night (something is
  Wrong). Stress in this
  building comes from its
  emptiness and its way of
  making visitors feel incon-
  sequential and insignifi-
  cant. There is the feeling
  that if the Asylum some-
  how turned its attention to
  the characters, they would
  be engulfed by its immen-
  sity... as it stands, they are
  barely worth notice. A
  character’s sense of space
  seems to be distorted while
  they are in the Admissions
  Building, like they are on
  the lip of some great cra-
  ter.
  
  29
  29
  Ward.” Dr. Solomon (see Timeline, 1922) was respon-
  sible for the design of this six-bed ward, complete with
  sitting rooms and bath and insulated from the rest of
  the floor. Although this ward was initially set aside
  for young male schizophrenics from 1922 until the
  late 50s, it has been changed into an admissions ward
  in the modern day, and characters may find them-
  selves sealed in this ward pending a diagnosis by
  Shreiver and the rest of the staff. For more informa-
  tion on Solomon’s Ward, see the Heresies chapter.
  Hallucinations: Any character experiencing halluci-
  nations or under the control of a Temporary or Long
  Term Psychological Limitation will experience an un-
  dertow in this building; no matter where they go, they
  will always find themselves back at the Reception
  Room, with its cold fireplace and its fluttering cur-
  tains. All furniture will be absent... the only decora-
  tion in the room is the curtains.
  Characters who turn their attention to the cur-
  tains will see them shift through many colors (bright
  colors, however, will all be dulled somehow... red be-
  comes rust, yellow becomes a strange shade of sulfur,
  and so on), and as they watch, the curtains will be
  stripped from the windows and begin to float about
  the room, as if chased by invisible phantoms. If char-
  acters wish, they may chase the shifting curtains, but
  if they do, they will be roused from the hallucination
  just before they can catch them.
  If any character experiencing hallucinations or
  a Temporary Psychological Limitation falls asleep in
  the Admissions Building or is knocked unconscious,
  the character will begin to dream (as above). Charac-
  ters chasing the curtains will find they dart and flit
  throughout the room, but after a tedious pursuit, the
  curtains will flutter into the cavernous fireplace and
  plunge downwards into darkness. Characters will find
  that they cannot help but follow the curtains. and will
  run into the mouth of the fireplace (its interior cov-
  ered with putrid streams of fecal matter and viscous
  substances, not unlike saliva) and fall screaming into
  its depths.
  After this, the characters will awaken. They will
  automatically gain 1 Stress Level or 1 point of Long
  Term Stress.
  Sharon
  The great hall of the Admis-
  sions Building seemed more of an
  underground cavern than the inte-
  rior of a mental institution. The
  ceiling was so high as to be nearly
  lost in shadow, and the cold stone
  floor stretched straight into the
  distant blackness like a river.
  Sally noticed her guide stepped
  cautiously through the corridor
  and stared straight ahead, as if
  expecting the rout of limbs they
  had seen in the Vestibule to be
  coughed forth from the darkness
  ahead and stream over them. While
  he did not seemed worried, his
  cautious tread caused Sally to
  become concerned. He was waiting
  for something.
  She walked beside him in si-
  lence.
  When the shape poled from the
  darkness ahead of them, Sally felt
  a blade of fear stab through her.
  • • •
  Sharon Ferry is a patient that haunts the Asy-
  lum (see her character brief below); characters enter-
  ing the Asylum/Admissions Building for the first time
  are likely to encounter her in the Reception Room or
  in the great stone corridor that runs the length of the
  first floor of the Admissions Building. Sharon is one
  of the “events” the PCs will experience when they come
  to the Asylum; no matter when or where they enter
  the Asylum, she will stream from the darkness to in-
  tercept them.
  • • •
  The figure streamed from the
  darkness, leaning upon a gnarled
  cane that seemed to push her along,
  slowly, as if the floor was vis-
  cous. Wearing a thick coat and a
  cap, her eyes burned like coals
  within her sockets.
  “Woe to you!” she howled,
  sweeping the cane in her grip.
  “Bury here forever any hope of
  Paradise... eternal dark you have
  come to, into fire and ice, and
  you...”
  Her eyes narrowed at Sally,
  as if seeing her for the first
  time.
  “Not here.” She pointed her
  skeletal finger at Sally... even
  with the distance separating them,
  Sally could feel it pierce her
  chest. Sharon hissed between
  clenched teeth, like an angry cat.
  “She does not belong here.” She
  flourished her hands upwards, as
  if she was trying to banish Sally.
  “Begone! Begone, I say! You are
  not allowed here!”
  Sally took a step back... only
  to have her guide fill the space,
  standing firmly in front of Sharon.
  Sharon blinked and stopped.
  Something passed between them.
  Sally felt it from where she
  stood... it was like an electri-
  Campaign Note: Sharon
  has been discharged from
  the Asylum several times
  (the PCs should always
  meet her in the Asylum
  first, however). When she
  is discharged, she has been
  known to drive a dilapi-
  dated convertible (top
  down even in the rain) in
  the roads around the Asy-
  lum late at night, some-
  times picking up escaped
  patients and driving them
  where they wish to go, usu-
  ally into Fell’s Point. Why
  she does this is unknown,
  but with her Pain Disor-
  der, it must prove difficult.
  At other times, she has
  been picked up in Fell’s
  Point for vagrancy, beg-
  ging passers-by for pen-
  nies, then placing them in
  her mouth.
  
  30
  30
  cal charge that made her shiver.
  Sally’s guide did not advance on
  Sharon; he stood his ground be-
  tween the old woman and Sally,
  his gaunt body like a wall.
  Sharon’s eyes flickered, and
  her frame trembled beneath her
  thick clothes, as if in anger.
  Her eyes were like flames in the
  withered expanse of her face.
  “No one in grace comes here
  to this crossing,” she hissed, as
  if in reminder to the man that
  stood before her, but she made no
  move to touch or strike him. “None
  in grace.”
  Sally’s guide nodded, slowly.
  Once. He did not move from where
  he stood.
  Sharon stopped and mumbling,
  turned and poled herself back along
  the way she had come. The elderly
  man motioned to Sally to stay be-
  hind him, and they slowed their
  pace to match hers, following a
  few steps behind, as if being
  pulled along in her wake.
  As Sally watched Sharon’s pole
  bite into the surface of the stone
  floor and drag the withered form
  along, she felt her head begin to
  throb again, and she winced. The
  pain... it was getting worse.
  Sally tried to shrug off the
  hammering inside her skull, but
  she found herself growing faint
  instead. Her eyes became tired and
  heavy, and as if in response, the
  walls constricted, then bled out-
  wards like a great black river
  rushing over her.
  SHARON FERRY
                 [WARD 1/WARD 2]
  8    STR
  8     DEX
  12   CON
  8     BODY
  10   INT
  10  EGO 18   PRE
  8     COM 2     PD
  2     ED
  1    SPD
  4     REC
  24   END
  18   STUN
  Powers and Skills: Sharon moves at 2” movement be-
  cause of her Pain Disorder (below) and also carries a
  gnarled cane which she can use as a weapon (+1D6
  HTH). Sharon also has Mental Defense and Presence
  Defense, each at 10 pts (this is her stubbornness and
  fearlessness, not the result of any power). When En-
  raged, she gains maniacal strength and damage resis-
  tance (+5 STR, +5 PD, +5 ED). Sharon is not believed
  to possess any paranormal powers, but she does pos-
  sess the full range of Everyman Skills as well as the
  Stealth and Shadowing Skills at a 13 or less. GMs may
  wish to give her (Cinematic) Vanishing Teleport and
  Invisibility while within the Asylum.
  25+ Disadvantages: Vulnerability: x2 Effect from
  Mind Control and Hypnotism (Uncommon), Vulner-
  ability: x2 STUN to any attack aimed at her legs (Com-
  mon), Enraged if characters attempt to force their way
  past her (Common) 14-, 8-, Psychological Limitation:
  Grandiose Delusional Disorder with Religious, So-
  matic and Delusions of Reference (Very Common,
  Strong), Physical Limitation (Psychosomatic): Pain
  Disorder [1] (Legs, Frequently, Slightly), Age: 40+, [2]
  Distinctive Features (Psychosomatic): Pain Disorder
  (obvious limp and pain in her movements; Not Con-
  cealable, Noticed), Monitored by the Asylum (Mo Pow,
  NCI) 11-, Mystery ID (Sharon Ferry is not believed
  to be her real name; the Disadvantage Mystery ID is
  described in UE, p. 5).
  Notes: Sharon poles her way through the Asylum
  wards in the Eastern Division, and the staff generally
  allow her to come and go as she pleases. She seems to
  blend into the shadows and dark places of the Asy-
  lum, only to materialize, ranting and raving, when a
  newcomer attempts to gain access to the wards in the
  Eastern Division.
  If any PC gives Sharon a penny, she will imme-
  diately stop her diatribe, look confused, then pole on-
  1: A Pain Disorder is a mental disturbance where a character ex-
  periences pain in portions of their body; the pain is either caused
  by or exacerbated by the character’s psychological state.
  2: No one is sure how old Sharon is. Most staff and patients are
  positive she is over forty years old, but how much over forty,
  they have no idea. She could be a hundred for all they know.
  SHARON FERRY
  
  31
  31
  wards, leading them to the next ward. After receiving
  her fare, she will not speak unless she is spoken to.
  Upper Floors
  Second Floor: Among the offices, service rooms, and
  storage, the main point of interest on this floor is a
  large auditorium with a stage (it can hold up to three
  hundred people). It is used for case conferences, staff
  meetings, and lectures. A number of the rooms on
  this floor are in need of a good coat of paint. A char-
  acter could wander around on this floor for hours and
  encounter no one.
  Third Floor: The small rooms on this floor are occu-
  pied by orderlies, nurses and offices for some of the
  low-priority departments of the Asylum. Much like
  the first and second floors, this floor is usually de-
  serted.
  Basement
  Used primarily for storing old medical records,
  furniture and other bulky items, the basement can be
  reached either by a creaky elevator from the above
  floors or by threading one’s way through a narrow
  stairwell in the back of the building near the kitchens.
  One look is enough for characters to see the basement
  is the underbelly of the Admissions Building... the ceil-
  ing has buckled in many places, pipes jut from the
  walls, stones have come loose, and the brick pillars
  and walls that crisscross the basement look much too
  weak to hold up the three stories that rest on them.
  The basement is honeycombed with dark,
  crooked hallways and small, locked rooms. Changes
  in elevation throughout the basement (the floor slopes
  up and down in areas, there are steps up and down
  sometimes so abrupt as to be considered “drops,” and
  the ceiling dips to a height of less than five feet in
  places, forcing characters to hunch over in order to
  move forward) make walking through the basement
  difficult. The floor alternates between concrete, brick,
  and several sections of packed earth where the con-
  crete and brick have worn away (pulled away?). Sev-
  eral sections of the basement are unlighted, and rats
  and insects have made their homes among the mold-
  ering storage rooms and grime-encrusted pipes. [1]
  Ward One
  The Receiving Ward (Ward One) is located in
  the Admissions Building; it holds new admissions who
  are being observed by social workers and doctors. Af-
  ter a period of observation, the new admissions are
  eventually transferred to wards in the Eastern and
  Western Division. Characters who enter the Receiv-
  ing Ward, however, will notice that many patients seem
  to have been caged in this building for many years.
  The Receiving Ward is not fully described be-
  low... it has all the “building blocks” of wards described
  in the Wards chapter, however, and GMs needing more
  information on the Receiving Ward can refer there for
  help.
  Canto Four:
  The First Ward
  (The Receiving Ward)
  A great rumbling, like a vio-
  lent clapping, jolted Sally awake,
  ringing in her ears; the fuzziness
  that had grown on the edge of her
  vision receded; she found herself
  immediately looking for Sharon,
  and not finding her, felt a small
  relief. Next to her was her guide,
  who was looking at her with some
  concern. In the dim light of the
  hallway, he looked deathly pale.
  “Are you...” Sally frowned,
  trying to keep her thoughts to-
  gether. “Are you okay? Did that
  woman... did she scare you? You
  look so...”
  The man opened his mouth
  slightly as if to say something,
  then shook his head. His concern
  seemed to fade as Sally glanced
  around her, trying to get her bear-
  ings.
  They were no longer in the
  huge hall that formed the back-
  bone of the Admissions Building.
  They were in a narrow green cor-
  ridor; the lights on the ceiling
  had been dimmed, but even on low
  intensity, they flickered like
  candles. Sally suspected that they
  might be in a smaller building of
  some sort. She could not recall
  how she could have gotten here...
  her guide looked too fragile to
  carry her.
  The stone beneath her hands
  was cold, and faint cries drifted
  from elsewhere down the halls.
  It suddenly struck her that
  she must be in one of the wards.
  This did not concern her... she
  just absorbed it as a fact.
  Her guide helped her to her
  feet and led her through the nar-
  row hall to the ward beyond.
  Stress, Receiving Ward:
  2D6 General Presence At-
  tack during the day (things
  are Spooky), growing to a
  4D6 General Presence as
  night settles on the Asylum
  grounds (when night falls,
  the characters will feel that
  there is something terribly
  Wrong stirring within the
  Asylum). While the inner
  portion of the ward seems
  consumed with lethargy,
  there is the feeling that
  something lurks outside
  this ward, waiting for
  someone to step out so
  that it can seize them. A
  constant sighing comes
  from all around this ward:
  from the ventilation, from
  the patients, from behind
  the cells doors and so on,
  and becomes disturbing if
  listened to for too long.
  Feelings of being trapped,
  imprisoned and buried all
  fill this ward.
  1: Ever since the Admissions Building’s construction, Western Di-
  vision patients have been using the ventilation tunnels to enter
  the Building and use it as a gathering area (it was used a great deal
  by the patients when it was closed for renovations during World
  War II). During the renovations, they hollowed out new tunnels
  and crawl spaces, removed some of the furniture and arranged it
  so that the wards in the building would be “tailored” for new ar-
  rivals. PCs exploring the basement (or the other floors for that
  matter) may encounter several traps and pitfalls that guard the
  tunnels and secret chambers. They may even find the remains of
  new arrivals who were kidnapped and tortured by the Western
  Division patients.
  
  32
  32
  The Door: The door to the Receiving Ward is of riv-
  eted steel, with a gaping keyhole and a small security
  window laced with chicken wire. A soft green incan-
  descence pulses from behind the window, but the ori-
  gin of the light is unclear. Although the door offers a
  slight resistance to anyone attempting to open it, it is
  unlocked.
  The Ward: The incandescence comes from the flick-
  ering light reflecting off the green enamel walls. The
  door beyond opens into a narrow hallway, and from
  there, into a wider space that appears to the dayroom
  of the ward. Characters who make a Sight/Touch PER
  Roll can determine that the floor in this building
  slopes gently toward the West, as if descending along
  some funnel.
  They entered the ward and let
  it flow around them.
  There were no shouts here, just
  a great breathing... Sally thought
  for a moment that all the walls
  were trembling, releasing air in
  a great, soft sigh that whispered
  through the ward. The patients
  pressed in on her, like a forest
  of rumpled green uniforms, so close
  and yet so apart and distant from
  the others, it was as if hundreds
  of miles separated them.
  It occurred to her that it
  was night; the patients should be
  asleep, but they wandered through
  the ward as if this was standard
  practice. Sally could see no nurses
  and orderlies... the nurse’s sta-
  tion was vacant.
  Some patients glanced at them
  as they entered, but they seemed
  not to care overly much about the
  presence of the two figures. Sally
  noticed that a few seemed to rec-
  ognize her guide, but they did
  not address him.
  Hallucinations: If any character experiencing hallu-
  cinations or a Temporary or Long Term Psychologi-
  cal Limitation falls asleep on this ward, they may
  dream that they are standing on the ledge of a great,
  bottomless chasm; it is so wide and deep it as if the
  Fell’s Point peninsula sunk into the Earth and left the
  chasm to mark its passing. Thunder rolls across the
  chasm, but it is not a natural phenomena; it sounds
  like the cries of thousands of people (patients?) in pain
  and desperation. When the character awakens, they
  will find themselves pale and sweating, but there are
  no other ill effects.
  Ward Description: This coed ward is the Poet’s home;
  if the PCs do not encounter him outside the Asylum,
  he will be here. This ward is much larger than it first
  appears... several doors spaced along the ward lead to
  seven halls of seven cells each. The thick walls and
  narrow doors in this ward give it a medieval appear-
  ance, as if the characters have suddenly found them-
  selves in an ancient citadel buried in the Asylum.
  There are two bathrooms (one for men, one for
  women), a large dayroom, and a glass-walled nursing
  station. There are a half-dozen staff offices and therapy
  rooms, plus three seclusion rooms (one of which has
  been turned into a storage room), distributed among
  the hall that linked the ward with the rest of the Ad-
  missions Building. See the Wards chapter for more
  details.
  Patients: The patients in this ward are not criminally
  insane, but most were genetically disposed toward
  mental illness and never had a chance to escape their
  fate. Schizophrenics, delusionals, the mentally re-
  tarded... all lie here in the darkness, sighing out their
  hopeless desires.
  A majority of delusional patients fill this ward;
  characters will encounter figures from almost every
  era of human history, even from Greek and Roman
  mythology and from the Bible. Caesar, Aristotle,
  Socrates, Orpheus, Moses, King David and others will
  be a few of the people PCs may encounter on this
  ward... and some patients make convincing perfor-
  mances, indeed. GMs should use these characters to
  reinforce the underworld feel of the Asylum; it seems
  that this is where all the dead have come to rest.
  Sally
  There was no staff within the
  Receiving Ward, but Sally’s guide
  seemed to wish to remain there,
  perhaps wait until morning when
  help would arrive. The patients,
  except for a few wild-eyed would-
  be prophets and historical fig-
  ures, seemed to ignore them. As
  Sally and her guide moved amongst
  the gibbering shades of green, she
  felt her head pound stronger, and
  the dull ache that had followed
  her from the Admission entrance
  became honed to an edge and sawed
  a steady rhythm through her skull.
  It prevented her from stopping,
  resting... when her guide offered
  her a quiet place, an eddy within
  one of the open cells in the ward
  (his own?), she shook her head as
  slowly as she could manage with-
  out causing the pain to become
  unbearable.
  “I can’t...” she said. As she
  spoke, pains splintered through
  her neck. “It hurts too much...”
  
  33
  33
  Her guide stared at her for a
  moment, then took her shoulder
  again, and weaving their way
  through the shadows that sur-
  rounded them, they stepped from
  the ward and back into the great
  stone spine of the building.
  “Where are the doctors... the
  staff...?” Sally managed to choke
  out. “Isn’t anyone—?”
  Her guide urged her to remain
  silent, and pressed his hand
  against her shoulder as if to try
  and smooth away the pain. It
  helped, but only a little.
  They continued to make their
  way through the corridor, but this
  time there was no Sharon, no rout
  of limbs to stop their passing...
  and they came to a door which led
  to the grounds beyond the build-
  ing. Outside, there was a peal of
  thunder and the white noise of
  the rain against the muddy crag.
  The rain collected in the gutters
  and poured down like great falls
  to crash against the gray-stained
  foundations.
  Her guide gestured for her to
  follow him. He stepped into the
  rain, letting it fall on and
  through his clothes and gently
  helped Sally from the building.
  The grounds outside were sub-
  merged in heavy darkness as the
  two forms made their way to the
  Eastern Division.
  Eastern
  Division
  DESCRIPTION
  The Eastern Division is a large, sterile structure
  four stories tall and 360 feet in length; when viewed
  from the front, it seems as if it is being braced by the
  Central Administration Building.
  The Eastern Division houses many of the
  Asylum’s female patients. It is essentially the mirror
  of the Western Division in its iron and brick construc-
  tion (see Western Division, below). Its walls are bro-
  ken by oriel windows (secured by iron bars and grills
  set into the stone), and the structure is topped by two
  towers, one a sharp-angled, six foot tower encircled
  by a lattice-work balcony, and the second tower, of
  more modest design, without a balcony or windows
  (the windows of this secondary tower have been
  bricked over).
  Stress, Eastern Division:
  2D6 General Presence At-
  tack during the day
  (Spooky), growing to a 4D6
  General Presence as the
  sun sets on the Asylum
  grounds (Wrong). Any
  male character in this
  building will suffer an ad-
  ditional 1D6 to the stress
  level. This Presence Attack
  is for the Eastern Division
  in general; each ward
  within this building has its
  own stress level associated
  with it.
  
  34
  34
  Despite its size, the Eastern Division seems con-
  stricted and claustrophobic. The narrow corridors,
  small offices, the bare few feet of space between the
  looming shelves in the Eastern Division libraries...
  there barely seems to be room to move around, much
  less run from pursuers. Walking through the Eastern
  Division is like moving through a rat maze.
  The Eastern Division halls are cold and sterile;
  the building is like a giant storehouse for shuffling
  slabs of meat dressed in green. Fluorescent tubes in
  the ceiling glow white like rods of ice and stretch down
  the corridors to fade into the frosted walls. Some of
  the offices in this building are like large refrigerators,
  the light blue interiors only reinforcing the chill in
  the air. There is no sense of comfort, reassurance or
  nurturing within this building... whatever potential
  for caring existed within these walls was frozen long
  ago.
  Hallucinations: Each of the wards within this build-
  ing have their own hallucinations associated with
  them; when not in these wards, characters may expe-
  rience hallucinations that reinforce the chilling ste-
  rility of this building. Characters experiencing severe
  hallucinations (i.e., a Strong or Total Intensity Tem-
  porary or Long Term Psychological Limitation) may
  feel their skin begin to frost over and their flesh from
  their hands and face shrivel and wither, as if they are
  aging prematurely. An arthritic ache will penetrate
  their joints and bones, and their pulse slows as if the
  blood is freezing in their veins.
  First Floor
  Department of Medicine: A Department of Medicine
  is located on the ground floor of this building, com-
  plete with offices for the Chief of Service (Dr. Pope),
  the Medical Assistant, and other physicians. In this
  section, medical consultants handle ophthalmology
  examinations, dental examinations, and gynecology
  examinations. Electrocardiograms, x-rays and labo-
  ratory tests are processed here. The Department is re-
  sponsible for the health of the institution, for emer-
  gency treatment, and for screening new employees.
  Medical Ward: There is always something going on in
  this area; usually some form of surgery is scheduled.
  The Asylum physicians are always hopping over some
  new emergency or problem. Within the ward is the
  following:
  Treatment Room: This rooms smells of disinfectant.
  Beds stretch off down the room, and long white metal
  benches for the patients to sit on rest along the walls.
  Next to the benches is a suggestion box (empty). Medi-
  cine carts holding cotton swabs, ointments, salves, and
  dressings for the medical treatments are lined up next
  to the nurse’s station, ready for use in this room or to
  be wheeled down to one of the wards to restock their
  supply.
  Emergency Room: Next to the treatment room is an
  emergency room set up for any patient or employee
  who has an accident during working hours. Three
  nurses work in the treatment room doing medical
  treatments, along with a Charge Nurse.
  Pharmacy: A pharmacy adjoins the treatment room,
  and two nurses work there, preparing medications for
  the various wards. In the afternoon, one or all of the
  three nurses from the treatment room (above) assist
  in the pharmacy.
  Patient Library: The patient’s library looks like it was
  hollowed out from several small offices, and wander-
  ing through the shelves is a curious, maze-like expe-
  rience (characters will not be able to see more than
  two hexes in any direction). The books have not been
  entered into a database, so a primitive card catalog is
  still located in a corner of the library.
  This library is open six days a week in the morn-
  ings (opens at 8:30 AM or 9 AM, closed Sunday), and
  also for two afternoons during the week (usually Mon-
  day and Wednesday, but never past 5 PM). On Mon-
  day evenings it is used mostly by the staff. When the
  library closes for the night, some patients enter
  through panels in the floor or ceiling and read by the
  faint light provided by the moon or by candles they
  have brought. If PCs do the same while trapped in
  the Asylum, the patients in the library will not bother
  them as long as the PCs do not disturb them and do
  not make too much noise.
  There are approximately four thousand books
  in the patients’ library. [1]
  Secret Rooms: There are three secret niches in the
  Patient’s library, one known only to staff, one known
  only to the patients, and one that has still been undis-
  covered. Beneath a small trapdoor in the floor of the
  undiscovered room is a metal-lined trunk with sev-
  eral rare texts written by patients and staff in the past.
  From Mind to Paper: Among the texts in this library
  are several books written by patients. Some of them
  resemble second-grade readers with scrawled letter-
  ing and crude stick figure images, and others are
  thought-provoking works on seemingly mundane
  subjects. The binding of these books varies... some of
  them are professionally bound, others have masking
  tape spines, and others have been hole-punched and
  had strings and cords wrapped through them. There
  are several uses these books can be put to:
  1: The sheer number of books in the patient's library is staggering.
  It is intended to serve as a farm for adventure seeds for the GM's
  campaign, so feel free to stock with it whatever clues or plot infor-
  mation you wish. A number of suggestions are offered above, but
  virtually anything could be hidden inside the library shelves...
  maps, weapons, spells, and even a body or three. The library can
  even serve as a reason for characters to break into the Asylum in
  the first place.
  Stress, Patient Library:
  The GM should add an ad-
  ditional 1D6 or 2D6 for
  characters entering the pa-
  tient library (this stress
  level is added to the Gen-
  eral Presence Attack of the
  Eastern Division, above).
  The library is strangely si-
  lent, and the books seem to
  soak up sounds and foot-
  falls. Sometimes the
  shelves (ten to eleven feet
  high) creak as if someone
  is walking on top of them,
  but no one can be seen.
  
  35
  35
  1. In a Horror Hero campaign, some of these books
  are cursed or have spells concealed inside the text (it
  may require that the PCs study the books for some
  time before they realize what they contain). If this is
  the case, well over a hundred spells are likely to be
  concealed in the Patient’s library; some of these will
  be useless, petty magics, but others may be extremely
  powerful (GM’s discretion). Lost grimoires in the
  GM’s campaign may have even been hidden in this
  library in the past and never found.
  2. Some of these books may teach the arts of Mental
  Combat (see the Ultimate Mentalist). Psionic charac-
  ters examining these books will be able to piece to-
  gether certain sections and train themselves in men-
  tal maneuvers not otherwise known to the Mentalist
  Subculture. A copy of the Ultimate Mentalist may lie
  on the shelves along with all the material cut from
  Hero books in the past.
  3. Other books may provide clues to the whereabouts
  of lost villains, heroes, stolen items, priceless artifacts
  and so on. Others may provide clues to what some
  villains intend to do in the future (for example, there
  are at least two books written by Elliot Manns, the
  Idiot King, in the library, which may provide clues to
  upcoming adventures involving him).
  Medical Library: The Medical Library is an auxiliary
  to the Steward Library located in the Western Divi-
  sion. This library consists of over two thousand books,
  under the care of the patient librarian and a number
  of physicians. Eighty medical and psychiatric journals
  are received by subscription, and thirty psychiatrists,
  many who formerly worked at Asylum, send their re-
  prints to the Asylum. It is the job of one of the Assis-
  tant Physicians to check the journals each week, and
  send notes to staff, calling their attention to articles
  of special interest.
  The library is filled to the ceiling with reference
  material and various bibliographic items. A half dozen
  patients and volunteers assist in the library, including
  staffing the circulating desk, sorting and shelving
  books, arranging ad updating catalog cards, and send-
  ing overdue notices.
  Second Floor
  In addition to the disturbed wards on this floor
  of the building, there are a number of small kitchens,
  administration offices, and storerooms scattered
  across its maze-like expanse. Dr. Shreiver’s office is
  also located on this level:
  Shreiver's Office
  Shreiver’s office is sterile and musty, like an old
  library. Bookshelves loom against the walls [1] and
  the only light in the office comes from a tiny lamp
  and the three heavily-screened windows that admit
  light at the cost of a disturbing view of the Western
  Division. When night falls, the lamp is the only light
  in the office, pitiful in comparison to the darkness that
  surrounds it.
  Shreiver’s office contains a large mahogany desk,
  cluttered with papers (some are odd drawings and
  strange diagrams that don’t appear related to the pa-
  tients) and files. [2] Behind the desk lie sculpted busts
  of some of the Asylum patients and staff, including
  Elliot Manns, Shreiver, and any other prominent pa-
  tients or figures in the GM’s campaign. [3] Two un-
  comfortable-looking black divans lie against the walls
  flanking the great desk, and a small chair has been
  positioned in front of Shreiver’s desk (though many
  staff members wonder why, as Shreiver rarely asks any-
  one to sit down when they enter her office... it en-
  courages them to get to the point and get out). An-
  other chair, a heavy leather armchair, lies behind the
  desk and to the left of the desk chair. The heavy leather
  armchair has been turned so that anyone sitting in it
  has a view of the Western Division and the surface of
  Shreiver’s desk, even if Shreiver is sitting at the desk
  chair. [4] A dead plant lies on one of the window sills
  facing the Western Division, its leaves having turned
  gray and withered. Some blackened seeds lie scattered
  in the dried dirt beneath the plant leaves.
  Shreiver’s office lies exactly opposite Gans’s
  former office in the Western Division.
  Third Floor
  The rooms and halls of the third floor have high
  ceilings, reaching almost ten feet in places, but the nar-
  row width of the rooms and halls maintain the claus-
  trophobic feel that fills the rest of the building. Dur-
  ing the Eastern Division’s early years, this floor was
  not used extensively (it did not even have plumbing
  until the twentieth century, and only then when the
  Asylum needed new rooms for attendants and office
  personnel).
  This floor is broken into fifty tiny rooms con-
  nected by a maze of corridors. All the rooms have been
  either abandoned, reduced to minor staff offices, or
  have become auxiliary laboratories or library storage.
  1: Shreiver’s personal library may contain rare texts on parapsy-
  chology that might help a character in a Horror Hero campaign as
  well as possible spells and adventure seeds, as per the libraries lo-
  cated on the first floor of this building.
  2: The desk once belonged to Gans. Characters may find secret
  drawers or compartments in it.
  3: These busts were sculpted by the Pretender (Underworld En-
  emies, p. 24) shortly before he went mad in the Western Division
  and fled the Asylum. These busts made hold clues or hidden ob-
  jects within them, perhaps even a clue to the Pretender’s real iden-
  tity.
  4: This chair once belonged to Gans when he was Superintendent
  of the Asylum. How it found its way into Shreiver’s office is un-
  known (even Shreiver does not know), but she has found that she
  cannot remove it from the office. Its great weight aside, the order-
  lies and other staff at the Asylum have never been able to bring
  themselves to move the chair from where it sits, even when or-
  dered to do so. The chair is a constant source of irritation to
  Shreiver.
  
  36
  36
  Fourth Floor
  The fourth floor of the Eastern Division has seen
  almost no use since it was constructed; it did not even
  have plumbing for most of the Twentieth Century.
  Although several staff members and nurses were re-
  located here in the past to make room in other build-
  ings, the fourth floor was converted into the Asylum’s
  female disturbed ward in the sixties. There are several
  doctor’s offices, research areas, and a small medical
  library located on this level, all tucked away behind
  white, heavy metal doors with chickenwire-laced win-
  dows. The walls on this level are blindingly white.
  Basement
  The basement of the Eastern Division consists
  of a series of dark, narrow corridors with gray and
  white pipes running along the walls and ceiling of the
  rooms and halls. The lighting in the basement is poor,
  but most of the area is clean, sterile and silent. Rows
  and rows of unmarked metallic gray doors are set into
  the brick walls.
  The Asylum morgue is located here, near stairs
  to the medical division on the first floor. In addition,
  several of the metallic doors lead to special seclusion
  rooms for violent or criminal female patients (see Se-
  clusion Rooms in the Wards chapter).
  Hallucinations: If any character experiencing hallu-
  cinations or under the control of a Temporary or Long
  Term Psychological Limitation enters the morgue, they
  will see their DNPCs splayed out on the metal tables...
  they look as if they died not too long ago. From an
  adjoining room, the pathologist will be speaking to
  someone, remarking that the DNPCs “just came in.”
  The character eventually “snaps back” to reality to see
  the tables unoccupied.
  If any character should happen to fall asleep or
  become unconscious for any reason while in the base-
  ment they automatically gain a Temporary Psychoso-
  matic Disadvantage of the GM’s choosing. The char-
  acter will not be able to remember how or why they
  gained the Disadvantage, but under no circumstances
  will they want to return to the basement.
  Dr. Masters
  Characters should encounter the Assistant
  Medical Director, Dr. Masters (see below and in Chap-
  ter Two), before they enter the Second Ward (or they
  may encounter him when he makes the decision of
  where they should be sent in the Asylum). He works
  odd hours, and no matter what time the characters
  enter the Asylum, his office door will be open and dim
  light shines out from the doorway and into the hall.
  His perceptions (and his strange symbiosis with the
  Asylum itself) make it almost impossible to sneak by
  him... and if a character should do so, he will follow
  them and surprise them at an appropriate moment.
  Reclassified
  The stark narrowness of the
  Eastern Division disturbed Sally.
  It seemed the corridors ran to-
  gether much like the roads in the
  dark woods that surrounded the
  Asylum. And again, like the Ad-
  missions Building, the halls were
  strangely empty, and no staff
  seemed to be on duty.
  The tread of her guide seemed
  more cautious here, as it had been
  with Sharon before, but his face
  also seemed to hold an expression
  of uncertainty about it... here
  he seemed to have no knowledge of
  what was to happen, no sense of
  control that Sally had felt from
  him before.
  Sally’s guide had removed his
  hand from her shoulder. Instead
  of leading her, the two of them
  explored the cold corridors.
  When it seemed that the pain
  in her head would make it impos-
  sible for her to go on, the two
  figures came at last to the light.
  • • •
  The light poured from an open
  door in the corridor.
  It was warm and welcoming, like
  a gentle hand extended from the
  room beyond, and Sally stumbled
  toward it gratefully. It did not
  register that her guide stepped
  back into the shadows of the hall,
  letting her walk toward the door
  alone. There was the light brush
  of something on her shoulder, his
  hand perhaps, but Sally did not
  feel it as she moved toward the
  light. Here at last was someone
  on duty, perhaps a doctor... she
  could get help, reach a phone...
  Behind Sally, her guide
  watched fearfully. His lips moved
  as if to speak, as if to warn her,
  but no words came forth.
  • • •
  Sally stepped into the light
  streaming from the door and stared
  into the office before her. The
  light was coming from a lamp on
  the desk, and behind the desk sat
  a man, a doctor, writing with a
  gold pen on the surface of his
  desk. The man appeared to be in
  Stress, Basement: Charac-
  ters who enter the Eastern
  Division basement will feel
  no change in the stress
  level until they attempt to
  leave. At this point, they
  will suddenly discover they
  cannot find the stairs or
  the elevator. GMs should
  let any PCs who enter the
  basement without an es-
  cort wander for several
  hours (or more) before
  finding an exit. No amount
  of light (i.e., lanterns,
  flashlights) the characters
  bring into the basement
  area will cause the area to
  become better illumi-
  nated... flashlights and
  other light sources seem to
  dim and fade the longer
  characters remain in the
  Eastern Division base-
  ment.
  
  37
  37
  his early fifties, and his thick
  dark brown hair and eyebrows were
  peppered with gray.
  On his desk sat a black name-
  plate: DR. MASTERS.
  The doctor pushed his gold pen
  into the hard wood of his desk,
  making circles with the tip, deep-
  ening circular grooves that looked
  as if they been worked into the
  finish over several years.
  “Excuse me,” Sally said.
  • • •
  “Excuse me,” Sally said. Her
  voice sounded small in the vast-
  ness of the office. Her head
  throbbed.
  The man before her slowly
  looked up; Sally had a strange
  feeling that he had known she was
  there, but had chosen not to look
  up until she had announced her-
  self. Now that she had stepped
  across the threshold of the of-
  fice, the doctor seemed to be
  studying her. “I’ve—”
  “—been hurt,” the doctor said.
  His eyes studied her forehead, then
  the contours of her face, but he
  did not come around from behind
  the desk. “Please sit down,” he
  nodded at the hard chair that sat
  in front of his desk. “You need a
  doctor.”
  He spoke with authority. His
  face was somber, but the strong
  chin and cheekbones reassured
  Sally. Here was the help she
  needed.
  “Yes,” Sally replied, re-
  lieved.
  The man’s voice was in com-
  mand, steady, but he did not move
  from behind the desk. “Who are
  you and how were you injured?”
  His questions were delivered like
  orders.
  “My name is Sally Robinson...
  and my car... um...” Sally frowned;
  her head was hurting again. She
  edged around the hard wooden chair
  and then sat down in it, feeling
  its back rigid against her spine.
  Almost by reflex, her arms fell
  onto its narrow arm rests, the
  tips of which felt rough, as if
  someone had dug their fingernails
  into its edge. “My car slid off
  the road in the rain, and I hit my
  head against the steering
  wheel...”
  The doctor nodded. He wasn’t
  nodding for her to go on. He nod-
  ded like he was confirming some-
  thing.
  “I think I fractured some-
  thing. Is there a doctor on duty
  that I could see or—”
  The man smiled slightly. Sally
  glanced at his white doctor’s coat,
  the button-up shirt.
  “Can you help me?” She said,
  cutting herself off. The hard wood
  of the chair begin to burrow into
  her back.
  The gold pen gleamed in the
  doctor’s hand, bending the light
  of the lamp. The tip was extremely
  sharp. The doctor wielded the pen
  like a scepter.
  “Of course,” the doctor re-
  plied.
  • • •
  In the slow silence that
  trailed after his words, Sally told
  of her predicament. She told of
  her becoming lost, her swerving
  off the road, the crash.
  “The Hospital Police found
  your car,” the doctor said. His
  statement did not register at
  first.
  When it did, Sally found her-
  self nodding, as if it was the
  most obvious thing in the world.
  He had found her car.
  “Please continue,” the doctor
  prodded.
  Sally said she hadn’t been able
  to contact the institution by
  phone. She had wanted to ask about
  an ex-patient.
  “Sam Saunders,” the doctor
  nodded. He did not take his eyes
  from Sally. There was the slow
  scratch as the gold pen bit into
  the surface of the table and be-
  gin to trace the circular path.
  Sally’s eyes widened, then she
  relaxed, smiling in relief. He un-
  derstood. “Yes, exactly,” she
  said. “How did you—”
  “Did you bring anyone with
  you?” The doctor prodded.
  Sally nodded. “A man... a pa-
  tient led me here.”
  
  38
  38
  “Here?” The doctor’s expres-
  sion did not change, but his tone
  deepened, as if he had not ex-
  pected this answer. “A patient?
  Which patient?’
  Sally discovered that she had
  never asked the patient’s name.
  The doctor seemed to sense it.
  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll
  find him. I’m glad that you’re
  okay. It’s just that it’s not safe
  for visitors to walk the Asylum
  grounds with patients... and it’s
  certainly not safe for visitors
  to walk the grounds alone.”
  Sally agreed. It was good to
  no longer be alone. This doctor
  would help her.
  The gold pen in the doctor’s
  hand gleamed.
  “I have one more question for
  you.”
  Sally nodded. From the man’s
  tone of voice, it seemed that af-
  ter answering this last question,
  she would get the help she had
  been looking for. She would be
  cared for, her head attended to,
  and find what she had come look-
  ing for.
  Sally waited.
  • • •
  “Could you please tell me what
  that is by your leg there?” The
  doctor motioned at her left leg.
  Sally glanced down.
  By her feet lay the brown pa-
  per bag from her car, still folded
  at the top. Sally stared at it.
  She knew she hadn’t brought
  it, but there it was, sitting be-
  side her.
  Had it been there when she
  had first come in? Sally couldn’t
  remember. She hadn’t looked. Her
  attention had been focused on the
  doctor, and the scratching of his
  pen. Had that been intentional?
  The tension grew as the doc-
  tor waited for a response.
  “I don’t know what that is,”
  Sally whispered, her words freez-
  ing in her throat. Something had
  gone wrong. Something was wrong.
  “Put it on my desk please,”
  the doctor said. He did not look
  at her as he spoke, and Sally had
  a terrible feeling that she was
  trapped in some sort of rehearsal
  that she had known nothing about
  and was unprepared for. The con-
  versation had taken a formal, dis-
  tant quality, like she was being
  dissected.
  Her left arm reached down au-
  tomatically, picked up the bag,
  and stretching forward, she placed
  it on the desk. The doctor still
  did not look at her; he reserved
  his attention for the bag before
  him.
  It was soaked through, and it
  had been folded at the top just
  as Sally had folded it several
  months ago. It was as if it had
  never been opened. The bag lay on
  the desk, waiting.
  The doctor’s hands reached out
  for the bag, and unfolded the top.
  His hands were large and strong,
  and Sally found herself staring
  at the dark hairs that peeked from
  the back of his hand and fingers.
  Without looking inside the bag,
  the doctor upended it and let its
  contents slide out onto the desk.
  Even after the storm, the cos-
  tume seemed dry and unconcerned
  where it lay on the desk. Sally
  could see the contours of red,
  the black hood, the bandoleer
  straps, the empty holsters. She
  watched as the doctor touched the
  costume idly with his finger,
  stroking its exterior, then hooked
  his forefinger under the hood and
  lifted it up to face him.
  “Hello again, Purge,” he whis-
  pered, and his eyes glinted. He
  seemed fascinated.
  Sally felt a chill settle over
  her. The gaze of the doctor had
  changed. She had been...
  ...reclassified. She was no
  longer someone from the outside.
  She was a resident. A patient.
  The chill kept her from moving.
  She had to move. She had to get
  out of here before she became—
  “A prisoner,” the Doctor re-
  plied, noting her change of ex-
  pression. He leveled his eyes at
  her, and his gaze pinned her arms.
  “This time you will not be leav-
  ing us.”
  
  39
  39
  Western Division
  History
  Although plans for the construction of the West-
  ern Division were drafted in 1853, the Asylum grounds
  were not broken until 1861, and the structure was not
  completed and admitting patients until 1886 (hope-
  fully, in just enough time for a Horror Hero Eldritch
  Horror campaign). The Division was designed to
  house the male patients who came to the Fell’s Point
  Asylum.
  In spite of the Civil War, the Western Division’s
  foundation was laid, and the stones and rock exca-
  vated from the building’s lower levels were used to
  raise its walls and the Wall surrounding the Asylum
  grounds. Thick iron beams were erected from the
  foundation to support the arches of the structure, and
  the Division’s brick walls were then raised around the
  iron skeleton. It was not until 1887 that all the brick
  work was completed, and with some ambivalence by
  the Asylum’s directors... the brick which they thought
  would lend a pleasing air to the structure, gave the
  Western Division a disturbing red cast when the last
  rays of the day fell on the Asylum.
  When the Western Division was initially con-
  structed, it was intended to be an identical twin, a
  brother to its sister structure, the Eastern Division.
  Over the past century and a half, however, the West-
  ern Division has grown apart from its younger half,
  becoming larger, more chaotic and more alien to the
  Asylum staff. The patients confined in the Western
  Division are the most disturbed in the Asylum.
  Description
  Initially, the Western Division was 360 feet in
  length and separated from the Eastern Division by a
  hundred feet of open ground; since then, the struc-
  ture has swelled, and a broad corridor (its former
  French windows bricked over) juts out from the east-
  ern half of the Western Division to join with the Cen-
  tral Administration Building.
  The walls of the Western Division are broken
  by oriel windows (all secured by iron bars and grills
  set into the stone), and the Division is topped by a
  sharp-angled, six foot tower encircled by a lattice-work
  balcony. A secondary tower, of more modest design
  than the first, is also set alongside its wall.
  It seems as if the architect had been trying for a
  Victorian design with the Western Division, but what-
  ever touches that reinforce this effect have either been
  submerged or chipped away over the years until the
  building has become an undefined mass of styles.
  Note: Outside the Western Division are long mounds
  of dirt where pipes, both for fresh water and sewer
  drains, are buried. At first glance, they look like grave
  mounds (or the tunnels of some large burrowing ani-
  mal). These extend to the Service Building and the
  Power Plant.
  Stress, Western Division:
  The Western Division is
  the oldest structure on the
  Asylum grounds. It is also
  the most dangerous. GMs
  should tailor the wards,
  staff and patients in this
  building so that they chal-
  lenge and disturb charac-
  ters; descriptions and en-
  counters should be modi-
  fied so that they strike at
  PC and player Psychologi-
  cal Limitations and maxi-
  mize the “Western Divi-
  sion effect.”
  As a result, charac-
  ters in this building suffer
  a 4D6 General Presence
  Attack during the day
  (Wrong), growing to a 6D6
  General Presence as dark-
  ness falls on the Asylum
  grounds (Threatening).
  Any female character in
  this building will suffer an
  additional 1D6 to the
  stress level. This Presence
  Attack is for the Western
  Division in general; each
  ward within the building
  has its own stress level as-
  sociated with it.
  
  40
  40
  Hallucinations: Hallucinations and other psychotic
  symptoms occur more frequently in the Western Di-
  vision and vary according to which ward characters
  find themselves in. Characters may also get attacks of
  Depersonalization Disorder (the feeling of being dis-
  sociated or distanced from one’s own body) while in
  this building.
  First Floor
  Initially, the ground floor of the Western Divi-
  sion had seventy-five rooms, each lighted by windows.
  Through additions, the number of rooms has ex-
  panded as the years have worn on and are used for
  kitchens, dining rooms, patient activities, and stor-
  age. Main offices and reception rooms are located at
  the eastern end of the Division, where the building
  faced the Eastern Division. The rest of the floor is di-
  vided into a number of wards (see the Wards chapter).
  The Steward Library: The result of a donation by
  Steward, this clinical and pathological library was es-
  tablished in the Western Division. Despite its medical
  bias, a number of different texts have found their way
  into the shelves, including several occult texts and texts
  on parapsychology which Steward is responsible for
  concealing here (it was a convenient storage place
  should any of his other caches be destroyed), and PCs
  in a Horror Hero may come here in search of a rare
  tome or grimoire (as per the Patient Library in the
  Eastern Division, above).
  Second Floor
  Various disturbed wards and abandoned rooms
  lie on this level, along with anything else GMs wish to
  include. Gans’s office was once located on this level
  (opposite where Dr. Shreiver’s office is located in the
  Eastern Division), but characters will have consider-
  able difficulty finding it (it has been bricked off and
  plastered over so that no one might use it). Several
  areas on this floor hold research labs containing
  projects in various stages of completion or failure.
  Third Floor
  The third floor of the Western Division is much
  like the Eastern Division, and is broken into a mass of
  fifty narrow rooms connected by halls with extremely
  high ceilings. All the rooms have been either turned
  into disturbed wards, abandoned, reduced to minor
  staff offices or have become auxiliary laboratories or
  library storage. Personnel were often shuttled to rooms
  on the third floor when renovations were taking place
  in other buildings (see the description for the Eastern
  Division third floor for more information).
  Fourth Floor
  The fourth floor is much like the third, except
  the ceilings are lower and the halls narrower. Every-
  thing is a brownish-white, corridors bend at odd
  angles, and the slope of the ceilings in some rooms is
  inconsistent with the angle of the roof. All of the win-
  dows on this floor are covered with dirt and piled with
  dead insects in the corners. Chairs, desks and other
  furniture lies scattered in some corridors, as if some-
  one dragged them there then forgot about them. As
  with the third floor, the rooms on this level served as
  places to shuttle employees when renovations were
  taking place in other structures on the grounds. It is
  not known what the rooms are used for now.
  Basement
  The basement of the Western Division is not
  described here; see the Wards and Heresies chapters
  for details.
  
  41
  41
  Chapter Two:
  Staff
  “All psychiatrists are crazy...
  guilt by association and all.”
  - Elliot Manns, the Idiot King -
  The Morning
  Conference
  The morning conference had
  been reduced to a drill.
  The twenty doctors sat in a
  rough circle around the meeting
  table, rigid in the hard wooden
  chairs as they examined various
  charts, but none of them spoke,
  and they did not look at each
  other.
  At the head of the table lay
  one empty chair. Behind it was a
  blackboard, smeared with chalk
  dust and the word SCHIZOPHRENIA
  with arrows pointing out from it
  in all directions.
  When the door opened at the
  end of the room, a ripple passed
  through the room as the doctors
  stiffened in their seats.
  The woman’s heels clicked upon
  the floor as she strode to the
  head of the table. Not one physi-
  cian turned to look at her.
  “Good morning, gentlemen.”
  The woman’s voice had a touch
  of dryness and age about it. It
  was not a greeting, and the doc-
  tors, almost in unison, echoed a
  reply similarly devoid of acknowl-
  edgment. There was the general
  sense that everyone wanted to be
  somewhere else. The legs of the
  empty chair scraped along the floor
  as it was drawn back from the
  table, yet there was no sound as
  the woman sat down. All the phy-
  sicians saw her as only a blurred
  white shape in their peripheral
  vision.
  “Let’s begin,” the woman con-
  tinued, with the same dryness, and
  there was a rustle of papers across
  the table. With it, the formal
  quality seemed to abate somewhat.
  One doctor, half-way down the
  table, spoke first, coughing
  slightly to clear his throat.
  “Cyril Hooks is back. He was
  brought in by the police last
  night...” His words came out like
  they were delivered by a teletype.
  “Involuntary hold.” His eyes did
  not meet those of the woman, in-
  stead scanning down the sheet of
  paper in front of him. “The po-
  lice found him crawling naked down
  the center lane of the interstate.”
  The doctor seemed to shrink
  slightly, as if recalling some-
  thing unpleasant. “Took seven or-
  derlies to put him in restraints.
  I gave him Haldol, and he’s sleep-
  ing now.”
  The woman made no motion, and
  neither did the rest of the doc-
  tors. One murmured “PCP” under his
  breath, and the doctor who had
  been speaking looked up.
  “It’s possible.” The doctor
  rubbed the bridge of his nose.
  “We’ll know soon enough as soon
  as the results of the physical
  come in.”
  “Continue,” the woman said,
  irritated at the interruption.
  Some of the doctors shifted in
  their seats.
  “We got one Michael Tibbet...”
  the doctor flipped through the
  pages in front of him, as if to
  check something. “Ran into a Quick
  
  42
  42
  Corner in Fell’s Point claiming
  that Harbinger was chasing him.”
  “Any criminal record?” One
  doctor prompted. A light chuckle
  passed through the room, but it
  evaporated before it reached the
  woman at the head of the table.
  “No,” the one doctor admit-
  ted. “But he’s got a long history
  of mental illness. After making a
  scene at the counter, he ran into
  the woman’s bathroom and tried to
  take a bath in the toilet. Con-
  tacted his family, his father, and
  he says the guy hasn’t been tak-
  ing his meds, so I restarted him
  on Prolixin.”
  “All right,” the woman
  prompted. “Continue.”
  The list droned on.
  • • •
  It would be fair to say that
  many of the staff members at the
  Asylum cared little for the woman
  who sat at the head of the table.
  One look was enough to see why
  this might be so.
  Her face was tense...
  stretched taut, but not enough to
  smooth the wrinkles on her face.
  She sat as if the seat was an
  electric chair, angry and defiant
  as if the nightly report was a
  sentence being delivered on her.
  Her eyes were sharp, unfriendly,
  and almost everyone at the table
  was relieved that her gaze was
  not directed at them. Her hands,
  resting upon the surface of the
  table, were thin and sharp, like
  talons. She did not look like some-
  one who was in the profession of
  helping others.
  If one were to gaze at the
  woman sympathetically, it would
  be apparent that she was a very
  old woman. She was of such an age
  that pain must be ingrained in
  her, in every joint and muscle.
  Some of the staff described
  her as withered and angry, like
  some Fury from myth or legend.
  It was Dr. Masters who had
  drawn that analogy some years ago,
  and like much of what Dr. Masters
  said, it carried a certain weight
  and truth about it.
  The woman was the Medical Di-
  rector of the Asylum. This osten-
  sibly meant that she maintained
  some control and direction over
  what took place within its walls.
  The patients maintained that she
  was remote, like God, and hard to
  see.
  The woman’s name was Dr.
  Shreiver.
  She maintained such a rela-
  tionship with her staff and pa-
  tients that they had never found
  the occasion to use her first name.
  • • •
  The meeting was nearly at an
  end when one of the doctors hap-
  pened to mention that one of the
  patients had been found wandering
  outside her ward.
  “Christ,” Dr. Shreiver spat.
  “The ward doors are supposed to
  be lock—” She stopped, and sev-
  eral doctors looked up to see what
  had cut her off. Shreiver’s eyes
  were narrowed, and the next ques-
  tion had an edge to it. “Who was
  it?”
  The doctor blinked, suddenly
  uncomfortable. “Um... Ferry, I
  think. Yes, Sharon Ferry, Receiv-
  ing Ward. We got her back inside
  without a problem, thou—”
  Shreiver immediately turned
  back to the doctor who had began
  the meeting. “Give me that list
  again. Just the names.”
  The doctor rolled them off his
  tongue, and Shreiver nodded impa-
  tiently until he was finished, then
  she glared around the room.
  “Was anyone else admitted last
  night? Someone who might have been
  turned aw—?”
  “Excuse me,” a new voice spoke.
  Everyone in the room turned to
  look at the figure at the oppo-
  site end of the table. Though his
  voice was soothing, it silenced
  everyone in the room.
  “There was one more admission,
  I believe. I did not realize it
  until the names were re-read.”
  Dr. Masters folded his arms
  on the table, the gold pen flash-
  ing in his fingers.
  • • •
  “It was a Miss... Sally
  Robinson.” Dr. Masters frowned,
  
  43
  43
  as if trying to recall the de-
  tails. He glanced at the doctor
  who had started the meeting, look-
  ing at him with an eyebrow raised.
  “She should have been listed in
  the nightly report...”
  “Was she turned away?”
  Shreiver voice leveled out.
  “No, I don’t believe so,” Dr.
  Masters tapped the pen in his palm.
  “Are you sure she’s not there in
  the nightly report? I had heard—”
  “She’s not on the report,”
  Shreiver cut him off angrily. “Was
  she admitted?”
  “To my knowledge, she was,”
  Dr. Masters replied, unruffled.
  “I had heard she was admitted by
  one of the doctors in the Eastern
  Division.” He turned to glance at
  several of the physicians on his
  left, who looked at him blankly,
  then shook their heads.
  “Didn’t come to us,” one piped
  up, almost raising his hands to
  deny the accusation. “Never even
  heard of her.”
  Shreiver’s eyes narrowed fur-
  ther, and her voice dropped. “If
  there’s a potentially dangerous
  patient wandering about this in-
  stitution, I’ll—”
  “Wait... here it is.” The doc-
  tor who had begun the meeting was
  staring in surprise at the report
  in front of him. “I must have
  missed—” He shook his head, as if
  clearing it. Dr. Masters leaned
  back in his seat as Shreiver fo-
  cused the heat of her gaze on the
  speaker. “Yeah, here she is. A
  Robinson, Sally, black woman,
  thirties, admitted last night at
  about three A.M., voluntary ad-
  mission, administered Haldol to
  calm her down...”
  “You just happened to skip her
  twice?” Shreiver tapped the sur-
  face of the table with her fin-
  gers. She looked like she was about
  to deliver a lecture, then frowned.
  “Could someone please tell me why
  that name sounds so familiar?”
  There was silence surrounding
  the table, followed by several
  shrugs. Shreiver shook her head,
  putting the question aside, then
  nodded at the doctor holding the
  list. “What was she admitted for?”
  “Let’s see... delusional, pos-
  sible...” the doctor paused. “Uh,
  possible Persona Personality Dis-
  order...”
  “Excuse�me?” Shreiver’s voice
  rose, as if incredulous. “Could
  you tell me how you just ‘hap-
  pened’ to miss that on the night
  call?!”
  The doctor didn’t seem to hear
  her. He was staring at the rest
  of the report.
  “What is it?” Shreiver’s ques-
  tion was a warning.
  The doctor looked up in shock,
  then looked around him, as if to
  seek reassurance from the other
  doctors.
  “She thinks she’s Purge.” His
  voice was weak, and he turned to
  look at the assembled staff.
  Shreiver looked as if she had just
  been struck, as did many of the
  doctors.
  “Oh, shit,” one of the doc-
  tors said.
  • • •
  “We can’t let that out!” One
  of the doctors was near panic.
  “If we let loose the fact that
  someone who thinks they’re Purge
  is here, we—” his voice stammered,
  then broke. “We’ll have a riot!
  We don’t have the personnel! Don’t
  you remember last time?! Once the
  patients hear about this...” his
  hands were waving almost uncon-
  trollably. “That... that pa-
  tient... she’ll be massacred!”
  “If she’s lucky,” another doc-
  tor sighed. “Can’t we transfer
  her?”
  “Out of the question,”
  Shreiver said irritatedly.
  “There’s nowhere else. You know
  that.” She seemed to be thinking.
  “Let me have her,” Dr. Mas-
  ters spoke softly. As before, the
  room became silent and everyone
  turned to look at him. Masters’s
  attention, however, was focused
  solely on Shreiver.
  “Let me have her,” he prodded
  again, and his voice was softer
  than before, almost seductive. “I
  can keep her under control.”
  Shreiver stared at him, as if
  chewing it over. The other doc-
  tors waited silently. But what came
  out of Shreiver’s mouth came as a
  surprise to them all.
  
  44
  44
  “No,” Shreiver said. “I’ll
  take care of her.”
  The Hierarchy
  Mapping the Asylum hierarchy is an exercise in
  frustration. It is not clear exactly who is in charge of
  what department, of what ward, or who is in charge
  of making sure that personnel and service needs of
  the hospital are met. All that can be said for certain is
  that the Asylum hierarchy is never static. It is gener-
  ally assumed that Dr. Shreiver sits somewhere at the
  top, with the patients resting at the bottom, and a
  number of Directors, Administrators, Therapists,
  Managers, Charge Nurses, Aides, and Maintenance
  Personnel scattered in-between.
  A general hierarchical map follows:
  Asylum Trustees: GM’s Decision
  Nine Trustees oversee the Asylum, and Dr. Shreiver is
  required to report to them on all activities taking place
  within the institution. No one is really quite sure who
  the Trustees are... most patients and staff assume the
  hierarchy ends at Dr. Shreiver. They find the idea that
  Dr. Shreiver may actually have to answer to someone
  hard to believe. [1]
  Medical Director: Dr. Shreiver
  Dr. Shreiver has been entrenched in the position of
  Medical Director since 1972. As Medical Director,
  Shreiver is expected to have a personal knowledge of
  many of the patients in the hospital and to examine
  all the daily reports of all physicians and nurses. She
  is also expected to carefully monitor the Asylum bud-
  get and to see to it that all medical records in the Asy-
  lum are properly kept. She answers only to the Trust-
  ees (above). Dr. Shreiver’s character sheet is located
  at the end of this chapter.
  Assistant Medical Director: Dr. Masters
  Answers to Medical Director. In charge of Chief of Service,
  Director of Training and Director of Clinical Services.
  The Assistant Medical Director handles the admis-
  sion and scheduling of new patients, and is the pri-
  mary link between the patients and their families. The
  Assistant Medical Director also supervises ward man-
  agement, handles the financial details of patients’ ac-
  counts, advises the Chief of Service, acts as the coor-
  dinator of internal hospital activities, handles legal
  problems concerning patients and acts as Medical
  Director in Dr. Shreiver’s absence. Dr. Masters is the
  one responsible for assigning the patients to the Asy-
  lum wards. His character brief is listed in the Physi-
  cians section, below.
  Director of Training: Dr. Leonard Elkins
  Answers to Medical Director and Assistant Medical Direc-
  tor. [2] On the same level with Chief of Service, he is in
  charge of Assistant Psychiatrists and the Residents.
  The Director of Training is in charge of the Asylum’s
  training program, handles the admission of new stu-
  dents [3] and maintains close ties with many staff
  members at Fell’s Point University; Dr. Elkins himself
  used to teach at Fell’s Point University in 1989, but
  after an accident involving his son in 1990, he resigned
  from teaching at the University and has devoted him-
  self at the Asylum full time. Dr. Elkins’s statistics are
  listed in the Physicians section, below.
  Director of Clinical Services:
  Dr. Benjamin Pope
  Answers to Medical Director and Assistant Medical Direc-
  tor. [2] On the same level with Chief of Service, he is in
  charge of Assistant Psychiatrists.
  The Clinical Director is in charge of most medical
  activities, including the care and treatment of patients,
  and all clinical research taking place in the Asylum.
  Presumably Dr. Pope is in charge of the Asylum’s clini-
  cal laboratory, but he doesn’t ever seem to know what
  sorts of studies and research are being carried out in
  the Asylum.
  Chief of Service:
  Asylum Administrative Director
  Answers to Assistant Medical Director. In Charge of Oper-
  ating and Professional Departments and Assistant Psychia-
  trists.
  The Chief of Service is responsible for individual ad-
  missions and transferring patients from ward to ward
  when desirable (assigning patients to wards is the
  province of the Assistant Medical Director, above).
  The Chief of Service is also responsible for coordi-
  nating and overseeing all the operating and profes-
  sional departments in the Asylum (see below). The
  Chief of Service also gives administrative supervision
  to residents working on their wards.
  1: The GM can choose the Trustees from the ranks of NPCs in
  their own campaign or wait for elaboration of the Asylum Trust-
  ees in future Dark Champions supplements.
  2: As of 1990, neither of these two gentlemen answered to anyone
  except Dr. Shreiver; during the upheaval of 1990, however, the lines
  of authority were restructured, and now both of these Directors
  must answer to the Assistant Medical Director. Neither Elkins nor
  Pope care for this much, not necessarily because of Dr. Masters,
  but because of principle.
  3: The Assistant Medical Director, however, has been placed in
  charge of deciding where new students and residents are assigned
  within the Asylum (i.e., to which ward).
  
  45
  45
  Assistant Psychiatrists
  Assistant Psychiatrists answer to everyone except Residents.
  In Charge of Residents.
  Assistant Psychiatrists handle many of the patients
  in the wards; PCs are more likely to encounter them
  before the senior staff members. GMs can make an
  assistant psychiatrist template using the information
  provided for Physicians, below.
  Residents
  Residents answer to everyone except Operating and Pro-
  fessional Department Staff
  Residents are graduates of medical school who have
  come to the Asylum for two years to complete their
  education. Few stay longer than two years... in fact,
  few last longer than two years, although this is not
  advertised in the Fell’s Point Asylum brochures. GMs
  can make a sample resident using the information pro-
  vided for Physicians, below.
  In addition, there are several Operating and Pro-
  fessional Departments in the Asylum that answer to
  the Chief of Service, including:
  Operating Departments:
  Administrative Assistant, Dietary, Maintenance/Services,
  Records and Clerical, Personnel, Library
  The Administrative Assistant is the Chief of Service’s
  second-in-command and helps with much of the
  Asylum’s day to day scheduling and busy work.
  The Dietitian is in charge of about twenty staff mem-
  bers. These staff members include assistants, cooks,
  dishwashers and so on. These staff members have a
  high turnover rate.
  The Director of Maintenance and Services is in charge
  of about fifteen staff members, including the Build-
  ing Maintenance Personnel, Laboratory Maintenance
  Personnel, and the Housekeeping and Janitorial Staff.
  Building Maintenance Personnel can occasionally be
  seen around the Asylum, with heavy tool belts and
  walkie-talkies crackling at their sides. These staff
  members have a high turnover rate.
  No one is really sure who is in charge of the
  Records division, but whoever the hell it is, they are
  doing one god-awful job. It is believed that, in addi-
  tion to the Director of this division, there may be any-
  where from five to eight clerks and assistants “work-
  ing” in this department.
  For more information on the Library division, see the
  entries for the libraries in the Asylum Grounds sec-
  tion.
  Professional Departments:
  Nursing, Out Patient Services, Occupational Therapy and
  Social Services
  The Nursing Department is the largest department
  in the Asylum and contains two branches, one headed
  by the Director of Nursing (in charge of both person-
  nel and nursing services) and the other headed by the
  Director of Nursing Education (in charge of training
  the student nurses). Anywhere from fifty to seventy
  nurses and orderlies answer to the Director of Nurs-
  ing, and ten to fifteen student nurses answer to the
  Director of Nursing Education.
  The Director of Outpatient Services has two secre-
  taries serving under her. This department handles the
  Asylum’s outpatients (in outpatient therapy, a patient
  meets regularly with a therapist while continuing to
  live at home). Their office is located on the first floor
  of the Western Wing of the Bourne House.
  Director of Occupational Therapy has about nine to
  ten staff members at any one time. These staff mem-
  bers can usually be found in the Steward Building or
  the Ford Building during working hours.
  Social Services Department has been scaled back since
  the Sixties and Seventies. Anywhere from five to eight
  social workers are in this department, and they are a
  tired, cranky bunch. They often complain about the
  condition of the Asylum records.
  Physicians
  “You know, sometimes I ask myself, ‘Why did I
  pick this field?’ It’s just like opening an emotional can
  of worms. It ruins everything... no part of your life
  remains untouched. My wife hates me for the hours,
  especially the late-night calls telling me to come in
  because one of the patients tried to drown themselves
  in the toilet or slash their wrists... then there’s hearing
  the tired, bigot-ridden Fell’s Point cliché that all we
  know how to do here is beat up the patients and look
  the other way when they make a break for it. Not only
  that, everything I do is accompanied by a nagging
  question: ‘Why am I doing this?’ If I try to relax by
  reading a book, I think, ‘Oh, this means I’m trying to
  escape from reality because reality is too painful.’ If I
  get an apple at lunch, I wonder why I chose it, I won-
  der why it’s red and what I ‘really’ meant by picking it
  up. You end up reading into everything, cross-exam-
  ining everything you do, again and again and again
  until you aren’t sure whether you’re able to see life on
  the literal level at all! And people think the
  patients here are screwed up... well, they have no idea.”
  
  46
  46
  Physicians
  Powers and Skills: Use any of the NPC templates listed
  on pp.133-134 of the Hero System Rulebook (includ-
  ing the Incompetent template). Each Physician usu-
  ally has Bureaucratics 8-, Paramedic 11-, AK: Asylum
  11-, KS: Asylum Patients (in their ward) 11-, KS: Per-
  sonal Hobby or Interest 11-, WF: Syringes, and +1
  OCV with Grabs.
  Psychiatrist [Psychotherapist]: Perk: Licensed Psy-
  chiatrist, Conversation 11-, Persuasion 11-, PS: Psy-
  chiatrist 11- and SC: Psychology/Psychiatry on an 11
  or less.
  Doctor: Perk: Licensed Doctor, PS: Doctor 11- and SC:
  General Medicine on an 11 or less.
  Administrator: As per Psychiatrist or Doctor, above,
  except for Bureaucratics at an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Floating Disadvantage (either
  Psychosomatic Vulnerability, Psychosomatic Acciden-
  tal Change, Berserk, Enraged, Physical Limitation, Age,
  a Psychosomatic Susceptibility or Dependency, Repu-
  tation, DNPC, Unluck or Rivalry, worth ten points),
  Psychological Limitation (two Common, Moderate
  limitations or one Common, Strong Limitation, see
  below), Distinctive Features: Psychiatrist (Conceal-
  able, Recognized), Monitored by Administrator (As
  Pow, NCI) 8-, Hunted (Stalked) by Asylum Patients
  (Mo Pow, NCI) on an eight or less.
  BACKGROUND: The Asylum physicians usually
  come from middle or upper-class backgrounds. Their
  educational background is nearly identical, and is
  largely restricted to medical and psychiatric training.
  Most of them have been students of one of the local
  psychoanalytic institutes in Fell’s Point. The number
  of physicians in the Asylum varies between 18-22...
  none of these are women. [1]
  The Asylum is either the beginning or the end
  of a character’s career. Physicians who can no longer
  practice at other hospitals frequently come to the Asy-
  lum for employment; the shortage of employees at the
  Asylum usually allows incompetent doctors another
  chance in the workplace. Once within the Asylum, they
  remain there until they retire or die.
  PERSONALITY: Many psychiatrists suffer damage to
  their home lives due to their work at the Asylum.
  Failed marriages, divorces, adultery, petty feuds and
  jealousies fill the lives of some psychiatrists, and usu-
  ally result in increasing stress in the workplace. Asy-
  lum psychiatrists and administrators have a wide
  range of emotional problems as well (see their Disad-
  vantages, above).
  APPEARANCE: Most Asylum psychiatrists wear
  slacks, a white shirt and tie, and a white laboratory
  coat. Their mental disturbance will either be promi-
  nent (i.e., a facial tic, disorganized speech, disheveled
  appearance) or quietly hidden beneath a subdued de-
  meanor. Except for three or four seniors, Asylum phy-
  sicians tend to be between thirty and forty-five years
  of age. When not seeing patients, they generally wear
  business suits.
  Specific Physicians/Administrators
  Dr. Masters             [ASSISTANT MEDICAL DIRECTOR]
  20  STR
  15   DEX
  20   CON
  20   BODY
  20   INT
  20  EGO 20   PRE
  12   COM 8     PD
  8     ED
  4    SPD
  10   REC
  40   END
  50   STUN
  Skills and Powers: Damage Reduction 50%, Energy
  and Physical, Resistant, STUN Only (-1/2); Damage
  Resistance (Psychosomatic, 8 PD/8 ED), Must be
  aware of attack (-1/4); Mental Defense (10 Points);
  Presence Defense (New Power, 10 Points of protection
  against Presence Attacks); 8D6 Telepathy
  (Pseudopathy), 0 END (+1/2), Invisible Effects (+1/
  2), AVAD (New Power Limitation; pseudopathy works
  vs. Presence Defense instead of Mental Defense, +1/
  4), Limited Power: Effect Roll is limited to EGO+20
  (-1/2), Ineffective against characters with no human
  mannerisms (-1/4 or +0); Ambidexterity, Combat
  Sense 13-, Cramming 8-, Danger Sense (All attacks
  he can detect with his senses)11-, Defense Maneuver
  IV (UMA, p. 145), Fast Draw 13-, Find Weakness 13-
  , +10 Lightning Reflexes with all Attacks, Lightsleep,
  3D6 Luck, Perk: Licensed Psychiatrist, Acting 15-,
  Bureaucracy 13-, Conversation 16-, Criminology 15-
  , Deduction 15-, Disguise 15-, Forensic Medicine 13-
  , Forgery 15-, Paramedic 13-, Persuasion 16-, Seduc-
  tion 11-, Shadowing 15-, Stealth 15-, Tactics 15-, AK:
  Asylum 12-, KS: Asylum 12-, KS: Asylum Subculture
  11-, KS: Library Research [2] (Asylum Files) 11-, PS:
  Psychiatrist 15-, SC: Pharmacology/Toxicology 13-,
  SC: Psychology/Psychiatry 13-, WF: Garrote, Straight
  Razor, Off Hand, Small Arms, Syringes, +2 Overall
  Combat Levels. Masters also has twenty extra points
  that can be spent in any way the GM sees fit to make
  him especially dangerous for their campaign.
  Note: Within the Asylum, Masters’s Stealth and Shad-
  owing are replaced with Cinematic Invisibility and
  Vanishing Teleport, and he gains +2 to his Combat
  Sense, Danger Sense and Find Weakness. It is as if he
  is in tune with every stone in the Asylum, and he can
  hear them whisper to him of danger and intruders.
  1: Dr. Shreiver is the only female physician in the Asylum. It is not
  known why or how this has come about. No one has really taken
  the time to study the matter.
  2: This skill is allowed for Masters only due to his unnatural affin-
  ity for sifting through the Asylum records. He sorts through as
  easily as plucking a card from a deck. He does wonderful vigilante
  impersonations and Blue Moon cards.
  
  47
  47
  100+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Quiet
  Sociopath (Very Common, Total) and Distinctive Fea-
  tures: Asylum Doctor (Concealable, Recognized).
  Masters has no other Disadvantages; other than his
  contempt for humanity, he is quite sane and comfort-
  able with himself. When using his Disguise abilities,
  he appears to have the Age: 40+ Disadvantage.
  Appearance: Past the gray slacks, white button-up
  shirt, and the pressed and starched laboratory coat,
  this doctor appears nondescript. He is white, in his
  early fifties, and his thick dark brown hair and eye-
  brows are peppered with gray. When standing, he likes
  to wrap his arms around himself (it almost looks like
  he is crossing his arms). He appears quite composed,
  and his face is somber and robust, with a strong chin
  and cheekbones. A gold pen is tucked in the breast
  pocket of his lab coat.
  Quote: [Smiles.] “Please, let me know if I can be of
  any help.”
  Notes: A well-respected administrator and a stern,
  methodical, and efficient doctor, Masters makes ini-
  tial contact with the families of patients, arranges dates
  for visitation and appointments, and remains close
  to each patient, making rounds and visiting them ev-
  eryday. He consults with the Superintendent, depart-
  ment heads and service chiefs and conducts six weekly
  staff conferences, five of which were devoted to clini-
  cal affairs, and the sixth to administrative problems.
  Rumor has it that he and Dr. Shreiver are something
  of an item (untrue).
  Masters spends most of his time greeting new
  patients that come to the hospital, waiting for them
  in his office at the head of the Second Ward. Sitting in
  his huge leather chair, he examines each patient as they
  arrive. As he questions them about their mental prob-
  lems and their history (medical and personal),
  Masters’s uncaps his gold pen and scratches its tip into
  a blank sheet of paper, coiling it inwards in a number
  of circles equal to the ward which he assigns them to.
  Once finished, he dabs the dark red ink of the pen
  onto the bottom of the paper like a signature and tucks
  the pen back in his breast pocket. He often grins as he
  does this, and his normally somber features become
  grotesque. Patients cannot recall this when they leave
  his office, however.
  Masters is one of the most dangerous charac-
  ters in the Asylum. In addition to his duties as Assis-
  tant Medical Director, Masters spends his off-duty
  time stalking and murdering other human beings. He
  doesn’t have any deep-rooted psychological reason for
  this... he just does it to “unwind.” He has never been
  caught, much less been placed under suspicion, pri-
  marily because he is extremely intelligent, careful and
  tailors his killing pattern to whoever is in the Asylum
  at the time. So while the PCs are going apeshit trying
  to see how Jimmy the Kidney-Eating Killer escaped
  from his cell, munched down, and came back again,
  Masters is laughing himself senseless. He has access
  to the files, so he knows exactly how the inmates kill,
  and can match the MO perfectly. He has been known
  to do wonderful vigilante impersonations.
  No one really knows what Masters’s first name
  is. If asked, he will respond “Minos,” then walk away,
  chuckling to himself.
  Nurses
  “It’s easy to blame a number of the problems
  here on the staff shortage, but really, that’s only a small
  part of the problem.” [Plunges hypodermic into rub-
  ber-stoppered vial, then lifts the plunger slowly.] “Not
  having enough staff is really irrelevant if you can’t even
  count on the staff that does show up to keep things
  under control. The women...” [Nods her head around
  at the other nurses.] “...we’re really alone here, when
  it comes down to it, and when you consider the kind
  of patients they keep here, it’s a very scary thought.”
  [Sets down hypodermic on tray, prepares another
  needle.] “If there was an underlying problem here at
  the institution, it would be one of attitude, I suppose.
  You can see it when the new batch of student nurses
  come onto the wards, all eager and ready to begin... a
  month into working, however, and they’ve changed....
  every one of them. Most don’t stay. Those that do, lose
  something inside. This place, well, it rubs off on you.”
  [Plunges another hypodermic into a vial, lifts back
  plunger.]
  “My charge nurse seems to be functioning on
  little or no sleep, and her voice cracks when she’s giv-
  ing orders... and sometimes she repeats herself, like
  things will magically become done if she says it
  DR. MASTERS
  
  48
  48
  enough.” [Shakes her head in irritation.] “I’m not even
  sure she’s even talking to us when she’s giving the or-
  ders... it’s more like...” [Struggles for the word, wav-
  ing the hypodermic in her hand.] “...reassuring her-
  self, I suppose.” [Frowns, then returns to filling hypo-
  dermic.] “The rest of the staff isn’t much better. The
  physicians make their rounds as quickly as possible,
  mumble off their orders to us, and that’s that for their
  involvement... they will quickly step out of the ward
  and back to their offices. Sometimes they even get
  confused as to which ward they’re on, as if someone
  switched the wards around overnight and no one told
  them! I mean, really! If they spent a little more time
  with the patients perhaps they’d...” [Shakes head in
  exasperation.]
  “And the orderlies...” [Glances around, lowers
  voice as she reaches for an empty needle.] “...some of
  them, have this deadness about them... it’s like their
  personality has been cut out of them just by working
  here. It’s so easy to mistake them for one of the pa-
  tients.” [Nods knowingly.]
  “So maybe now you understand a little what’s it
  like to be trapped at this level.” [Casually stabs hypo-
  dermic into her forearm, lifts back plunger.] “You do
  a job too well, you get in trouble. Don’t do a job well
  enough, and there’s going to be some kind of other
  trouble... no one really—” [Watches hypodermic fill
  with blood, then her eyes widen.] “Dammit!” [Yanks
  hypodermic out of her arm and throws it down on
  counter, glaring at the bloody needle as if it is to blame.
  After a moment, she starts to shake, and puts a hand
  over the needle puncture. Her eyes narrow.] “I hate
  this place.”
  Nurses
  Powers and Skills: Use any of the NPC templates listed
  on pp.133-134 of the Hero System Rulebook (includ-
  ing the Incompetent template). Each Nurse usually
  has the Perk: Licensed Nurse, Paramedic 11-, AK: Asy-
  lum 8-, KS: Asylum Patients (in their ward) 11-, KS:
  Personal Hobby or Interest 11-, WF: Syringes and +1
  OCV with Grabs.
  25+ Disadvantages: Floating Disadvantage (either
  Psychosomatic Vulnerability, Psychosomatic Acciden-
  tal Change, Berserk, Enraged, Physical Limitation, Age,
  a Psychosomatic Susceptibility or Dependency, Repu-
  tation, DNPC, Unluck or Rivalry, worth ten points),
  Psychological Limitation (two Common, Moderate
  limitations or one Common, Strong Limitation, see
  below), Distinctive Features: Nurse (Concealable, Rec-
  ognized), Monitored by Supervisor or Administrator
  (As Pow, NCI) 8-, Hunted (Stalked) by Asylum Pa-
  tients (Mo Pow, NCI) on an eight or less.
  BACKGROUND: All the Asylum nurses are women.
  [1] Springing largely from the middle or lower class,
  almost all are high school graduates with a nursing
  education; the few who have gone to college have taken
  courses in advanced nursing education. Most of the
  nurses at the Asylum are in their twenties. Few are
  older than forty.
  Nurses generally work on the ward for a few
  months, learning psychiatric nursing for the first time,
  then assume the position of charge nurse. If the nurse
  is successful at this for a few months, a supervisor’s
  job is likely to be waiting for them. The Asylum, like
  many other hospitals in Fell’s Point, has no route for
  professional advancement except the route which
  takes the nurses away from direct patient care. Thus,
  the good nurses are separated from the patients as they
  rise through the ranks, while the bad nurses are stuck
  caring for the patients.
  APPEARANCE: Nurses dress in a white two-piece
  uniform, their uniform almost as ghostly white as the
  orderlies’ uniforms. The nurses’ features are almost
  lost behind the harsh white uniform... most PCs will
  find that they cannot remember what a nurse they
  just talked to looked like; all they will be able to re-
  member is the bleached white uniform burned into
  their mind. All nurses in the Asylum are women.
  Orderlies
  “Let me tell ya, my job ain’t easy with some of
  these guys they got in here, and sometimes, you can’t
  even tell which ones are screwed up, the doctors or
  the patients... some of the other guys who work this
  ward with me, it’s like they friggin’ died in their beds,
  then woke up and kept going to work, like they ain’t
  got nothin’ better to do. They’re zombies. They don’t
  smile, don’t answer when you talk to ‘em, and their
  faces look like they been crusted with this white pow-
  der... I don’t know. They look like they ain’t slept in
  weeks. It’s like someone just flicked off this switch in-
  side ‘em, and they just don’t feel nothin’ anymore.
  “I know why they’re like that, too... the nurses,
  see, they can stay in their little glass fort, the shrinks
  can hang in their room off in the Eastern Division
  drawing their stupid charts and graphs, but me, I see
  these guys in the trenches, clean up their shit, kick
  ‘em outta bed, and try to make sure they don’t kill
  each other on the way to the cafeteria. All for a crummy
  paycheck at the end of the week that might be just
  enough to make the rent. Me, I got kids to feed, a wife
  screaming at me every friggin’ night, and they won-
  der why I ain’t all hot to jump into the middle of
  trouble when it happens... and believe me, it happens.”
  [Pauses, glances around.] “Somethin’ else you should
  know, too. These loony toons play a lotta games an’
  act stupid. But they ain’t.” [Taps head meaningfully,
  nods.] “They don’t think I can tell, but I can. Some of
  the ones act all loopy when the therapist is walking
  around or when the nurse gives them their drugs, but
  when they think I ain’t looking, I can see ‘em change.
  They’re just waiting for something’, an’ I ain’t gonna
  be here when it comes down.”
  1: Again, as per the physicians above, the reason for this is unknown.
  No one really seems to care.
  
  49
  49
  Orderlies
  13  STR
  13   DEX
  13   CON
  11   BODY
  10   INT
  10  EGO 10   PRE
  10   COM 3     PD
  3     ED
  3    SPD
  6     REC
  26   END
  26   STUN
  Powers and Skills: Each orderly possesses the Wres-
  tling Martial Arts Package (All maneuvers listed in
  Hero System Rulebook, p. 33) or the Dirty Infighting
  Package (Choke Hold, Martial Grab and Sacrifice
  Throw recommended), depending on their back-
  ground. Their other skills include AK: Asylum 11-,
  PS: Orderly 11-, KS: Asylum Patients (in their ward)
  11-, KS: Personal Hobby or Interest 11-, Breakfall 12-
  , Paramedic 11-, Stealth (only in Asylum) 8-, WF: Sy-
  ringes and Nets (see Escapes, below), +1 Combat Level
  with HTH Combat, and +1 additional Combat Level
  with Grabs.
  Older Orderlies: Any orderly who has been at the Asy-
  lum for a year or more will have 9 INT, 8 EGO, -1”
  Running (5” Total); +5 STR with Invisible Effects to
  Normal Sight (+1/2), only in the Asylum (-1/2); +5
  CON and BODY, only to resist the effects of Stun-
  ning, Disabling and Impairing (-1/2); +5 PD and ED,
  only in the Asylum (-1/2), five points of Presence
  Defense (New Power, provides five points of defense
  against Presence attacks; nothing phases them), only
  in the Asylum (-1/2); Talent: Simulate Death, Climb-
  ing 13- (only in the Asylum), Shadowing 13- (only in
  the Asylum), Stealth at 13- (only in the Asylum). [1]
  Furthermore, all older orderlies will automatically
  possess the Martial Escape maneuver listed in the Hero
  System Rulebook, p. 31; if a character attempts to Grab
  them or restrain them, the orderly slips through the
  character’s grasp as if insubstantial. In addition to the
  Combat Levels mentioned in the statistics above, the
  orderlies seem to gain strength from the presence of
  other orderlies... for every orderly above one attack-
  ing the same character, each orderly gains +1 Combat
  Level (i.e., four orderlies attacking one character gain
  +3 Combat Levels to all their attacks). They should
  be far more terrible when they are encountered in a
  group; the oppressive silence that presses on each of
  them seems magnified when they are together.
  25+ Disadvantages: Floating Disadvantage [2] (either
  Psychosomatic Vulnerability, Psychosomatic Acciden-
  tal Change, Berserk, Enraged, Physical Limitation, Psy-
  chosomatic Susceptibility or Dependency, Reputation,
  DNPC, Unluck or Rivalry, worth ten points), Psycho-
  logical Limitation (two Common, Moderate limita-
  tions or one Common, Strong Limitation, see below),
  Normal Characteristic Maximum, Distinctive Fea-
  tures: Orderly [3] (Concealable, Recognized), Moni-
  tored by Charge Nurse (As Pow, NCI) 8-, Hunted by
  Asylum Patients (Mo Pow, NCI) on an eight or less.
  BACKGROUND: The orderlies are not a homoge-
  neous group. Half are scrounged from the Fell’s Point
  area, usually from the lower-class sections of the
  Southside and the Borough (i.e., the lower class/slum
  districts of the campaign city). Most barely have a high
  school education, but some are psychology students
  or premed students who have come to the hospital to
  get an education.
  Any orderly that has remained at the Asylum
  for more than five months will begin to change. Their
  emotional expression becomes restricted, they lose
  touch with their feelings, and become stiff and hol-
  low inside. Any life they may have once had outside
  the Asylum walls usually falls apart, as they slowly lose
  the capacity to care for family or friends... in several
  cases, the orderly’s family and friends fade from
  memory. Divorces and suicides are common but are
  rarely mentioned among the staff.
  QUOTE: The Orderlies have developed unresponsive-
  ness to a fine art, so much so that characters may be-
  lieve the orderlies have been drugged, or that they are
  not alive at all.
  As a general rule, the orderlies don’t have ca-
  sual conversations with the patients, although they will
  listen when a patient speaks to them. When speaking,
  the orderlies are firm and direct. In the instances when
  they do speak, the orderlies are firm and direct, but
  rarely say anything more than noncommittal phrases
  such as “how do you do?” They answer all questions
  with a blank-faced, mechanical “yes.”
  POWERS/TACTICS: The orderlies have a few simple
  rules for dealing with the patients, some of which the
  PCs would be wise to follow: The orderlies don’t ever
  turn their backs on any of the patients and when pos-
  sible, they keep their back to the walls. They don’t
  point or stare at any of the patients or at anything else
  1: It is recommended that for cinematic reasons, that the Asylum
  orderlies gain Vanishing Teleports and Invisibility within the Asy-
  lum. They seem to materialize out of the walls to encircle offend-
  ing patients.
  2: In the older orderlies, any Psychosomatic Disadvantages (espe-
  cially Berserk or Enraged Disadvantages) will be “quiet” Disad-
  vantages (i.e., Invisible Effects); for example, an orderly with a
  Berserk or Enraged Disadvantage will act as per the Berserk or
  Enraged Disadvantage, but their facial expression will never change
  and they will never become visibly agitated while they are attack-
  ing a character. GMs may also simply rule that any Asylum order-
  lies who have been trapped in the institution for a year or more
  has the Psychological Limitation: “Flattened Affect” that simulates
  their deadened spirits. Stress Level-based Psychosomatic Depen-
  dencies on being in the Asylum are not uncommon.
  3: In recent recruits, this Disadvantage simulates their orderly
  uniforms which they can take off and dump in the laundry at the
  end of the day. In the older employees, this Disadvantage should
  be increased to a Not Concealable, Recognized Disadvantage to
  simulate the orderlies’ stiffened movements, pale skin and somber
  features. In addition, a Psychosomatic Distinctive Features (Not
  Concealable, Major) should be added to their character sheet to
  simulate their restricted emotional expression.
  
  50
  50
  on the ward. When sharp utensils (“sharps”) are dis-
  tributed, the orderlies watch the patients and keep
  them out of stabbing distance of each other. The or-
  derlies don’t make any sudden movements around
  patients, no matter how sedate the patients appear to
  be. When they move through the ward, they move
  slowly and deliberately... they never give any sign that
  they are anything but in full control of the situation.
  The number of orderlies stationed in the Asy-
  lum is not important. Despite what is listed in the
  records, there will always be far more than any char-
  acter could possibly defeat. For every one the charac-
  ter strikes down, two more will materialize from the
  Asylum darkness to subdue the character.
  APPEARANCE: Most orderlies wear “ghostly whites,”
  a two-piece uniform consisting of a pair of pants and
  a long-sleeved shirt with metal snaps down one side.
  Despite the starched stiffness of the uniform, it does
  not make so much as a whisper when the orderlies
  move. The orderlies’ white shoes have thick rubber
  soles that allow them to move silently through the
  ward.
  When describing the older orderlies, GMs
  should not give them too much “flavor,” at least when
  describing them as they are working on the ward. De-
  scriptions should be slanted so the orderlies appear
  faceless and inhuman, with impassive expression,
  stubborn relentlessness and a cold monotone to their
  voice when responding to others. They are unusually
  pale, featureless, and shadows gather in every crease
  in their uniform and lurk under their brows so that
  their eyes are hidden from view.
  Domestic Staff
  Benjamin Brown                             JANITOR [NO WARD]
  Skills: [Incompetent template, Hero System Rulebook,
  p. 133.] AK: Asylum, 11-, AK: Asylum Subsystems 8-,
  PS: Janitor 11- and KS: Asylum Subculture on an 8 or
  less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Social
  Phobia (the “Asylum on th’ outside,” Very Common,
  Strong), Age: 60+.
  Appearance: A spindly black man in his early sixties
  with hair graying at the temples. He is dressed in a
  faded, dark blue janitorial uniform with pants rolled
  up at the hem so that they rise above his ankles. He
  hums softly while mopping the floors and emptying
  the trash in the staff offices, and he says hello to ev-
  eryone who walks by him, even the patients who are
  incapable of hearing him.
  Notes: Ben is a black gentleman who has worked at
  the Asylum staff for the past forty years. Unfailing
  courteous, and always having a kind word for every-
  one, Ben has never missed a day of work in his life.
  Even during the Fell’s Point riots and the numerous
  crisis situations that have taken place at the Asylum,
  he has somehow managed to arrive on time. If the
  PCs check on him, they will discover he has no home
  address, no family, no one to call. In fact, it seems the
  only thing anyone knows about Ben is that he works
  in the maintenance department.
  In truth, in his forty years of service, Ben has
  never left the Asylum. He was admitted in his early
  twenties after he began to hear voices; as all patients
  at the time were set to work by the staff to cut down
  on costs, he took up the janitorial role that he has been
  holding up all his life. He lives in a secret alcove in the
  basement of the Power Plant. After work, instead of
  going home, he checks to make sure no one is follow-
  ing him, then slips downstairs. Ben’s niche holds only
  his narrow bed, a few medical magazines and jour-
  nals, and a wooden box that holds his neatly pressed
  maintenance uniforms. He spends the evening read-
  ing books he has borrowed from the library, goes to
  bed, then wakes up for work the next morning. If any-
  one knows Ben lives in the Asylum, they have not re-
  ported it to anyone.
  Ben is hiding in the Asylum from something he
  can’t define... as best as he can manage, Ben finds the
  outside world to be “crazy,” and it frightens him. The
  Asylum, on the other hand, he finds somehow com-
  forting, and he spends many of his hours sitting in
  his niche in the basement and listening to the sounds
  that drift down through the vents and ducts.
  BENJAMIN BROWN
  
  51
  51
  When possible, Ben should be connected to a
  PC’s origin or background. He may have retreated to
  the Asylum after one of his family was killed by a vigi-
  lante or by a villain in the campaign.
  Author’s Note: Ben serves two roles. One is as deux ex
  machina. Ben can be a valuable source of informa-
  tion and can help the PCs escape the Asylum if they
  are captured. Ben’s other role stems his personality...
  Ben has a heroic heart. He does the right thing be-
  cause it is the right thing to do. When he sees some-
  one in trouble, he will help them as best he can, either
  intervening himself or calling a responsible staff mem-
  ber or Asylum security to intervene. If the PC show
  him kindness (i.e., preserve his secret from the Asy-
  lum staff or become his friend), he will go as far as to
  sacrifice his life for theirs.
  Ben claims he knows who the Poet is (see Asy-
  lum Grounds). He says he was some kinda masked vigi-
  lante way back when, probably the first one that ever
  popped up in Fell’s Point.
  12 Hours From
  Midnight
  The following is a rough break-down of a “day
  on the ward.” The GM should use this only to get a
  feel for the passage of time on a day-to-day basis and
  should change it to mesh with adventures and plots
  within the Asylum.
  7:45 AM: Most patients are in their rooms. Some sit
  in chairs in the corners of the darkened ward, or lay
  in front of the kitchen door, waiting.
  7:50 AM: The two orderlies on the night shift prepare
  to leave the ward. They gather their clothes (and any
  other articles they brought with them) and watch the
  clock for the day-shift to relieve them.
  7:57 AM: The day shift Charge Nurse arrives. The
  lights in the ward come ablaze, then blacken like ex-
  pended flash bulbs, then come to life again, until the
  cycle has been repeated three times. Coupled with the
  rising and setting of the lights, there is a low, harsh
  buzz (not unlike a colony of insects) from the Asy-
  lum speakers. The alarm is not turned off until all
  patients have risen from their beds.
  As the alarm drones on and the lights flicker,
  ghostly-white orderlies drift slowly from the nurse’s
  station and slide amongst the beds, pulling the pa-
  tients to their feet. Once forced from their beds, the
  patients are mechanically set to work doing chores on
  the ward. The other patients, usually the Catatonic
  Schizophrenics, are rolled out of bed, their urine-
  stained mattresses pulled from their beds, and the
  ghosts hose their owners down and place them in clean
  patient greens.
  8:00 AM: The Day Shift (8:00 AM to 4:00 PM) shuffles
  in over the next part of the hour as the night shift
  orderlies wait impatiently to leave. Once most of the
  day-shift is assembled, one orderly leaves, while the
  other orderly gives a dry, monotonous outline of what
  happened on the night shift to the day-shift person-
  nel. Once he has finished his recitation, the orderly
  leaves.
  8:15 AM: The Charge Nurse takes stock of the day per-
  sonnel and finds that many are late and unlikely to
  come in until much later. With barely restrained an-
  ger, she assigns duties to day-shift personnel who are
  present. At least one staff member watches the hall,
  one prepares the breakfast trays, and the remaining
  orderlies prepare the baths. If any patient needs to be
  “specialed,” then staff members are taken from those
  preparing the baths to watch the patient.
  8:25 AM, Breakfast: The exact procedure for Break-
  fast varies from ward to ward. Patients in non-violent
  wards (wards one through four) are grouped together
  and sent to the cafeteria in shifts to eat their meals.
  Patients in the disturbed or violent wards (wards five
  to eight) have their meals brought to their ward by
  the kitchen staff, then the nurses feed the patients. In
  maximum security portions of the Asylum, the meals
  are delivered to the doors of the patients and slipped
  through the port in the doors, then are collected once
  the patient is finished with their meal
  Non-Violent Ward: Non-violent patients are allowed
  a half-hour for meals, and they are forced to remain
  in the dining hall for the entire half-hour. Generally,
  the patients are lined up in order of most debilitated
  first (those in wheelchairs, followed by stumbling
  schizophrenics, then the more lucid patients) and are
  then pushed through the food line. They pick one of
  the identical trays from the stack, and the lucid pa-
  tients bring trays to the other patients who cannot
  get it themselves (i.e., patients who are Catatonic or
  are paralyzed from the waist down). The food at the
  Asylum tends to be passable, and much better than
  prison fare, at least at the Fell’s Point Pen (the local
  Penitentiary). Catatonics or those patients in wheel-
  chairs are pressed against the wall or wheeled against
  it, then fed by the patients or the orderlies. The pa-
  tients seem to be much gentler in feeding the patients
  than the orderlies.
  Disturbed/Violent Ward: The patients have breakfast
  either on the hall or in the living room. Some patients
  only eat inside their cells, while others need to be
  spoon or tube-fed.
  Meal Post-Mortem: After the patients leave the caf-
  eteria, the workers make a half-hearted attempt to deal
  with the mess. The real cleaning does not come until
  
  52
  52
  after dinner, when all the meals of the day are over
  and done with.
  9:00-12:00 AM: During these few hours, patients
  shuffle in and out for appointments, sometimes es-
  corted by slow, stern-faced orderlies with paste-like
  skin. They are sent to ECT or OT or to one of their
  private therapy sessions, sometimes gibbering or
  howling in fear, clutching the walls and floors with
  their hands as the orderlies drag them to one of the
  many small, tomb-like rooms that fill the Asylum.
  9:05 AM, the Ritual: From the nurse’s station, the
  speaker crackles “Medications” and the word ripples
  through the ward as the patients break from their du-
  ties and shuffle toward the nurse’s station. The Charge
  Nurse retrieves a tray of small plastic cups from the
  medication room (adjacent to the nurse’s station) and
  sets them on the ledge of a Dutch-style door, the top
  half of which is open into the ward. Each of the plas-
  tic cups is filled mostly with vitamin pills, and next to
  each of the cups is a colored card which indicates the
  patient’s name and the quantity of medication in each
  of the cups. [1] The patients line up the Dutch door,
  and file by, each picking up their cup and swallowing
  the pills. After they have placed the pills in their mouth,
  the patient’s cup is filled by a nurse holding a water
  pitcher, and the patients then wash the pills down. [2]
  Sometimes the nurse holding the pitcher does not
  watch where she is pouring the water and puddles
  form on the counter and on the floor. Some patients
  need to have their medication cups brought to them
  by the orderlies.
  The entire process takes no longer than ten min-
  utes.
  9:15 AM: The patients wait by the walls and in the
  chairs as the games are brought out by the orderlies.
  Games include Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Mo-
  nopoly, Pictionary, Instant Hero, various puzzles with
  the pieces missing (swallowed or stolen) and mis-
  matched packs of cards (along with any other game
  the GM has in their closet at home).
  9:26 AM: A nervous worker wheels a cart onto the
  ward to collect the dirty trays and dishes. The cart
  also carries supplies from the kitchen and from the
  maintenance storerooms (sheets, gauze, and linens),
  and the worker quickly restocks the nurse’s office,
  glancing around uneasily. As he finishes, the worker
  scoops up any requisitions lying on the desk of the
  nurse’s office... some of these requisitions have been
  filled out anywhere from the day to the week before,
  and they are either lost on their way from the nurse’s
  office to the maintenance office or else are not at-
  tended to for quite some time after they are collected.
  10:00 AM: A boy comes up and delivers the newspa-
  per and the mail. The bathrooms are still occupied by
  patients taking baths.
  10:23 AM: Mail call. By the time the mail reaches the
  patients, some of the envelopes have been torn open.
  This may have been done by the nurses or by workers
  in the mail room.
  11:00 AM: The Doctor (ward administrator) enters
  the ward. He briskly asks for an update on the pa-
  tients as he strides out on rounds accompanied by the
  Charge Nurse. The two of them go over the patients,
  one by one, until the doctor has made rounds of ev-
  eryone in the ward (anywhere from 15 min. to an
  hour), then he leaves.
  An Occupational Nurse comes to take some of
  the patients off for recreation.
  12:00 Lunch: Lunch is treated in the same way as
  breakfast. A half-hour is allowed, and the patients must
  remain there for the entire time.
  12:30 AM: The Charge Nurse comes back on the ward
  after attending a nurse’s conference and lets the other
  nurse and the two orderlies go get lunch.
  12:45 AM: The rest of the ward personnel return from
  lunch. After they have all arrived, the Charge Nurse
  retires into the nurse’s office/kitchen to write notes
  on the patients.
  Group Meetings: Not all wards have these “group
  meetings,” but the procedure is included here so GMs
  who want to do one for the sake of role-playing can
  do so. In the Asylum, Group Meetings take place Mon-
  day through Thursday. Usually, the meeting consists
  of all the patients who are lucid enough to discuss
  their problems, plus the psychiatrist/administrator in
  charge of the ward, the other therapists, the ward
  nurses, and the resident psychiatrist (the group is oc-
  casionally joined by an Asylum social worker). For the
  first half of the meeting, the patients are prodded to
  talk about themselves, then during the second half,
  1: It is possible that characters may find out later on in the adven-
  ture that the color cards are being switched around on a regular
  basis, so different medications are being consumed by different
  patients. Characters can alternately be sedated, nauseated or even
  poisoned by some of the medications that find their way into their
  bodies... if they anger a member of the staff, the PCs will have no
  idea what they are actually swallowing.
  2: Patients with Acting or Concealment can “fake” swallowing the
  pills. If they don’t consume them, they will have to tell the GM
  what they are doing with them... as the wards are cleaned on a
  regular basis, the pills may be found by the staff while they are
  cleaning the ward. It is possible that a PC could persuade another
  patient to take his medication, as long as the “persuasion” is done
  away from the eyes of the staff (and a medical check-up may re-
  veal the “patient trash can” that the character is using).
  
  53
  53
  the patients listen to the staff talk about them, then as
  the meeting nears its end, both the patients and staff
  enter a free-form discussion... the meeting lasts about
  an hour. After the meeting is over, the doctor and resi-
  dents leave the ward and retreat to another room out-
  side the ward to discuss the patients.
  12:50 AM: The patients set up the ward for the Group
  Meeting. Tables are cleared away, chairs are arranged
  in a circle and patients begin to take their seats, leav-
  ing spaces for the doctor, the charge nurse and per-
  haps a student nurse or two.
  1:00 PM: The doctor comes onto the ward, his feet
  clacking like hooves against the tile, and the sound
  contrasts sharply with the orderlies who drift across
  the ward without a sound. When he arrives, the nurses
  take their seats, then he sits down and surveys the pa-
  tients, pulling out their folders and glancing at their
  contents.
  2:00 PM: The doctor stands, and the meeting imme-
  diately ends, even if a patient or staff member is in
  the middle of speaking. The meeting area is broken
  down in seconds, and the tables and chairs moved back
  into their places with military precision. The doctor
  leaves, his exit marked by the metallic clash of the ward
  door opening and closing behind him.
  2:05 PM: After the Meeting Group, the psychiatrists
  go to an administrative meeting (nurses and order-
  lies do not attend these meetings). Asylum policy is
  discussed during these administrative meetings or else
  guest lecturers speak to the staff, presenting topics such
  as community mental health, vigilantism and its ef-
  fect on criminal statistics, mask complex behavior, and
  so on. Although they are supposed only to last an hour,
  these staff meetings can drag on for hours, with people
  hemming and hawing and nothing much getting re-
  solved except arguing. Most of the psychiatrists end
  up fighting to stay awake.
  3:00 PM: Psychiatrists are finally free to see patients.
  3:30 PM: The Supervisor comes to get the day report
  from the charge nurse; rather than taking it, however,
  she demands that the Charge Nurse give her the ver-
  bal run-down and make it “to the point.” The Super-
  visor stands at door, listening impatiently as the
  Charge Nurse speaks, and does not take any notes. Her
  pencil taps an angry rhythm against the metal spiral
  spine of her notebook. When the Charge Nurse is fin-
  ished, the Supervisor leaves without a word.
  3:50-4:00 PM: The evening shift Charge Nurse arrives,
  along with three orderlies and one student nurse. The
  five of them assemble in the nurse’s station, and the
  Day Charge Nurse reports the day’s events in the same
  monotone as the night shift report was delivered to
  her that morning. No special instructions are given
  to the late shift. All members of the day shift leave.
  4:00-4:05 PM: The Charge Nurse assembles her crew
  in the kitchen. In the early afternoon no routine work
  is necessary and the staff members are free to attend
  to random tasks on the ward. The orderlies stand and
  silently stare at the patients as they shuffle about the
  ward.
  6:00 PM, Dinner: The patients and trays are made
  ready for the evening meal. The patients eat their din-
  ner just as they did during breakfast.
  9:00 PM, Ritual: The medications are served again in
  the same way they were during the morning ritual.
  Red sleeping pills are usually administered at this time
  to insure that the patients sleep deeply.
  9:20 PM: The staff gets the patients ready for bed (the
  patients are supposed to be in bed by 10 PM, and lights
  out by 10:30). Once they are secured in their beds with
  their sheets tied tightly around them, the orderlies
  check to make sure everyone is accounted for while
  the rest of the staff clean the ward. The nurse turns
  off the lights and music with a little key that she in-
  serts into a dial in the nurse’s station. The lights are
  turned off slowly so as not to alarm the patients; the
  slow darkening in the ward makes it appear as if the
  sun is setting.
  After the lights have fallen, the only light comes
  from the nurse’s station, and the patients drift off into
  a paralyzed sleep. As they fall unconscious one by one,
  the Charge Nurse sits in her office, writing notes, un-
  til her supervisor comes to the ward and requests the
  night report. Armed with flashlights, the orderlies then
  make two more rounds (one at 10:00 PM and the other
  at 11:00 PM) to make sure everyone is sleeping. They
  shine the lights on the patient’s faces one-by-one and
  make no sound as they drift from bed to bed. Despite
  the orderlies’ white uniforms, they are almost invis-
  ible in the darkness.
  12 Midnight: The two orderlies scheduled for the mid-
  night to 8:00 A.M. shift, receive the report from the
  Evening Charge Nurse and silently take over the ward
  for the night. On the night-shift (midnight to 8:00
  A.M. shift), only two orderlies are present, and they
  are usually enough for dealing with the two or three
  patients who might awaken during the night. Patients
  who awaken are encouraged to go back to sleep as
  quickly as possible, either by taking them into an
  empty room and talking to them, or by injecting them
  with sedatives to keep them out of the way.
  
  54
  54
  Escape
  Inside The Ward
  If a patient attempts to escape from a ward or is
  creating a disturbance the orderlies can’t handle, the
  GM has the following options:
  1. A staff member gets on the phone and calls for a
  Suppression Team, a group of orderlies specially
  trained in handling violent inmates.
  2. Another nurse or orderly will reach for one (or both)
  of the weapons in the nurse’s station: one is a syringe
  prepared with a tranquilizer and the other is a fully-
  loaded tranquilizer gun. Both items are kept in a
  locked cabinet at all times when not in use (as are all
  other sharp instruments and items that could be used
  as weapons by the inmates). The following statistics
  are taken from an Eye for an Eye, p. 79, and GMs should
  feel to fill the syringes with other chemicals and
  Drains, such as weakness drugs (STR Drain) and fa-
  tigue drugs (END Drain).
  Syringe: 4D6 STUN Drain, recover once per hour (+3/
  4), OAF, Fragile (-1 1/4), 1 Charge (-2).
  Basic Tranquilizer Gun: As syringe above, except no
  “Fragile” Limitation and only four charges (-1). The
  nurses usually keep an extra clip close by to reload,
  especially in the violent and disturbed wards.
  Advanced Tranquilizer Gun: 6D6 EB, AVLD (Power
  Defense), OAF (-1), 4 Charges (-1).
  The GM may place tasers and chemical sprays,
  such as CN, CS and Oleoresin Capsicum (“O.C.”) on
  the ward as well, if they feel they are necessary in or-
  der for the staff to be able to deal with the PCs. As
  with the weapons above, these items are usually se-
  cured in locked metal cabinets (DEF 4/BODY 3).
  3. The Suppression Team arrives. (They can let them-
  selves onto the ward, as the on-duty Team supervisor
  has his own key.) Once inside, the Suppression Team
  will set about helping the orderlies and nurses sub-
  due the patient(s). The number of orderlies in a Sup-
  pression Team will vary: realistically, three for non-
  violent wards, but the GM can make an exception for
  Dark Champions campaigns and increase the num-
  ber to six or more, especially for the violent and dis-
  turbed wards. Suppression Teams will be equipped
  with tranquilizers, and may carry additional weapons,
  including unfolding nets:
  Net: 4D6 Entangle, Takes no Damage (+1/2), Area Ef-
  fect: One Hex (+1/2), OAF (-1), 1 Recoverable Charge
  (-1 1/4). This net is usually folded in a backpack and
  unpacked either before or as the orderlies arrive on
  the ward.
  Outside The Ward
  When a patient escapes from the Asylum, some
  orderlies are sent after the patient immediately, while
  the charge nurse on duty calls the Hospital Police and
  tells them the situation, identifying the patient as well
  as his direction and mode of travel (normally “on
  foot”). If the nurse believes that the patient is a high
  risk escapee, due to his dependence on medications
  or because he presents a danger to himself or others,
  the nurse will tell the police that the escaped patient
  is a “Category A” patient (Category A patients could
  be considered “penal code inmates,” i.e., they have a
  criminal record). Most nurses and orderlies label ev-
  ery escaped patient a “Category A patient,” because
  experience has taught them that the Hospital Police
  only make a serious effort to track patients if they
  think the patient is dangerous and may create a “situ-
  ation” that would result in them being fired. Lower
  category escapees are searched for half-heartedly, with
  the police making only a cursory search of the grounds
  before giving up. With Category A patients, the police
  make a concerted effort, scouring the grounds and sur-
  rounding area. In extreme situations they may call the
  Fell’s Point PD for assistance, utilizing their agency’s
  helicopter and K-9 units to track the escapee down.
  Calling The Cops
  If a patient escapes the Asylum grounds, insti-
  tutional procedure and state law require that the Asy-
  lum staff notify the Fell’s Point Police Department.
  Once they have been given the information, the FPPD
  will send an informational message to all of its patrol
  units via the computer dispatching terminal; every
  police car in Fell’s Point will receive the bulletin with
  the suspect’s description and pertinent information
  on its mobile computer terminal. The FPPD will also
  send a teletype BOLO (“Be on the Lookout”) to sur-
  rounding agencies (e.g., the Grays Harbor County
  Sheriff’s Department) as a matter of courtesy.
  There is a danger in calling the FPPD on an es-
  caped patient; if the wrong officers find a patient
  (which can often be the case in Fell’s Point), the pa-
  tient could be shot to death. Sometimes it has noth-
  ing to do with dispositions of the officers at the scene;
  confrontations with Asylum inmates often happen
  quickly and under dangerous circumstances, so that
  the officers, fearing for their lives, must resort to us-
  ing deadly force. The media often paints a different
  picture, however, especially given the FPPD’s already
  tarnished reputation.
  When dealing with escaped mental patients, es-
  pecially “Category A” escapees, the police will make
  all reasonable attempts to subdue the patient using
  
  55
  55
  non-lethal means. Such means may include chemical
  sprays, trained police dogs (K-9s), tasers, batons and
  tranquilizer darts (if available). Police often forego
  using chemical sprays, however, due to their decreased
  effectiveness against mentally ill or enraged subjects.
  When a Category A patient is captured by po-
  lice, he will be sent back to the Asylum (assuming that
  the subject is a known escapee). If officers contact a
  mentally ill subject that is unknown to them, the of-
  ficers will place the patient on a 72-hour psychiatric
  hold in one of the area Mental Health Centers. There,
  doctors will call all of the area psychiatric facilities,
  including the Asylum, to see if the patient is one of
  theirs. If the patient is deemed a threat to himself or
  others, he will be transferred to another facility and
  probably admitted or otherwise released to their care.
  Dr. Shreiver
  Val
  Char      Cost        Combat Stats
    8
  STR
  -2             OCV: 3
    9
  DEX
  -3             DCV: 3
    8
  CON
  -4             ECV: 5
    8
  BODY
  -4             Phases: 7
  16
  INT
  6
  15
  EGO
  10            Costs
  15
  PRE
  5
  10
  COM
  0             Char:       8
    Base:
  50
    2
  PD
  0
             +
   +
    2
  ED
  0             Powers: 135    Disad:
  95
    1
  SPD
  0
             =
   =
    4
  REC
  0             Totals:   143                 145
  16
  END
  0
  16
  STUN
  0
  Cost
  Powers
  END
  Hypnosis
  15
  Hypnosis: 8D6 Mind Control, 0 END (+1/2),
  Concentrate at 0 DCV (-1/2), Extra Time: 5
  Minutes (-2), Requires a SC: Hypnosis Skill Roll
  (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4) [60/15]
  37
  Hypnotic Effects: 3D6 Major Mental Transform,
  Create Hypnotic Effects (see Hypnosis, below,
  +1), BOECV (Works vs. Mental Defense, +1),
  Works vs. EGO, not BODY (+0), 0 END (+1/2),
  Concentrate at 0 DCV (-1/2), Extra Time: 5
  Minutes (-2), Incantations (-1/4), Subject must
  have been successfully hypnotized (Mind
  Controlled, -1/2) [157/37]
  Psychotherapy
  1
  1D6 EGO Aid, 0 END (+1/2), Can only raise
  EGO to starting values (-1/2), Requires a SC:
  Psychiatry Skill Roll (-1/2), Incantations
  (Psychotherapy Question and Answer Sessions, -
  1/2), Extra Time: One Week (-4) [7/1]
  Unfazeable
  3
  Presence Defense (New Power, provides10 Points
  of defense against Presence Attacks), Must know
  the attack is coming (-1/2)
  Rudimentary Mentactics
  2
  Mental Defense (5 Points), Must know the attack
  is coming (-1/2), Requires an EGO Roll (-1/2),
  Must Concentrate at 1/2 DCV (-1/4), Costs END
  (-1/2)
  1
  Shrewd Observer
        3
  Detect Lies (based on Normal Sight and/or
  Normal Hearing), 11-
  Medical Superintendent Contacts
       14
  Contacts: Faculty at Fell’s Point Psychoanalytical
  Institute, Faculty in Psychology Department of
  Fell’s Point University, Hudson City Psychoana-
  lytic Society, Staff of Journal of Nervous and
  Mental Diseases, Member of Fell’s Point State
  Legislature, Doctor Morrow, Doctor Sebastian
  Poe, all at 11-
  Skills
  Medical Superintendent
  3
  Fringe “Benefit”: Director of the Asylum
  1
  Licensed Medical Doctor
  1
  Licensed Psychiatrist
  1
  Bureaucracy, 8-
  3
  AK: Asylum, 12-
  3
  KS: Asylum, 12-
  2
  KS: Asylum Subculture, 11-
  Medical Training
  3
  Paramedic, 11-
  1
  KS: Cerebellic Mutations, 8-
  3
  KS: Contemporary Psychiatric Research, 12-
  2
  KS: Psychiatric Subculture, 11-
  5
  PS: Psychiatrist, 15-
  3
  SC: General Medicine (INT), 12-
  3
  SC: Hypnosis (INT), 12-
  5
  SC: Psychiatry (INT), 15-
  DR. SCHREIVER
  
  56
  56
  3
  SC: Pharmacology/Psychopharmaceuticals
  (INT), 12-
  1
  WF: Syringes
  Teaching Experience
  3
  PS: (Former) College Professor, 13-
  3
  PS: Journal Editor, 13-
  Background Skills
  3
  Resistance (3 pts.)
  5
  Languages: Russian, Greek and Latin (Fluent)
  3
  KS: Greek and Roman Mythology, 12-
  100+
  Disadvantages
  10
  Age: 60+
  Physical Limitations:
  5
  Far-Sighted (Infrequently, Slightly)
  5
  Poor Penmanship (Infrequently, Slightly)
  Psychological Limitations:
  20
  A Bitter, Determined and Hostile Authoritarian
  (Common, Total)
  15
  Arachnophobia (Uncommon, Total)
  10
  Public ID: Dr. Shreiver
  Reputation:
  5
  Asylum Director (Limited Group: Citizens of
  Fell’s Point), 11-
  5
  “Dangerous Psychiatrist” (Limited Group: Other
  Psychiatrists), 11-
  Watched by:
  10
  The Heretic (see Heresies, Mo Pow, NCI), 14-
  10
  Dr. Morrow and the CIA (Mo Pow, NCI), 8-
  BACKGROUND: It was August, late August,
  when the black carriage rolled past our home.
  We watched it pull to our gate, mother and I
  walking along the field lane to the road, my
  tiny hand locked in hers. Mother, when the man
  approached, sent me out to play upon the fields,
  where I had often picked wildflowers with the
  other girls from the neighboring farms.
  The man was elegantly dressed in
  shadow. The sun, the smell of Earth beneath
  his feet and the wind seemed to stir him un-
  comfortably, as if he was not used to these
  things. After he had paid respects to mother,
  he moved slowly and carefully among the fields
  toward me.
  His face had been chiseled from cold
  stone, with inky pools in his eyes. I remember
  touching his face as he bent down and feeling
  the lines that wrinkled his forehead, like steps
  leading down into his eyes.
  Those eyes swallowed me, as if into the
  depths of the Earth, as he took me into his black
  carriage and we rode from the fields. I watched
  mother recede in the mirror, wanting to cry
  out but afraid to do so.
  It had always been summer before the
  man dressed in shadow had come.
  Now the summer winds carried the dry
  taste of Fall.
  • • •
  It was 1945 when Gans took me from my
  home. In the cold silence of the black carriage,
  he informed me that I was to marry him; it
  had been decided by my father long before I
  had been born... and any chance of appeal had
  died with my father in the fires of the great
  war.
  In exchange for my hand, Gans would see
  that I was properly educated and cared for. I
  would attend the best universities, attend the
  best schools.
  And I, in turn, would attend him.
  I do not love you, I said.
  He did not even react.
  It did not matter what I felt.
  • • •
  Gans insured that education came to me
  swiftly. First came Vassar, then Columbia. Then
  Johns Hopkins. Throughout these times, Gans
  loomed like a shadow over my life. He drove
  me with his chill demeanor, and silently de-
  manded ever more from me.
  I need no nurse, he told me.
  If you will share my table, you will learn
  my craft. Your ignorance would do me, and your
  father, a disservice.
  Gans had already accepted what I was
  barely coming to understand during those
  years. That it was the mind that bound life and
  defined it.
  And yet, Gans remained pitiful in his
  great intellect.
  He remained pitiful in his need.
  • • •
  I pose a riddle to you.
  Gans needed no nurse.
  He only needed someone to care for him,
  to nurture him in his black days, to provide
  his anchor when he found his resolve slipping,
  and to comfort him when it seemed that his
  efforts were for nothing. Someone to feed him
  when the tremors became too much for him to
  feed himself. To guide him to bed when he was
  too feeble to walk. To be his eyes when the gray
  film covered them. To talk with him, debate
  theory and practice, to console him when he
  worried that nothing remained past death, past
  the black kingdom he held under his control.
  What was I then?
  Not a nurse, certainly. Gans needed no
  nurse.
  So he made me his wife.
  
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  57
  • • •
  I hated him. I would not let him touch me,
  not in mind or body. I remained impassive, dis-
  tant.
  In time, that hatred became a tired habit,
  a dull ache that only aged me faster and faster
  as the years dragged on. And I saw Gans as
  not some great shadow, but as a man. He had
  been the caretaker of the dead for so very long,
  the Asylum had entombed him with its cold
  touch. It showed him what death was. And it
  made him afraid.
  He would frequently look at me with those
  dark, bottomless eyes, seeing something in me
  that he lacked. The richness of his halls drained
  all vitality from the living, and I longed for the
  upper world, where the fields were gold, and
  seemed to bring forth boundless energy.
  Gans had never tasted such sensations;
  he had never felt life as I knew it... as I had
  known it. Because of this lack of experience, I
  knew Gans would not give up life easily. I ex-
  isted in flagrant violation of his convictions.
  I walked among his kingdom, upon the
  shades that filled the stone corridors and halls
  of the Asylum.
  I do not love you, I whispered to the walls,
  to the world that I felt all around me.
  The walls did not react.
  It did not matter what I felt.
  Things of feeling were of no consequence
  here. They could be misplaced, forgotten and
  abandoned within the walls... feelings could be
  peeled away from their creators and lost.
  Yet Gans’s fear was never far from him.
  It drove him as he had driven me. As much as
  the mind defined life, emotion defined Gans.
  He wrestled with his fear, rationalized it, con-
  tained it, categorized it, and ultimately, suc-
  cumbed to it.
  His fear drove him to terrible things. Ter-
  rible things.
  • • •
  The tilting of the Earth toward Spring had
  always had a curious, unsettling effect upon
  me. The nights no longer seemed as stark or
  cold. March froze and thawed and froze again.
  With the thaw, memories resurfaced.
  And so it came to pass that years later, I
  returned to the farm.
  Gans allowed it because I had dined from
  his table. He knew I would be forced to return.
  The fields had been laid waste, the stubby
  rows of corn like broken trees poking through
  the weight of melting snow... and mother, so
  horribly aged, rocking back and forth on the
  planks of the porch. She held me to her breast,
  and cradled me in her fragile, warm arms, even
  though I was taller than she was.
  My coming home brought the vitality
  back to her face. In the few months that were
  ours, her age seemed to dim, her eyes bright-
  ened, and I was reminded that the world is
  bright and warm and alive.
  But when summer drew to a close and
  the Fall neared, I watched the vitality die,
  slowly, taking a year of her life in every re-
  turn. My dreams became filled with black car-
  riages and a man dressed in shadow.
  I have to go, mother, I said. I belong to
  him, now.
  You have tasted the seeds of the city, she
  replied, as if that somehow explained every-
  thing. He will hold you in his cold halls until
  the summers come, and he is forced to relin-
  quish you.
  There was no anger in her voice, only age
  and a matter-of-factness, as if she had watched
  the scene transpire a thousand times before.
  • • •
  The farm is gone, mother dead, and the
  world has changed.
  There is only the nail-studded oak door,
  weathered black like a gate, that holds Gans,
  and his promise for the future of mankind.
  QUOTE: “I already count myself among the dead, Ms.
  Robinson.”
  Note: Shreiver (rhymes with “reaver”) took back her
  maiden name after Gans died. The i and e in her name
  are reversed on purpose.
  PERSONALITY: Shreiver makes no illusions that she
  is some benevolent healer, trying to make the world a
  better place through love and nurturing. She is ruth-
  less, domineering, and convinced of the righteousness
  of her actions. While she lacks the physical strength
  to fight her enemies, her intelligence, quick thinking
  and the ability to suppress her conscience have often
  allowed her to outmaneuver her foes and exploit their
  weaknesses. She is not out to make friends... she is
  out to defeat her adversaries, and she is surrounded
  by them, day and night.
  POWERS/TACTICS: Dr. Shreiver is an excellent psy-
  chiatrist, but a poor administrator. She has a grasp
  for the workings of the human mind, but not of poli-
  tics or the necessities of compromise. She believes that
  others should accept her opinions and judgments as
  fact, and that all those around her should act in ac-
  cordance with her wishes. While she is extremely
  knowledgeable on matters of psychiatry, her percep-
  tions in other areas is less than adequate.
  
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  58
  Constant exposure to Asylum patients with
  mental powers have forced Shreiver to learn rudimen-
  tary mentactics, and her mental resistance is greater
  than most human beings.
  Power Notes
  1. Dr. Shreiver has an “ability” of sorts that may be-
  come apparent only after the PCs have explored the
  Asylum without her as an escort. Shreiver is never af-
  fected by the hallucinations and delusions that seem
  to plague visitors to the Asylum, or if she is, she gives
  no indication of being disturbed by them. Whether
  this is because of her own inner strength, a form of
  mentactic defense, or because of the intervention of
  other patients is unknown... nevertheless, PCs travel-
  ing with Shreiver can thread their way through the
  most dangerous wards of the Asylum and be at con-
  siderably less risk for being attacked or deceived. It is
  as if Shreiver’s presence peels away the illusions and
  hate around her, revealing the Asylum for what it is,
  nothing more than a decrepit structure overlooking a
  decrepit city.
  2. Dr. Shreiver has an irrational fear of spiders (see
  Freak, Underworld Enemies, p. 22). Her Mental and
  Presence Defense will not work in situations or against
  powers that exploit her arachnophobia.
  Hypnosis
  Shreiver is a skilled hypnotist and can produce
  a heightened state of suggestibility in some patients
  (and PCs), and there have been several cases in which
  she has found it to be an effective therapeutic tech-
  nique. In order for her hypnosis (Mind Control) to
  work, she must be in quiet surroundings and must be
  able to speak to a subject without interruption.
  (Shreiver rarely uses a focus such as a pendulum; she
  relies on her voice.) Repetitively, softly, Shreiver in-
  forms the subject that they are getting tired, followed
  by a slow description of the subject’s arms going limp,
  their feet getting warm, their eyelids getting heavy...
  and gradually, most subjects succumb and become
  hypnotized.
  It is generally accepted that not everyone can
  be hypnotized. Still, for some reason, characters who
  are not otherwise susceptible to hypnotic suggestion
  can be successfully hypnotized by Shreiver. [1]
  In her statistics above, Shreiver has a Major
  Mental Transform labeled “Hypnosis Effects.” This is
  a quick and dirty way of simulating a number of ef-
  fects that Shreiver can accomplish with Hypnosis:
  (1) Disinhibition: Shreiver can reduce a subject’s inhibitions.
  While disinhibited, characters with a Code vs. Killing have
  been observed to pick up an (unloaded) pistol and fire sev-
  eral rounds at Shreiver or at other patients. Disinhibition
  can be treated as part of the conventional Mind Control or
  as part of the Mental Transform.
  (2) Anesthesia: Shreiver has hypnotized some subjects to
  withstand treatment and punishment that would normally
  cause great pain. Although anesthetic drugs are quicker,
  stronger, and more reliable, Shreiver has found hypnosis to
  be a surprisingly effective anesthetic for some characters.
  Specific Effect: +6PD/+6ED, resistant (the subject takes full
  accumulated BODY damage once anesthesia is removed)
  and +10 CON to resist the effects of Stunning (see Hero
  System Rulebook, p. 160). If the GM is using the Impairing
  and Disabling rules described in the Hero System Rulebook,
  then anesthesia adds +6 BODY to the subject, only to resist
  Impairing and Disabling effects. Anesthesia does not turn
  the character into a zombie; they can still carry on a con-
  versation, enjoy a good book, and think on their own. They
  just shrug off stab wounds easier than they would other-
  wise.
  (3) Sensory Distortions and Hallucinations: Shreiver has
  hypnotized subjects into having auditory, olfactory and vi-
  sual hallucinations. She can convince subjects that they hear
  sounds or see things that are not there, or make them fail
  to hear or see stimuli that are present. Characters’ sensa-
  tions may also be distorted so that something sweet tastes
  sour or an unpleasant odor smells fragrant.
  Effect: The Major Mental Transform accomplishes one or
  more of the effects listed above. Shreiver controls what sen-
  sory distortion/hallucination takes place.
  (4) Posthypnotic suggestions and amnesia: Shreiver can im-
  plant suggestions in a character’s mind to influence a
  subject’s behavior later. The most common posthypnotic
  suggestion involves creating posthypnotic amnesia; subjects
  are told that they will remember nothing while they were
  hypnotized (the equivalent of a +10 to the Effect Roll; see
  the Mind Control chart in the Hero System Rulebook, p. 78).
  This can be simulated with Mind Control or the Mental
  Transform power.
  The GM can rule that the hypnosis effects are
  either the “heal over time” variety or that they are an
  “all or nothing cure” (Shreiver or another character
  uses hypnosis or Mind Control to remove the hyp-
  notic effects).
  APPEARANCE: Shreiver was an attractive woman
  when she was young (more due to her vivacity than
  her looks), but her experiences in the Asylum have
  aged her beyond her sixty years. While her features
  are normally pale and drawn, when winter comes to
  the Asylum, she becomes sickly and her face turns
  white, almost glacial. Shreiver spends most of her time
  alone in the office, sitting quietly in her hard wooden
  chair, staring into space. Despite her hatred of rumi-
  nations and preoccupations, she often finds herself
  dwelling on what might have been and what is to
  come.
  1: Characters who study the pattern, however, will discover that
  Shreiver’s success rate is much lower outside the Asylum. Her prox-
  imity to the institution may have something to do with her talent.
  
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  Chapter Three:
  Patientz
  Sally remembered little of the
  night the shadows came for her in
  Dr. Masters’s office.
  After he had pronounced her
  sentence, there had been a moment
  of stillness before the words sunk
  in, and it seemed that he had
  shifted before her eyes, to be-
  come almost a bull of a man, grin-
  ning, grotesque.  She had stared
  at him, feeling the world slip
  away as he smiled.
  Suddenly the shades were
  there, like a blood clot, their
  starched white uniforms, their
  faces pale as if smeared with
  chalk. They did not touch her,
  they merely waited, and the threat-
  ening stillness frightened Sally.
  She shivered, as if some ghost
  had passed through her chest,
  brushing her heart.
  She remembered, even through
  the pain in her head, wondering
  if these figures that flanked her
  were in fact real, or something
  she had conjured from her imagi-
  nation. They didn’t look real, they
  didn’t seem real. Nothing happen-
  ing to her seemed real.
  She remembered wanting to tell
  the nice doctor, the one who had
  been so friendly and comforting
  before, that some mistake had been
  made, that she was Sally Anne
  Robinson, (former) defense attor-
  ney, but before she could open
  her mouth to speak, he had filled
  the silence, snatching the words
  from her before she uttered them.
  “Sally, I’ll see you soon.
  We’ll talk then, all right?” She
  somehow felt that he had meant
  the statement to be comforting,
  but she was also aware, on a deeper
  level, that he no longer cared,
  had never cared, about comforting
  her. The hierarchy in the small
  room had changed as soon as the
  costume had found its way into
  Dr. Masters’s hands. She wanted
  to scream, to cry out, and found
  that she wished the elderly man
  who had accompanied her would sud-
  denly come for her, lead her away
  from this place, save her, as he
  had saved her from Sharon.
  “Don’t scream, please,” Dr.
  Masters said softly.
  Sally found herself nodding
  involuntarily. Her every being
  rebelled against the doctor’s
  words.
  Masters did not look at the
  shades that flanked her. “Please
  go with them now.”
  Their cold, chalk-white hands
  encircled Sally’s upper arms and
  without seeming to exert any pull
  at all, raised her from the wooden
  chair. They lead her silently from
  the room, into the cold narrow
  halls of the Asylum.
  The halls looked different
  now. Much different. Sally shrank
  from the sight and shivered again,
  looking down at her feet.
  The shadows glided silently
  beside her, barely touching her.
  Routine Admission
  When a new patient is admitted to the Asylum
  (either voluntarily or by the police), the Receiving
  Ward (Ward One) sends three or four orderlies to es-
  cort the patient to the ward. The patient then remains
  on the Receiving Ward until they can schedule a time
  with Dr. Masters (see Chapter Two: Staff) to be trans-
  ferred to one of the other seven wards.
  The admission procedure consists of stripping
  the patient, noting any bruises or marks on the body,
  including moles, freckles, tatoos, and birthmarks. The
  
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  patient is then given a shower, weighed, and their tem-
  perature is taken. After the brief physical examina-
  tion, the patient is given a set of “regulation” clothes
  (patient uniforms or “greens”) and a pair of slippers.
  The patients are to wear these until name tags are
  sewed into their clothing and labels made for their
  private belongings. All the patient’s personal belong-
  ings, including eyeglasses and dentures, are listed, but
  patients are not allowed to keep any valuables. The
  staff takes note of everything a patient does or says
  during the admission procedure, which they then re-
  lay to the doctor working on the patient’s case.
  Sally did not end up in the
  Receiving Ward where her guide had
  taken her on the night she had
  arrived. For some reason, she had
  been sealed inside a small cell,
  a cell which had no windows, a
  soft brown (beige) floor and walls,
  and a featureless door with rounded
  hinges. It was as if they didn’t
  want her to be seen by anyone else.
  Before sealing her in the room,
  they had done a cursory examina-
  tion, tended to her head, her cuts,
  looking her over like checking
  items off on a chart.
  Possible head trauma, psy-
  chotic features, scrapes and
  bruises on arms and legs
  They had given her a new set
  of clothes, ugly green clothes,
  like pajamas
  Was she carrying anything when
  she arrived
  Needles passed into her arm
  without her feeling them
  Help you sleep
  I don’t want to sleep, Sally
  had told the blurred figures that
  surrounded her. When I sleep I
  have this dream that I’m in the
  Asylum and
  The laughter of the figures
  were whispers around her
  Then blackness
  • • •
  In her dreams, there was some-
  one speaking to her, but she was
  too tired to listen.
  • • •
  The pain awakened her.
  Sandpaper lined the inside of
  her eyelids and scraped against
  her eyes as they rolled in their
  sockets. As she shifted from where
  she lay on the floor, her head
  throbbed. Her arms hurt, her
  legs... everything ached. Her up-
  per arm was swollen, and she could
  feel the raised bumps and the sore-
  ness from where it seemed a dozen
  needles had found their way be-
  neath her skin.
  She glanced down at herself,
  saw the ugly green patient uni-
  form that she was wearing. There
  had been a mistake. She needed to
  talk to someone. There had been a
  mistake.
  She swallowed, her throat dry,
  cracked. The act of swallowing sent
  a sliver of pain along the back
  of her neck, right where her spine
  shot up through her neck, and she
  winced.
  The room was barren. The floors
  and walls were soft enough to sleep
  on, but there was nothing in the
  room. Nothing except Sally.
  This terrified her. She didn’t
  want to be alone. She staggered
  to her feet, sinking slightly into
  the floor, and walked slowly over
  to the door, feeling its surface
  slightly, then tapping against it.
  Her movements were rewarded with
  new pains in her arms, legs and
  head.
  There was no response as she
  tapped the door. The fear boiled
  up within her, and she began to
  pound against the door, slamming
  the bottom of her fist against
  it, again and again and again.
  The room, almost bored by the
  display, swallowed the sound of
  her fear, muffled it until Sally’s
  movements slowed, her arms and head
  burning, and forced her to slump
  down against the floor.
  She closed her eyes and
  drifted.
  • • •
  When she opened her eyes again,
  she was not sure if she was dream-
  ing or not. She felt hungry and
  tired, but the room had a curi-
  ous, hazy quality to it that made
  the color (beige-brown-sand) blur
  and her hands and body seem dis-
  tant and removed. Her body was on
  the floor, and she was...
  
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  61
  She could not recall why she
  had awoken. It was not the pain
  this time.
  There was something new in the
  room, she noticed, something
  shiny. Trying to focus, she
  squinted at the new angles that
  divided the brown walls into
  pieces. Before her was an ugly
  metal table, gray, small, with two
  ugly gray metal chairs. The chairs
  had been pulled back, as if wait-
  ing for a couple to come and sit
  in them.
  Sally had no idea where these
  skeletal furnishings had come
  from. She had not dreamed (about)
  them.
  What had she dreamed? Her stom-
  ach gurgled in hunger as she
  shifted on the floor. She could
  not remember what she had dreamed.
  For some reason, that was impor-
  tant, but she couldn’t remember
  why.
  Sally stood up, slowly, then
  reached out to touch one of the
  chairs, as if in confirmation. It
  was cold, and sent pins and needles
  along her numbed (?) fingers. She
  swayed, and the thin fabric of
  her green uniform rubbed against
  her legs and back as she sat in
  the chair. The chair was cold.
  The metal table surface had a
  dull shine. One could see oneself
  in it. Like looking in a mirror.
  Then Sally heard the sound.
  • • •
  When Sally heard the sound,
  she jumped... this was the first
  thing she had heard since she had
  come here (?... How long had that
  been? A day? A week?). The sound
  was the jingle of keys, metal be-
  ing inserted into a lock.
  The table and chairs stood
  stiffly at attention, the legs
  rigid. Sally, paralyzed, mimicked
  them.
  There was a click.
  Sally watched a section of the
  wall where the door was swing back,
  until there was a black rectangle
  in the plain of beige before her.
  She opened her mouth in surprise,
  then recoiled as she saw a white-
  garbed figure fill the black space.
  The figure stood there for a
  moment, then the beige-brown rect-
  angle sealed closed behind her,
  refilling the plain and leaving
  the white silhouette behind. Sally
  opened her mouth again but found
  she could not speak.
  “Yes?” the visitor said. “Is
  there something you wish to say?”
  • • •
  It was the first thing that
  came into her head.
  “You’re a woman,” Sally of-
  fered, then wiped her nose. Her
  tongue felt thick, and her eyes
  felt swollen. “You’re the first
  woman doctor I’ve seen,” she added.
  She sounded like she was trying
  to speak through a rag, and her
  head throbbed.
  The woman stood at the door,
  framed. She was old. The doctor’s
  coat she wore was like a shroud,
  and her face was stern. It was
  not the face of someone who smiled.
  The woman sat down opposite
  Sally, set a file on the desk and
  stared at her.
  “Does that surprise you?”
  Sally did not reply, and she
  blinked through her inflamed eye-
  lids. Finally, she shook her head.
  “No. But you’re very old,” she
  said. The woman doctor did not
  flinch. Sally felt the words com-
  ing out of her, spilling out, the
  drugs (?) having loosened some
  handle, some floodgate in her.
  “You’re very old. It must be ter-
  rible to be so old. And be here.”
  Sally nodded, her vision fuzzy.
  “And you must be alone among the
  men. It must be difficult. To be
  here... every day. Terrible.”
  “Yes, terrible,” Shreiver ech-
  oed. She opened the file and drew
  a pen from her coat pocket. Her
  voice was an echo only.
  Sally stared at the reflec-
  tion of herself in the metal sur-
  face of the table and smiled at
  the disheveled figure she saw
  there.
  She knew that there was not
  much that separated them now. The
  tension lines were drawing tight,
  and the knot in her chest, the
  pain that she had kept pressed
  
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  down was becoming too much to hold
  in.
  It would only be a matter of
  time before the reflections met.
  There would be a terrible colli-
  sion.
  The reflection stared at her.
  Its eyes were cold and flat.
  “I’m ready for you,” Sally
  said. She looked up at Dr.
  Shreiver. “I’m ready for you.”
  • • •
  “Why are you keeping me here?”
  Sally spoke, and her words seemed
  to splinter in her ears. “You don’t
  have any right to keep me here.”
  “You’re wrong,” Shreiver re-
  plied. From her folder came a yel-
  low legal pad, and there was the
  sharp click as Shreiver readied
  her pen. “You committed yourself.
  You’ve also made it clear that
  you wish us to take responsibil-
  ity for you.”
  “I want to leave.” Sally’s
  voice had become curiously child-
  like, almost petulant, and in some
  distant part of her mind, Sally
  felt disgusted at herself. But the
  things the doctor had said... she
  had agreed to none of them. Or if
  she had, she could not remember
  them.
  “I want to leave,” she re-
  peated.
  “You’re not stepping outside
  this cell.” Shreiver barely raised
  her voice, but Sally felt as if
  she had been slapped. Shreiver’s
  eyes trained on Sally, and she
  adjusted herself on the chair.
  “Let’s begin.” Shreiver touched
  her pen to the legal pad. “Tell
  me who you are.”
  • • •
  Sally told Dr. Shreiver who
  she was. At the end, Shreiver asked
  if Sally thought she was Purge.
  “No,” Sally replied.
  Shreiver did not seem sur-
  prised by the response, and Sally
  was not surprised that Shreiver
  did not seem to believe her.
  • • •
  Dr. Shreiver left Sally.
  Ghostly shapes came and in-
  jected her with drugs to make her
  sleep until the doctor returned.
  The needles slipped beneath the
  skin, and as they did so, the days
  began to blur into a cycle of
  Shreiver’s returns.
  It was the only way Sally found
  to measure time.
  Upon Shreiver’s returns, the
  questions inevitably continued.
  • • •
  “Can you tell me why you came
  here, Sally?”
  It was the third time the doc-
  tor had asked the question.
  “Sam. I came here to find out
  about Sam. Could you please tell
  me about Sam?”
  It was the third time Sally
  had asked the question. The echo
  bumped around inside her head.
  Shreiver seemed irritated by
  the response. She narrowed her
  eyes, then frowned in what seemed
  to be confusion. “All right.
  Sam...?”
  “Sam Saunders,” Sally contin-
  ued. “Crusader.” She smiled, hop-
  ing that the name would somehow
  jar Shreiver’s memory.
  The doctor did not reply.
  “I came here because Sam was
  here, before... a few years be-
  fore he was killed.”
  Shreiver looked confused, and
  new wrinkles appeared on her fore-
  head and at the edges of her lips.
  “Um, I saw him, in a patient
  uniform, in a photograph.” As she
  spoke, Sally suddenly realized how
  lame it sounded. “I thought he
  had been here.”
  “To my knowledge, we have never
  had a Sam Sanders here at the Asy-
  lum,” Shreiver replied.
  “Saunders.” Sally said. “Sam
  Saunders.”
  “Whatever,” Shreiver replied.
  • • •
  Sally distantly remembered
  telling Dr. Shreiver about Sam
  being killed. Sally didn’t feel
  any emotion when she told the story
  this time. It felt like it had
  happened years ago.
  
  63
  63
  Sally watched as Shreiver
  calmly wrote down the information
  on the yellow legal pad on her
  knee.
  • • •
  Sally slept without dreaming.
  When she awoke, it hurt to think,
  so she learned to force herself
  back to sleep to keep from stay-
  ing conscious.
  The drugs took root in her
  mind, and the sessions with
  Shreiver began to splinter and
  fragment until time itself became
  immeasurable.
  • • •
  “And what about this man...
  Daniel Sheridan?” Shreiver skimmed
  over her notes. “‘Crusade?’”
  “Like Crusader,” Sally said.
  “Except with no ‘r.’ As in ‘re-
  straint.’”
  Shreiver ignored the comment.
  “This man, Daniel Sheridan, what
  happened to him?”
  “He was arrested in Hudson
  City, I think.” Sally shifted in
  her chair. She didn’t feel like
  talking about Daniel. It made her
  head hurt.
  “Did you see him again after
  that night in Sam’s apartment?”
  “No,” Sally said. “I didn’t
  ever want to see him again. Ever.
  I...” Sally frowned. Had she re-
  ally thought this? “I... wanted
  him to go away.”
  “Crusader?”
  Sally shook her head. “No...
  Crusade.”
  “They sound like the same per-
  son,” Shreiver said. “That’s in-
  teresting, since they both did go
  away, didn’t they? Are you sure
  they weren’t the same person?”
  Sally blinked.
  “Crusade... Daniel...,” Sally
  paused. “He wasn’t like Sam. Sam
  was a human being.” She swallowed
  again. “Daniel was like... this
  force. Like a statement. He didn’t
  even seem human to me, even at
  the end.”
  • • •
  “And you?” Shreiver prodded.
  “How did you feel at the end of
  all this?”
  “Difficult.” Sally scratched
  her arm without feeling it. “I
  didn’t... I don’t...” She paused,
  trying to find the words. “I didn’t
  feel like... myself, I suppose. I
  felt like someone had given me a
  shake and said ‘wake up.’”
  Shreiver’s pen continued to
  scratch on the paper.
  “Well?” Shreiver said. “Did
  you ‘wake up?’”
  Sally thought about that, bit
  her lip, then shook her head
  slowly.
  “I don’t know...” Sally
  touched her forehead, feeling for
  sore spots. “It’s strange, and I
  don’t... before what happened, I
  didn’t notice it before, but ever
  since...” Sally drew her hand away
  from her forehead. “Ever since
  then, I haven’t felt like myself...
  not all the time, just sometimes.
  I felt... I feel...” she paused
  and corrected herself. “I feel like
  I’m outside the world, looking in.
  Like I’m reading a story, but I’m
  not a story. I’m not in a story.
  I’m there, but I’m not.”
  Sally took a breath.
  “I’m looking in, but I can’t
  change what I see and what I hear.
  Things happen to me, and I can’t
  affect things.” Sally swallowed,
  then looked at Shreiver.
  “I don’t like it,” Sally mur-
  mured, and she found her voice
  hardening. “I don’t like being
  someone to whom things just hap-
  pen.” She frowned, and the act
  caused her head to hurt even more,
  the pain to become sharper, but
  this time, Sally welcomed it. “I
  can almost hear them saying...”
  She raised her hand, as if point-
  ing at a crowd of invisible fig-
  ures. “‘Look, there’s Sally
  Robinson. You won’t believe what
  happened to her.’” The pain be-
  came sharper, and Sally winced.
  “I’m sick of it.”
  “So you decided to take ac-
  tion.” Shreiver said, then leaned
  forward slightly, as if trying to
  draw something out of Sally. “Prove
  them wrong. Take revenge. Become
  Purge.”
  
  64
  64
  Sally’s eyes were dry. Her
  eyelids burned when she closed
  them, and she spoke to the dark-
  ness.
  “I’m not Purge,” Sally said.
  “I won’t let the story end like
  that.”
  • • •
  “But you did come here. To do
  something.” Shreiver was still
  leaning forward, as if hoping to
  see something in Sally if she
  looked closely enough. “Do what?”
  “I told you,” Sally said. “I
  wanted to come and find out about
  Sam—”
  Shreiver waved her hand
  dismissively, and the action both
  surprised Sally and angered her.
  It was as if the truth bored
  Shreiver.
  “Damn you,” Sally hissed.
  Bolts of pain shot through her
  skull. “I told you why I came here.
  I told you I’m not Purge. I told
  you everything, and I told you
  the truth. If you don’t believe
  me, that’s your problem, not mine.”
  Sally glared at the woman oppo-
  site her. “Let me out of here.
  Now.”
  “No,” Shreiver said. She
  leaned back in her chair, non-
  plused. “Not on your life.”
  • • •
  Sally slept, awoke, then slept
  again.
  It seemed to Sally that
  Shreiver’s returns were accompa-
  nied by endless questions. It hurt
  her to hear them.
  It was made more maddening by
  the fact that Shreiver would ac-
  cept none of her answers.
  • • •
  “I’m not out for revenge,”
  Sally spoke. “I don’t want to hurt
  anyone. I’m not Purge.”
  The doctor nodded. Tolerantly.
  “What did you want when Sam
  died?”
  Sally paused.
  “I suppose I wanted justice,”
  Sally remarked, her voice stiff.
  She had never articulated what she
  had wanted before, at that moment
  when she saw Sam in the morgue.
  “I... wanted to see him punished
  for what he had done.”
  Shreiver sighed, and to
  Sally’s surprise, the doctor’s
  next words did not form a ques-
  tion. “Miss Robinson, more crimes
  have been committed in the name
  of justice...” Her withered hands
  rubbed her eyes, as if to wipe
  away some cloud or mist that had
  gathered there. “When people say
  they want justice, they don’t re-
  ally want justice, they just want
  to see the pain spread around
  equally.” Shreiver gave her a pa-
  tronizing look. “I don’t believe
  in murder, Miss Robinson. I don’t
  believe in revenge.”
  Shreiver sighed again, this
  time in irritation.
  “Now what do you want? Re-
  ally?”
  • • •
  “Who did you want to see pun-
  ished?”
  “Daniel.” Sally replied. “Cru-
  sade.” She was sure it had been
  clear before.
  Shreiver adjusted herself on
  her seat.
  “And not Sam?”
  “Why would I want to punish
  Sam?” Sally shook her head. “Have
  you been listen—”
  Shreiver held up her hand, and
  Sally stopped speaking for a mo-
  ment, then continued on angrily
  before Shreiver could interject.
  “Have you been listening to me?
  Why would I punish Sam—”
  And suddenly, she knew.
  “He left me here.” Sally spoke
  slowly. “That was what hurt most
  of all... he left me here alone.
  He died, and left all of this...”
  she swallowed, “...all this dam-
  age after he died.”
  Sally frowned. “And he left
  me to clean it up. He was never
  honest with me about who he was,
  who he really was... and then...
  then he went away.”
  Sally paused then glanced at
  Shreiver, who was watching her
  carefully.
  “I hate him for that.” Sally
  swallowed again, taking her eyes
  
  65
  65
  from Shreiver. “I hate him for
  the hurting.”
  • • •
  “So Sam died,” Shreiver said,
  slowly, testing the water. Her pen
  was poised in her hand. “And—”
  Sally’s eyes were dry. She drew
  her hands, folded them across her
  eyes to cover them, but she had
  no idea why. It provided some small
  comfort, and she found she didn’t
  want to look at the doctor as she
  was speaking... she didn’t want
  to see Shreiver, or the cell in
  which she had been placed. She
  didn’t want to be reminded where
  she was.
  “It hurt. It still hurts.”
  Sally drew a breath, and her voice
  began to shake. “It hurts to feel
  all of it. When my father died,
  what I felt,” she gestured to her
  chest, still covering her face with
  her other hand, “...the hurting...
  it was like an ache compared to
  this. I don’t think I ever really
  knew what it was like to have some-
  one I loved separated from me.”
  There was a slow silence, and
  Sally opened her hands. She hoped
  that Shreiver did not intend to
  ask any more questions. She was
  tired. She glanced at the woman
  opposite from her.
  Shreiver was staring at her,
  entranced.
  As if she understood.
  • • •
  “You lost this man, Sam,”
  Shreiver prompted. The statement
  echoed a thousand times and blurred
  into endless responses in Sally’s
  voice. This time, she elected to
  remain silent.
  Sally nodded, staring at her
  hands. They were shriveling, be-
  coming ragged.
  “Did you come here to get re-
  venge against me?”
  Sally blinked, then looked up
  to meet Shreiver’s gaze. “No,” she
  whispered. The thought had not even
  crossed her mind. “For what?”
  Shreiver shrugged, almost ca-
  sually, as if the answer wasn’t
  important, but Sally knew that for
  some reason, it was. “You tell
  me. Purge is a revenge-motivated
  killer, correct?”
  “I suppose,” Sally said. She
  hadn’t really thought about it.
  She wasn’t getting the angle.
  “You must have come here for
  some sort of revenge. You feel
  that perhaps the patients—”
  Sally carefully examined
  Shreiver as she spoke.
  “—were somehow responsible,
  perhaps indirectly, for Sam’s
  death, so you came here to get
  revenge, correct?”
  Sally said nothing for a mo-
  ment.
  “No...” she murmured. “No. You
  changed what you said...” She tried
  to press her point, but it was
  difficult keeping the thought
  straight in her head. “Why did
  you say that I’d come here to get
  revenge against you? Why would I
  want to hurt you?”
  She was missing something. She
  could tell, just by looking at
  Shreiver, that something was miss-
  ing from the chain that prevented
  her from drawing a connection.
  “You said Sam was never here.
  That you’d never known anyone by
  that name.” Sally’s eyes narrowed.
  Shreiver said nothing, merely
  stared at her blankly.
  “Did you? Did you know him?”
  Sally prompted.
  “I never heard of Sam Saunders
  before I researched your case,”
  Shreiver said.
  • • •
  Sally slept. Shreiver’s words
  seemed to follow her into uncon-
  sciousness and burrow beneath the
  skin.
  • • •
  “You said there was someone
  else, someone who led you here.”
  Shreiver’s pen paused on the le-
  gal pad. “Who was he?”
  Sally fought with the ques-
  tion.
  “I don’t know,” she said, fi-
  nally. “He never spoke. He was an
  old gentleman, almost as old as
  you are. He... um. He took me to
  the Receiving Ward. He tried to
  make me stay there, so...”
  
  66
  66
  so I wouldn’t go further into
  the Asylum
  “So I could rest. But it hurt
  too much to stay, so...”
  “Do you have any idea why this
  patient would help you?”
  Sally was about to shake her
  head, when she paused. She knew
  why he had helped her.
  The answer was so simple it
  surprised Sally.
  “He saw I was hurt.”
  • • •
  Sally asked Shreiver if she
  had any idea who the elderly
  gentleman might be. She wanted to
  thank him for helping her.
  Shreiver nodded. She said she
  had checked the Receiving Ward and
  that the man’s name was J Curtis.
  The other patients sometimes
  called him the Poet.
  “There’s no reason for it,”
  Shreiver added.
  Shreiver mentioned that Mr.
  Curtis had been at the Asylum for
  many years. She claimed that he
  was a mute, and that she knew very
  little about him.
  Sally felt the lies, but she
  let them pass. Sally had discov-
  ered that Shreiver would lower her
  voice when she lied, as if afraid
  someone would overhear her...
  other than the person she was ly-
  ing to, that is.
  Sally found she was too tired
  to argue.
  • • •
  When Sally awoke, Shreiver was
  speaking.
  “Purge was here a few years
  ago,” Shreiver replied, as if Sally
  had asked a question. “Of course,
  that was the real Purge... same
  costume, though.” She sniffed,
  touched her nose with her finger,
  as if to scratch something away.
  “I want to show you something.”
  She fished in her manila folder,
  then pulled forth some glossy pho-
  tographs and laid them on the
  table. “Here.”
  Sally glanced at them impas-
  sively. There were a number of
  shapes in the picture. Shapes of
  green and flesh and red. It took
  a moment for her to connect the
  shapes to human beings... the
  strange things did not resemble
  human beings. They had been bro-
  ken and split into non-human
  shapes.
  There was something written
  above some of the shapes.
  HEATHEN.
  The word was repeated over and
  over again, written in red above
  the bodies.
  “Do you know who did this?”
  Shreiver prompted.
  Sally looked up. “Purge,” she
  said. The name didn’t come out as
  a question, as she had originally
  intended. At some point during the
  interview, her voice had flat-
  tened.
  “Yes,” Shreiver replied.
  “These pictures were taken shortly
  after Purge had escaped from his
  cell. He...” Shreiver shifted in
  her chair to stretch her legs
  slightly. “He apparently felt the
  patients had been conspiring
  against him, had purposely lured
  him to the Asylum, trapped him
  here, were torturing him, so he
  ‘fought back.’”
  “What happened?” Sally re-
  plied. She wanted to know, but
  she didn’t. This wasn’t about her.
  This had nothing to do with her.
  “The patients... you might not
  think this to look at them, but
  they have a certain camaraderie
  here within the walls. As it hap-
  pened, Purge was found and mur-
  dered a few hours after he had
  killed these patients. I won’t bore
  you with the details.” She
  shrugged. “As a consequence, we
  thought Purge was dead. But now
  you come to us, drop this costume
  in our laps...” Shreiver stared
  at her. “Tell me who you are.”
  “Sally. Sally Robinson.”
  “No,” Shreiver shook her head.
  “That’s not what the patients here
  are going to believe. You’re not
  the only delusional we have here.
  They’ll think you’re Purge and
  treat you accordingly. Do you un-
  derstand what that means?”
  Sally stared down at the pho-
  tographs again.
  HEATHEN.
  
  67
  67
  Introduction
  Specific male and female Asylum inmates are
  presented in this chapter. If the GM wishes, a
  character’s DNPC or family member can be placed in
  the Asylum as a schizophrenic aunt, a paranoid grand-
  father or whatever. These characters can serve as Con-
  tacts or as adventure seeds.
  This chapter is hardly a complete listing of all
  the patients in the Asylum; future patients and other
  disturbed personalities will be presented in this
  book's companion volume, Asylum Bedtime Stories.
  Patient Presentation
  The patients in this section are divided by gen-
  der and are also presented with statistics, notes, and
  suggestions for what ward they should be placed in.
  The GM should place patients where they can maxi-
  mize role-playing.
  Statistics: The patients in this chapter do not have their
  statistics written out because many of them conform
  to one of the character templates on pp.133-134 of
  the Hero System Rulebook (Incompetent, Senior Citi-
  zen, Normal, and so on), usually with a reduced INT
  and EGO to account for their mental illness. Some
  have an increased PRE to account for their strange
  moods and unpredictable behavior.
  These patients do not always possess the full
  range of Everyman Skills (Hero System Rulebook, p.
  18); in such cases, this will be listed on their character
  brief. In addition to their normal Disadvantages
  (which can run from zero to a hundred points), all
  patients are assumed have Distinctive Features: Pa-
  tient (Uniform, Concealable, Major) and Monitored
  by the Asylum Staff (Ls Pow) on an 8 or less.
  Male Patientz
  Babyface James                               [ADMISSIONS WARD]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with 13
  DEX, 9 INT and 8 EGO.] +1” Running
  (7” Total), Contact: “Pickett,” a Fell’s
  Point Fence, 8-, Lockpicking 12-,
  Sleight of Hand 12-, Stealth 12-,
  Streetwise 11-, AK: The Fell’s Point
  Borough 11-, WF: Small Arms.
  25+ Disadvantages: Reputation: “Babyface James,
  two-bit thief,” (Limited Area: The Fell’s Point Bor-
  ough) on an 8 or less.
  Appearance: A smooth-faced young black man, not
  more than twenty years old, with a thin, lean frame
  and a wild gleam in his eyes. He often murmurs about
  Jesus, occasionally gesticulating wildly with his hands.
  Notes: Babyface James is a small-time hood who has
  developed a system to avoid being prosecuted in Fell’s
  Point. Mostly working the Fell’s Point Borough as a
  petty thief, he makes sure his thefts are always small-
  time, such as hub caps, walkmans, wallets, that kind
  of thing, just enough to keep him under the grand
  larceny rap. Still, he knows that because of the sheer
  number of thefts he pulls, arrests are not only an oc-
  cupational hazard, but bound to happen with regu-
  larity. Nevertheless, he also knows how much the Fell’s
  Point police detest busy work, especially considering
  the relatively minor items James steals. So, to relieve
  the cops of the chore of having to fill out a bunch of
  forms and send him to jail, whenever the cops cuff
  him, Babyface starts talking wildly about Jesus. As long
  as he talks crazy and puts up half a decent front, he
  ends up in the Asylum instead of in jail. Once in the
  Asylum, he simply waits until he is released.
  Glenn Beckman
               [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Normal with 12 DEX, 11 CON,
  13 INT, 8 EGO, and 8 PRE.] Glenn is
  not believed to possess any paranor-
  mal powers. He claims he can see “elec-
  tricity in the air, like flickering insects,”
  but this is believed to be due to his hal-
  lucinations. He possesses Computer Science 8-, Elec-
  tronics 8-, Mechanics 8-, Tactics 8- (Paranoia), PS:
  High School Guidance Counselor (PRE) 11-, SC: Psy-
  chology 12-, Danger Sense (Intuitional), Out of Com-
  bat, Immediate vicinity 12- (Paranoia) and Defense
  Maneuver I (See UMA, p. 145; this is also a result of
  his Paranoia).
  50+ Disadvantages: Vulnerability (Psychosomatic), x2
  Effect from Psionic Attacks, Enraged if contacted tele-
  pathically (Uncommon/Common, depending on
  campaign) 11-, 11-, Psychological Limitation: Para-
  noid Schizophrenia (Common, Strong), Distinctive
  Features: Scar on forehead (Concealable, Noticed) and
  2D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A black male, about 6’ 3”, with a thin,
  bony frame. He appears to be in his late forties, al-
  though the many wrinkles etched into his face make
  determining his age difficult. There is a long scar on
  his forehead that runs from the upper left of his skull
  down to just above his right eye. Although his eyes
  dart about, they will focus and track the movement
  of any character who comes within striking distance
  of him. Occasionally a tear travels down the man’s face,
  but he does not seem to be aware of it.
  Notes: Glenn is thirty, but he has aged badly. A former
  guidance counselor at Montgomery High School in
  Fell’s Point, he had an affair with one of the students
  at the school and was subsequently attacked by the
  teenager’s father, who cornered him in his office with
  a baseball bat. It is believed that Glenn was in the early
  
  68
  68
  stages of Paranoid Schizophrenia for many years be-
  fore the attack, but his disorder was exacerbated by
  the head trauma and has been deteriorating ever since.
  He has been in the Asylum for only a month and is
  adjusting poorly. His overbearing wife, Eunice, comes
  to visit him once a week. He seems to be terrified of
  her and flinches whenever her name is mentioned.
  Glenn experiences auditory and visual halluci-
  nations. He claims to have seen bright, flickering “in-
  sects” swarming in the air, and in thick clouds around
  the walls and ceilings of the Asylum. He also claims
  he can hear his wife and other figures speaking to him
  (including the teenager he had an affair with, her fa-
  ther, and the principal of Montgomery School who
  fired him), berating him and reinforcing his own sense
  of worthlessness. When given a choice, Glenn will shun
  others on the ward and retreat to a safe corner, his
  eyes alert for some imaginary threat.
  William “Iron Bill” Billings
               [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with an 8 INT,
  8 EGO and 12 PRE.] He is relatively
  lucid (at this time; see Disadvantages,
  below) and has most Everyman Skills
  along with the Lightsleep Talent, AK:
  Fell’s Point Penitentiary (the “Pen”) 8,
  WF: Knives, Pistols, and Prison Weapons.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Hos-
  tile (Common, Moderate), Psychological Limitation:
  Occasional Depressive Symptoms (Uncommon, Mod-
  erate), Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia (Chronic,
  Common, Moderate),
  Distinctive Features: Tat-
  too on left forearm
  (Concealable, Noticed)
  and 1D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A tiny, frail
  white male in his fifties
  or early sixties. He is al-
  most bald except for
  dirty gray hair above the
  ears and on the back of
  his head. He is relatively
  well-groomed and neat,
  although he occasionally
  picks his nose. A poorly-
  done tattoo of a skull
  with a serpent slithering
  through the eye sockets
  has been stitched on his
  left forearm. A book is
  usually tucked under his
  arm.
  Notes: “Iron Bill” is a 53
  year old Roman Catho-
  lic with a criminal record. His delinquent behavior
  began when he was twelve, culminating in armed rob-
  bery attempt when he was eighteen. Arrested and sen-
  tenced to the Fell’s Point Penitentiary (the Pen) for
  ten years, he began to manifest strange behavior in
  prison. Shortly after his release, he violated parole, and
  he was sent to the Asylum, where the intensity of his
  behavior increased. In the first three months of his
  stay, he began to have delusions, manic episodes and
  set fire to his mattress twice. While Bill has calmed
  somewhat since his early days, he can still be danger-
  ous if he feels he is being threatened. He is hostile to
  newcomers and may try and see how far he can push
  them without actually getting into a fight.
  Bill spends most of his time reading and trying
  to “broaden his horizons.” While his Schizophrenia is
  currently in remission (this is the reason for his “high”
  INT and EGO), it is only a matter of time before he
  returns to a fully psychotic state. Bill frequently has
  bouts of mania and depression, though they are not
  serious enough to qualify as Major Depressive or
  Manic Episodes.
  (“Bad”) Brian
               [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Use the Skilled Normal tem-
  plate for Brian’s Manic Episode and the
  Incompetent template for his Depres-
  sive Phase.] Brian has standard
  Everyman Skills. When he is in his De-
  pressive Episode, he may not have the
  strength or energy to use them.
  25+ Disadvantages: En-
  raged if Attacked or if
  approached in a “father-
  like” manner (i.e., pa-
  tronizing, commanding,
  treating Brian like a
  child, and so on; Com-
  mon) 11-, 11-, but Brian
  has the Enraged Disad-
  vantage only when hav-
  ing a Manic Episode (-1/
  2), Psychological Limita-
  tion: (Rapid-Cycling)
  Bipolar I Disorder with
  Psychotic Delusions
  (Common, Strong), Psy-
  chological Limitation:
  Heroin 
  Addiction
  (Weak, Uncommon,
  Moderate), Physical
  Limitation: Near Sighted
  (Infrequently, Slightly)
  Appearance: An athletic
  white male in his mid-
  twenties with a slightly
  disheveled appearance.
  LEFT TO RIGHT: GLENN BECKMAN, "BAD" BRIAN,
  BABYFACE JAMES, IRON BILL
  
  69
  69
  He has sandy blonde hair and freckles, with a square
  face and bright green eyes.
  Notes: Brian (24 years old) has a history of impulsive
  behavior and was admitted shortly after he attacked
  his father. He has a past history of drug abuse (heroin)
  and although he is not doing drugs now, he may have
  a relapse (he has taken the drug several times during
  his stay at the Asylum, only to be forced into with-
  drawal by the staff when they find his cache of drugs).
  When the characters first arrive at the Asylum, Brian
  will be in one of Manic Episodes. As a result, he has
  bursts of hyperactivity, and any character speaking to
  him may be alarmed by the way he leaps on top of
  furniture and gestures dramatically to make a point.
  Although Brian appears alert and lucid, he is psychotic
  and has a considerable reservoir of animosity, espe-
  cially toward his father. His emotions rotate like a car-
  ousel, cycling through anger, depression and irrita-
  tion. No matter what emotional state he is in, Brian
  acts defensive and denies he has any problems; he
  blames his current “imprisonment” on his father, the
  government, and Big Brother, who are acting against
  him to prevent him from being successful.
  Bailey Burr
             [WARD 8F]
  Skills: [Normal with 12 STR, 8 INT, 9
  EGO.] Bailey has no Everyman Skills
  except for Language: English (2-3
  Points).
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Schizo-
  phrenia, Undifferentiated with Auditory Hallucina-
  tions (Common, Strong), Psychological Limitation:
  Borderline Personality Disorder (Common, Moder-
  ate), Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Fre-
  quently, Slightly), Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic
  Behavior (Not Concealable, Major), Distinctive Fea-
  tures: Mangled Hands (see Appearance; Concealable,
  Noticed).
  Appearance: A large white male in his late twenties,
  with a sloping forehead, bulbous nose, and big lips.
  He sports a large, dumb smile and frequently scratches
  himself through the thin fabric of his patient uniform.
  His hands are covered with scars, especially around
  the tips of his fingers, and the pinkie and forefinger
  are missing from his left hand. (They have been sev-
  ered where they meet his palm.)
  Notes: Bailey is a schizophrenic, which doesn’t really
  make him anything special compared to most of the
  Asylum patients except he also has a Borderline Per-
  sonality Disorder and loves to “play games.” He al-
  ways tries to set the staff against each other, everyone
  from the orderlies to the therapist, acting differently
  around each (being friendly to one, sullen to another,
  passing on lies, being nice to the therapist when visit-
  ing them, screaming at the charge nurse when he gets
  back to the ward, obeying one orderly with a smile,
  then refusing to listen to another). Even if he can’t
  provoke the PCs, he will try and stir up the other pa-
  tients and staff against them. Play Burr as a stupid
  meddlesome jerk.
  Burr’s schizophrenia is pretty advanced; he ex-
  periences auditory hallucinations that tell him to stick
  things in his ears... usually cigarette butts. He goes
  along with the voices because it makes sense to him
  that if he stuck things in his ears that would block out
  the voices. When possible, he scrounges butts from
  the ashtrays and from other patients to serve as ear-
  plugs.
  His mangled hands are a testament to what can
  happen when Bailey can’t find anything to stick in his
  ears. During a particularly bad episode, he bit off both
  the fingers of his left hand and jammed them in his
  ears. Occasionally the staff catch him chewing on his
  other fingers.
  “Charlie”
               [WARD 6]
  Skills: [Normal with 9 INT, 8 EGO, 9
  PRE and 8 COM.] Everyman Skills,
  CK: Fell’s Point 11-, PS: Factory
  Worker 11-, WF: Small Arms.
  25+ Disadvantages: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia
  with Paranoid Features and Religious Delusions
  (Chronic, Very Common, Strong), Psychological Limi-
  tation: Alcoholism (Medium Addiction, Common,
  Strong), Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behav-
  ior (Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: A tall white man in his late twenties with
  greasy black hair down to his shoulders. He stares
  blankly into space. There are scars on his neck (ap-
  parently made by a knife or razor). He appears un-
  kempt, untidy, and he often wipes his nose on the
  sleeves of his uniform or lets food fall on his lap dur-
  ing meals.
  Notes: Charlie is 22 years old. A Jehovah’s Witness by
  religion and native to the Fell’s Point peninsula, he
  worked on and off at a factory on the Point for many
  years before being admitted to the Asylum. Charlie’s
  mother took a common law husband while his real
  father was in a Vietnamese prison camp during the
  War. Charlie’s stepfather mistreated Charlie and his
  sister, so much so that Charlie considered lacing one
  of his stepfather’s sandwiches with insecticide but
  changed his mind at the last minute.
  Charlie has a criminal record and a history of
  hospitalization. He held up a Quick Corner in Fell’s
  Point three years ago, was arrested, and sentenced to
  the Fell’s Point Penitentiary (the Pen). Within a month
  of being at the Pen, he first showed signs of bizarre
  behavior. When he was transferred to the State Hos-
  pital in Fell’s Point, he began to have psychotic epi-
  sodes and made several suicide attempts. He remained
  Campaign Note: Charlie is
  actually the son of Chester
  “Chuckles” Green, the
  Vietnam vet who is a mem-
  ber of Clown Alley (see
  Chuckles in Shadow Syndi-
  cates). Charlie does not
  know what happened to
  his father and doesn’t care.
  If Chuckles knew Charlie
  was in the Asylum, he
  would try to get him out.
  
  70
  70
  in the hospital for a year, was released, then shortly
  afterwards, became delusional, claiming that God and
  the Devil were in direct communication with him. At
  this time, Charlie also began to hear voices that tell
  him to cut his wrists and neck and drink himself to
  death. He slit his wrists once with a razor blade, but
  then went to a neighbor for help after seeing how
  much he was bleeding. After this incident, he was ad-
  mitted to the Asylum, where he has remained for the
  past few months. He still hears the “voice of the Devil”
  calling him names and telling him he has no reason
  to live, but he is so guarded and defensive most of the
  time, he will rarely admit to it.
  Charlie drank heavily in high school, mostly
  whiskey and beer, and he still is nursing his alcohol-
  ism. He has created many problems in the past by get-
  ting other patients and visitors to the Asylum to
  smuggle him alcohol.
  Mr. Clockwork
            [WARD 7C]
  Skills: [Normal.] Mr. Clockwork has
  standard Everyman Skills, except for
  Deduction, which is impaired due to
  his disorder.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged when he feels his “tim-
  ing” has been disrupted (Common), 8-, 11- but only
  when having a Manic Episode (-1/2), Psychological
  Limitation: Bipolar I Mood Disorder with Somatic
  and Persecutory Delusions (Timing, Common,
  Strong), 1D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A short, middle-aged, white male in his
  forties, this patient is
  thin and wiry, with thin
  arms that look much too
  long for his body. He is
  neatly dressed in a stan-
  dard green patient uni-
  form, and his face looks
  as if someone squeezed it
  in a vise... the muscles all
  are knotted up and his
  eyes bulge from his sock-
  ets. His speech is slow
  and methodical, like a
  metronome.
  Notes: Mr. Clockwork
  spends his time resetting
  clocks around the Asy-
  lum, making them alter-
  nately faster and slower.
  Despite the watchfulness
  of the staff, he is usually
  quite successful in screw-
  ing up daily schedules. At
  times, he will steal
  people’s wristwatches
  and alarm clocks and
  fiddle with them, occasionally taking them apart to
  “torture” them by snapping their gears or playing with
  their battery connections. He often smiles evilly when
  he “operates” on the clocks, occasionally snickering
  and laughing as he completes his operations. (He can
  be used by the GM to disrupt time in the Asylum and
  confuse the PCs.)
  Mr. Clockwork claims his behavior is his “re-
  venge” on time itself. He blames it for a number of
  crimes, including its direct responsibility for the mor-
  tality of man, its constant interference that makes
  people all over the world late for appointments, the
  evil deadlines it creates and the way it prevents people
  from having enough time to do anything properly or
  to slow down and enjoy life. Shortly after Mr. Clock-
  work was fired from his job at UPS, he walked into
  the Fell’s Point University Campus library and me-
  thodically smashed all the clocks there with a sledge-
  hammer. He voluntarily surrendered to the campus
  police when they arrived at the scene, claiming that
  “now his work here was done.”
  In the future, Mr. Clockwork may put on a silly
  costume and go out and battle time in Fell’s Point. He
  is more of an annoyance than a serious threat.
  Crease
             [WARD 7B]
  Skills: [Normal with 13 DEX, 9 INT,
  and 8 EGO.] Crease has no superhu-
  man powers, but he is quite limber and
  agile and can slip through the crawl
  spaces in the Asylum walls with little
  difficulty. He has all Everyman Skills,
  plus Ambidexterity, AK: Asylum Crawl
  Spaces 8-, and Contor-
  tionist at a 13 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages:
  Psychological Limita-
  tion: Delusional Disor-
  der, Unspecified (“Fold-
  ing Mentality,” Com-
  mon, Total), Distinctive
  Features (Psychoso-
  matic): Folding Mental-
  ity (see below, Conceal-
  able, Major).
  Appearance: A 
  thin
  white 
  male, 
  about
  twenty years old, with
  short brown hair and
  dark brown eyes. He is
  on the short side, about
  five feet tall, and spends
  most 
  of 
  his 
  time
  hunched against the wall
  of the ward, his chest
  folded over his legs.
  LEFT TO RIGHT: BAILEY BURR,
  MR. CLOCKWORK, CREASE, CHARLIE
  
  71
  71
  Notes: Crease’s real name is “Chris.” His parents died
  at an early age, and he went to live with a sickly uncle
  when he was three. His uncle, however, would mangle
  Chris’s name in a high-pitched voice whenever he
  spoke to him, making it sound like “Crease” instead
  of Chris. As the years went by, Chris began to believe
  Crease was his real name.
  His uncle was deathly ill and would call Crease
  repeatedly for numerous small chores to keep him
  close in case of an emergency. As a result, Crease saw
  his uncle wasting away day by day, becoming smaller
  and folding into himself, and it terrified him. He was
  at his uncle’s side the day his uncle “folded into him-
  self” and died.
  Shortly after his uncle’s death, Crease began to
  notice the small folds of his flesh, in his palms and in
  his hands, which led him to a startling realization. All
  human beings are like pieces of paper, the wrinkles in
  the flesh and the tiny lines crisscrossing the skin proof
  that they can fold themselves as thin as a sheet. Crease
  regards everyone with this “folding mentality”; in his
  eyes, tall or obese people are simply more “unfolded”
  than others, while thin, frail people, especially older
  people, are “folding” into themselves as they approach
  death. He will take time to explain this to anyone who
  seems interested.
  When afraid, Crease “folds up” in weird posi-
  tions. While these positions are painful to get into,
  constant repetition and practice has made him quite
  limber. At other times, Crease can be found trying to
  hide in wastebaskets (with other scrap paper), in file
  cabinets, or plasters himself against a wall to make
  himself “invisible” to others. The characters may find
  him in some surprising places. If Crease wanted to,
  he could escape from the Asylum within hours, but
  he is afraid of the outside world and does not want to
  leave.
  Crease also believes he can walk through walls
  by slipping under cracks in doorways (he can’t, but
  he simulates the effect by waiting at a door until it
  opens, then “sliding” through the open door to the
  other side). When he has folded himself into a piece
  of paper, he gets irritated when the other patients make
  a lot of movements in the air, because this makes him
  fly around the room.
  Isaiah Dent
               [WARD 6]
  Skills: [Normal with an 8 INT and 8
  EGO.] Isaiah has no Everyman Skills
  except for Shadowing, Stealth (both at
  8-) and four points of English Lan-
  guage.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Undif-
  ferentiated Schizophrenia with Psychotic Symptoms
  and Delusions of Reference (Common, Strong), Dis-
  tinctive Features: Disheveled Appearance (Conceal-
  able, Noticed).
  Appearance: A tall, blond-haired white man in his late
  twenties with an average build. He has a confused ex-
  pression, as if he is uncertain where he is. He wears a
  standard green patient uniform and has a disheveled
  appearance.
  Notes: Isaiah (age 27) gets patients and doctors con-
  fused, and he usually ends up approaching strange
  patients and asking them questions, or pestering doc-
  tors passing through the ward for help. When in-
  formed that he is addressing the wrong person, he
  looks for anything that might substantiate his theory,
  including nameplates on door (“That’s not right!”),
  names sewn into clothing (“Hey, those aren’t right
  either! What’s going on here?!”) and even attempts to
  get confirmation from other patients and nurses that
  the character is really someone else. When presented
  with evidence to the contrary, he frowns suspiciously
  and continues to follow the characters, demanding an
  explanation for their “lies.” If escorted away by order-
  lies, he will eventually find his way back to the char-
  acter, screaming, “you can’t fool me! I know it’s you!”
  Jimmy Diesel
               [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Normal with 16 STR, 13 CON,
  9 INT, 8 EGO, 13 PRE, 5 PD and 30
  STUN.] Everyman Skills, PS: Truck
  Driver 11-, TF: Trucks, +2 Combat
  Levels with HTH Combat (Brawling).
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Intermittent Explosive
  Disorder; Jimmy’s Enraged has a Full Turn Delay be-
  fore he completely loses his temper) 11-, 11-, Psycho-
  logical Limitation: Psychotic Episodes (Uncommon,
  Strong), Distinctive Features: See Appearance (Con-
  cealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: A large, burly white male with leathery
  skin, a bushy beard and mustache and a thick head of
  dark brown hair. He stands almost six foot, and moves
  slowly and carefully around the Asylum. He has a tat-
  too saying “Lullaby” on his arm, but it is nearly lost
  under his thick arm hair. He has several cigar burns
  on his forearms and hands.
  Notes: Jimmy, 31, used to work as a truck driver be-
  fore he was admitted to the Asylum. He was unfortu-
  nate enough to be driving his rig through Fell’s Point
  during the 1990 riot (see Sally Robinson, Background)
  and was attacked by a band of looters who pulled him
  from his cab and nearly beat him to death. Jimmy suf-
  fered severe head trauma from the attack, which is
  believed to be responsible for his current condition.
  When relaxed, Jimmy likes talking about
  women, saying vulgar and foul things with a trace of
  eagerness, but otherwise calm and restrained. Never-
  theless, any PC who makes a Sight PER Roll will no-
  tice that the staff is extremely careful around Jimmy.
  
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  72
  When he gets angry, such as when someone
  grabs him or runs into him (accident or not), his nos-
  trils flare, and with every breath he draws, he swells,
  clenching his teeth and working his legs until he is
  running through the ward like a locomotive, smash-
  ing down anything in his path (usually whoever
  touched him). When angry enough, Jimmy has been
  known to smash a door to pieces and use the frag-
  ments as clubs.
  Martin Finch, The Handyman
            [WARD 8G]
  Skills: [Competent 
  with 
  a 
  9
  INT.] Despite his template, Martin has
  no additional skills and powers other
  than Climbing, Shadowing, Stealth,
  Sleight of Hand (all at 8-) and three
  points of English Language.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged if accused of stealing an
  object (Common) 11-, 11-, Psychological Limitation:
  Kleptomania (Common, Strong), Psychological Limi-
  tation: Schizophrenia, Undifferentiated (Common,
  Strong), Distinctive Features: Slightly Disorganized
  Speech and Behavior (Concealable, Recognized)
  Appearance: An obese bald white male in his thirties,
  this patient looks like a professional wrestler. He has
  a heavy frame, huge arms and a gorilla-like appear-
  ance. He rarely blinks, and often stares intently at oth-
  ers for no apparent reason. He is dressed in a clean
  patient uniform and wears a pair of light blue slip-
  pers on his feet.
  Notes: Martin, 32, used
  to be a construction
  worker in Fell’s Point
  and lived with his
  mother in a one-room
  apartment in the Fell’s
  Point Borough. Al-
  though he has had
  Schizophrenic symp-
  toms since his early
  twenties, his behavior
  was ignored for several
  years until he was finally
  admitted to the Asylum
  six years ago.
  Martin has two
  behaviors that may
  prove to be a problem for
  PCs: one is his kleptoma-
  nia. The staff usually
  turns a blind eye toward
  his thefts, because Mar-
  tin becomes threatening
  and assaultive if he is ei-
  ther accused of stealing
  something or if he is
  caught while in the
  middle of slipping something into his pocket. (Mar-
  tin usually puts the stolen items down somewhere
  later, and the items can then be retrieved safely by the
  staff.) Martin’s other problematic behavior is that he
  likes to “fix” things, usually trying to take something
  apart and then putting it back together again with a
  vital piece missing. Sometimes he just leaves the ob-
  ject disassembled and wanders off.
  Martin can be used as a plot device in an Asy-
  lum adventure, either stealing one of the character’s
  Foci or taking a valuable clue to a mystery taking place
  within the Asylum and hiding it somewhere.
  Gough Godfrey
           [NO WARD]
  Powers and Skills: “Gough” (a nick-
  name given to him by the staff because
  of his appearance) Godfrey is believed
  to possess no Everyman Skills and if
  his appearance is any indicator of his
  statistics, he possesses typical Senior
  Citizen abilities (probably with a reduced INT).
  Gough is incapable of speech.
  Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Undifferen-
  tiated Schizophrenia (Very Common, Total), Distinc-
  tive Features (Psychosomatic): Disheveled Appear-
  ance, Disorganized Behavior (Not Concealable, Ma-
  jor), Distinctive Features: Missing Left Ear (Conceal-
  able, Noticed), Age: 60+, Monitored by the Asylum
  Staff (Ls Pow) 8-, Mystery ID: (UE, p. 5) Michaelis
  Saietta.
  Appearance: This small (4’ 11”) Caucasian man is a
  mass of wrinkles and
  spotted flesh. His hands
  shake, and he has a facial
  tic on the corner of his
  upper left lip... a tic that
  leads viewer upwards to
  the black and purple
  mash of scar tissue
  where his left ear once
  was. He looks so old as
  to be regressing into
  childhood: his back is
  hunched, and his legs are
  bent in almost a crouch.
  He is incontinent, and
  can often be found
  smearing his feces and
  urine on the floors and
  walls of the ward.
  Notes: There are no
  records on Gough, and
  he is considered a per-
  manent fixture of the
  Asylum... he has been
  here as long as many of
  the staff can remember.
  LEFT TO RIGHT: JIMMY DIESEL, GOUGH GODFREY,
  MARTIN FINCH, ISAIAH DENT
  
  73
  73
  Despite his incontinence, he is rarely makes too much
  trouble for the staff. (In fact, if characters pay atten-
  tion, it seems that many of the staff members seem to
  completely forget Gough’s presence, even when he is
  close by doodling with his own feces.) While Gough
  can be found in almost any ward in the Asylum, he
  seems to prefer the Seventh Ward.
  Characters who make an EGO Roll while ex-
  amining the “smears” Gough creates with his own ex-
  crement will notice that they have a strange intricacy
  about them.
  Juán Guatarez
           [ADMISSIONS WARD/WARD 8]
  Powers and Skills: [Competent.] Juán
  possesses the Dirty Infighting Package
  (Kidney Blow, Punch, Eye Gouge), can
  use knives with Art (+1), and has
  Lightsleep, 
  Concealment 
  11-,
  Lockpicking 12-, Stealth 12-,
  Streetwise 8- (his Streetwise is 8 or less in the United
  States; in Guamanga, it is much higher), KS: Fell’s
  Point Underworld 8-, PS: Drug Dealer 11- and +1
  Combat Level with HTH Combat. Juán keeps a shiv
  (1/2D6 HKA) close to him whenever possible.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Mild
  Paranoia (Common, Moderate) and Hunted by
  Guamangan assassins (Mo Pow) on an 11 or less.
  Appearance: A Hispanic male in his early thirties with
  a mustache and short black hair. He stands no more
  than five foot five inches (he seems even shorter in
  his patient uniform), with an average build and a slight
  nervous tension running through his body. He has a
  tendency to stare at everything around him with wide
  eyes.
  Notes: Juán Guatarez has faked insanity to hide from
  assassins hired by dissidents in the Central American
  country of Guamanga (see JNL, p. 59) who have or-
  dered Juán’s death for taking sides in a sensitive po-
  litical dispute. Juán arrived in Fell’s Point two years
  ago and was just beginning to feel safe until he some-
  one took several shots at him with a rifle while he was
  driving in his car about a month ago. Panicked, he
  drove to the nearest police station and went into hys-
  terics. He wasn’t placed in custody, but his perfor-
  mance caused him to be shipped to the Asylum for an
  evaluation. Juán decided to keep up the “mad front”
  and lay low in the Asylum until the assassins called
  off their search. (In actuality, Juán was fired on by
  members of a Latino street gang who deal drugs in
  the Southside. A drug pusher himself, Juán sold heroin
  in their territory without knowing it, and earned their
  animosity. He still believes that it was the Guamangan
  assassins who fired at him.)
  Juán watches new inmates warily to see if they
  have come for him or not... while the price on his head
  is real, his flight from his country and his fear of be-
  ing killed has contributed to a certain level of para-
  noia. Juán has been working on making contacts with
  the Asylum pharmacists so he can continue his drug
  operations within the Asylum. He is always curious
  about the outside world and may try to form an alli-
  ance with PCs that enter the Asylum. If it decides it is
  necessary, he may hire some killers from the Asylum
  to go after the assassins that are looking for him; al-
  ternatively, the assassins may have tracked Juán down
  to the Asylum and pay Hell Razor (UE, p. 74) or one
  of the inmates to dispose of him.
  Old Scott Heller
               [WARD 5]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with 6
  INT and 6 EGO.] Heller is not believed
  to possess any skills, but he has +1”
  Running and gains +5 STR when En-
  raged (-1/4).
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Common Variable Trig-
  ger... see below) 8-, 8-, Psychological Limitation: Un-
  differentiated Schizophrenia with Auditory Halluci-
  nations (Very Common, Total), Physical Limitation:
  No Everyman Skills (Frequently, Greatly), Distinctive
  Features: Screaming (Not Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: A white male in his forties with long gray
  hair and stubble along his chin and neck. His blood
  red Adam’s apple juts from his throat, and his face,
  neck and shoulders are laced with heavy wrinkles and
  folds of flesh. When he squints at others, his eyes are
  nearly lost beneath his creased eyelids.
  Notes: Scott is so tortured by his hallucinations that
  he needs a release... unfortunately, he doesn’t know
  how to express himself in any way other than scream-
  ing. If something is going on in the ward that gets
  him excited, he howls at the top of his lungs. Presence
  Attacks, the effects of Shock and Stress, and being
  threatened by another patient are all guaranteed to
  set him off... furthermore, (ironically enough) Heller
  can’t tolerate loud noises, and if a character near him
  speaks in anything above a whisper, he will launch
  himself at them, kicking and pounding. Within a week
  of his arrival at the Asylum, Heller had assaulted ev-
  ery patient on the ward. He is likely to continue this
  behavior against any PCs that approach him.
  Cyril “C-Dog” Hooks
               [WARD 3]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with an 8
  INT and 7 EGO.] +1” Running (7”
  Total). Cyril has the standard
  Everyman Skills, plus one drug dealer
  Contact in the Fell’s Point Borough,
  AK: Borough 8- and WF with Knives
  and Small Arms.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Alco-
  holism (Common, Strong), Psychological Limitation:
  Delusional Disorder, Somatic (Common, Strong), Psy-
  chological Limitation: Pathological Liar (Common,
  
  74
  74
  Strong), Physical Limita-
  tion: Syphilis (Slightly,
  Infrequently)
  Appearance: Uptight,
  with a nervous smile and
  darting eyes, this patient
  is a lean black male in his
  early twenties with short
  dreadlocks (some of
  them barely a few inches
  long; they look like
  clumps of ragged black
  worms sprouting from
  his head). He dresses in
  a normal blue T-shirt,
  but keeps the green pants
  of his patient uniform,
  making a half-and-half
  effect.
  Notes: Cyril has escaped
  from the Asylum twice
  since his month-long
  stay, traveling into Fell’s
  Point both times to get
  stoned and drunk, and
  then allowing himself to be picked up by the police
  (usually on some public nuisance charge) and re-
  turned to the Asylum, feeling guilty about his “binge.”
  During his last trip, however, Cyril somehow man-
  aged to smuggle some marijuana and heroin onto the
  ward, and his cache has not been discovered by the
  Asylum staff. Cyril plans to distribute it to make new
  friends on the ward, and to apologize to the others
  for “taking off.” He will offer to “fix up” any new pa-
  tients on the ward with drugs or women.
  It is difficult to tell what is wrong with Cyril;
  other than his obvious nervousness and rapid speech,
  he seems normal. In truth, Cyril has suicidal thoughts
  and somatic delusions (sometimes he feels his organs
  moving around in his body, as if changing places with
  each other and tangling up his breathing and diges-
  tion) although he covers them up and lies to the staff
  and doctors about almost everything. He dimly sus-
  pects that during one of his past heroin experiences,
  he injected some kind of liquid creature into his body
  that is slowly taking control of him. His symptoms
  are so deeply buried in his mind that they surface only
  when he is drinking, and even then, he simply ratio-
  nalizes them away.
  The Invisible Man
               [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] The Invisible
  Man has standard Everyman Skills ex-
  cept for Stealth at an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psy-
  chological Limitation:
  Delusional Disorder
  (Grandiose, “Invisibil-
  ity,” Common, Strong),
  Distinctive Features: Na-
  ked as a Jaybird (Con-
  cealable, Major)
  Appearance: A small
  white man in his early
  thirties, pale, with short
  brown hair and green
  eyes. He is frequently na-
  ked, and he creeps along
  the walls and floor of the
  ward, holding his breath
  and darting his eyes back
  and forth as people pass.
  Sometimes when some-
  one comes too close, he
  freezes, then slowly tip-
  toes after them, smiling
  evilly.
  Notes: The Invisible
  Man is under the delu-
  sion that he can turn invisible at will and is being
  hunted by the CIA who want to use his powers to as-
  sassinate foreign leaders. He was caught streaking in
  one of the Fell’s Point parks, and has been arrested
  many times for indecent exposure (he claims he was
  trying to elude the CIA agents who were shadowing
  him)... the last time he was arrested by police, he was
  referred to the Asylum, where he has remained for a
  year with little or no change in his condition. The staff
  have a hard time keeping him in clothes and try to
  ignore him when he jumps out at them while “invis-
  ible.” The Invisible Man will creep behind characters
  in the wards, shadowing them as he smiles and giggles
  to himself. He will become extremely upset if some-
  one claims they can see him, and he will argue with
  them childishly. (“You do not see me! Do Not! Do
  Not!”)
  Joseph
            [WARD 8H]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with a 5 INT
  and 5 EGO.] Joseph has no Everyman
  Skills except for Language: English (1
  point). Joseph functions at about a
  third grade level and uses only single
  words and phrases (usually inappro-
  priate to the situation) when express-
  ing himself.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Depen-
  dent Personality Disorder (Common, Strong), Physi-
  cal Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Severe Mental Re-
  tardation), Age: 40+
  LEFT TO RIGHT: JUÁN GUATAREZ, C-DOG,
  SCOTT HELLER, THE INVISIBLE MAN
  
  75
  75
  Appearance: A short (4’ 11”), white male in his late
  fifties. He is almost completely bald except for tufts
  of hair over his eyes. His smiles are always tentative...
  and when he opens his mouth, he reveals his tooth-
  less gums. He occasionally raises his hand for no ap-
  parent reason, as if waiting for someone to call on him.
  Notes: Joseph is 58 and relatively harmless, although
  he can be annoying at times. If given a task by the
  staff, he often turns to other patients for help if he
  thinks that they can do it for him and will follow them
  with an imploring expression until they chase him
  away or do his job for him. When he is placed in a
  confusing situation, Joseph must make an INT Roll
  or else he will run away as quickly as possible. Incon-
  tinent during the night, Joseph is mobile during the
  day and can generally take care of himself. He is al-
  lowed to walk the ward without restriction.
  Neil Kearns
            [WARD 8H]
  Skills: [Normal with a 8 INT and 7
  EGO.] Neil is assumed to have no
  Everyman Skills, except for Language:
  English at the two to three point level.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Disor-
  ganized Schizophrenia (Very Common, Strong),
  Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Frequently,
  Greatly), Distinctive Features (Psychosomatic): Inces-
  sant, Disconnected Speech (Not Concealable, Major),
  Distinctive Features: Obese (Not Concealable, No-
  ticed)
  Appearance: An obese white male in his late teens,
  with straight brown hair and a balloon-like face. He
  talks constantly, either to himself or to other patients
  on the ward; most patients and staff seem to ignore
  him and his incessant nasal drone out of habit. He is
  dressed in a standard green patient uniform.
  Notes: Neil is twenty years old and has been in the
  Asylum for close to two years. The staff frequently iso-
  lates him from the rest of the patients on the ward,
  either placing him in his room or in seclusion. As men-
  tioned in his Appearance section, above, he talks in-
  cessantly in an unenunciated torrent of words... his
  train of thought is impossible to follow. If by chance,
  he should hit on a coherent topic, he will jump to an-
  other, usually three or more times in the same sen-
  tence until he once again makes no sense. The ten-
  sion and circumstance under which he speaks usually
  seems to have a bearing on the frequency and
  incoherency of the words... when frightened or con-
  fused, Neil’s voice will rise or drop in pitch until he is
  screeching out words or mumbling piteously.
  Lantern Jack
              [WARD 8J]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with 12
  STR, 12 CON, 9 INT, 8 EGO, 24 END
  and 22 STUN.] Jack has +1” Running
  (7” Total) and +1” Superleap (3” For-
  ward, 2” Upwards).
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged when spots a “criminal”
  (Common) 11-, 14-, Enraged if called a “Hobgoblin
  clone” (Uncommon) 14-, 8-, Psychological Limitation:
  Grandiose Delusional Disorder (“I am Jack O’ Lan-
  tern!” Very Common, Total), Distinctive Features:
  Moves by Leaps and Bounds (Not Concealable, Ma-
  jor).
  Appearance: An overweight white male in his late thir-
  ties with sparse, brown hair and thick glasses. His pa-
  tient uniform is rumpled, and the top of his uniform
  usually rises above his belly, which jiggles when he
  moves. He can usually be seen jumping through the
  ward like a demented frog, pulling sheets from the
  beds of other patients and swirling them around him
  like a cape. He occasionally strikes a pose in front of
  others, smiling triumphantly.
  Notes: Lantern Jack spends most of his time capering
  around the ward, jumping from bed to bed and chas-
  ing “criminals.” He will attack anyone acting suspi-
  ciously (i.e., anyone who fits his loose definition of a
  criminal), pummeling them with his fists until the
  “criminal” is properly subdued. If the criminal fights
  back, Jack will jump on the nearest bed and bounce
  to freedom so he can fight another day. He has to be
  tranquilized during Halloween or else he starts throw-
  ing pumpkins at people. Jack is only one of the many
  examples of “Jack O’ Lanterns” (JNL, p. 44) that fill
  the Asylum, and he has been placed in seclusion so
  many times the staff has lost count.
  Quote: “HA! Didn’t expect to see ME here, did you,
  criminal scum?!”
  Leon
                      [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with 5 INT, 5
  EGO.] Lenny is illiterate and can do
  little more than feed and clean him-
  self. He has no Everyman Skills except
  Climbing at an 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Physical Limitation: No
  Everyman Skills (Moderate Mental Retardation, Fre-
  quently, Greatly), Distinctive Features: Retarded,
  Childish Behavior (Not Concealable, Major), Age: 40+
  Appearance: A pleasant black man in his late fifties,
  with an average height and build, dressed neatly in
  hospital clothes. His movements and facial expressions
  
  76
  76
  have a certain childish-
  ness about them.
  Notes: Leon (“Lenny”) is
  a pleasant, 51 year old
  Black Male who has been
  at the Asylum for almost
  twenty years. Prior to his
  years in the Asylum, he
  was living at home and
  would act in a childish
  manner, biting his
  palms, throwing tan-
  trums, and so on. His be-
  havior finally culmi-
  nated on an attack on his
  mother, after which he
  was sent to the Asylum
  for treatment. Lenny en-
  joys attention, and he
  spends much of his time
  shadowing orderlies and
  nurses; if a character ap-
  proaches him, he will
  speak to them in garbled
  words and nonsensical
  phrases and then follow
  them around, hoping for more attention. Lenny can-
  not identify items, and he cannot read or write. Al-
  though Lenny acts at an early childhood level, the staff
  generally ignore him and let him walk around freely,
  as he can care for his own cleanliness, and requires
  little supervision in eating or dressing. He is no longer
  prone to violent behavior, although he will respond
  childishly to threats, either running away and sulking
  or fighting back by shoving his “attacker.”
  Marrow
           [NO WARD]
  Skills: [Normal with 11 STR, 13 DEX and 11 CON.]
  +1 to Hearing PER Rolls, Contortionist 12-, Shadow-
  ing 12-, Stealth 12-, PS: Escape Artist 12-, AK: Asy-
  lum 11-, AK: Asylum Crawl Spaces and Ventilation
  Subsystems on a 13 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Para-
  noid Schizophrenia (The CIA is after him, Common,
  Strong), Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behav-
  ior, Disorganized Speech and Appearance (Not Con-
  cealable, Major), Distinctive Features: Feral Appear-
  ance (Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: It is almost impossible to see this man
  beneath the grime and dirt that covers his body; only
  the whites of his eyes can be seen clearly in darkness.
  A white male in his early thirties, this patient (?) wears
  a tattered green uniform, shred and frayed in several
  places. He has a long beard and a tangled mass of curly
  blond hair on his head, filled with dirt, lice, and dead
  insects.
  Notes: Marrow looks fe-
  ral, but he is soft-spoken
  and polite, even if his
  word choice tends to be
  a little odd. He was ad-
  mitted to the Asylum in
  restraints after being ar-
  rested for disturbing the
  peace in Fell’s Point Har-
  bor five years ago. On the
  day he arrived, the intern
  escorting Marrow left
  him alone for a few min-
  utes, long enough for
  Marrow to vanish from
  the locked waiting room
  without a trace. The staff
  spent days scouring the
  Asylum 
  and 
  the
  grounds, and they even-
  tually gave up, baffled as
  to how Marrow escaped.
  In actuality, within
  a minute of being left
  alone, Marrow shed his
  restraints, forced open
  one of the panels in the
  ceiling and climbed up into an air duct to hide from
  “CIA radar.” Ever since then, he has lived a hermitic
  existence within the Asylum walls, floors and ceilings.
  He comes and goes as he pleases, stealing food and
  materials from the Asylum staff and patients, and has
  completely furnished some of the shafts and crawl
  spaces in the Asylum, making an impressive spread of
  “rooms” and hallways within the walls. It is better fur-
  nished than some houses.
  Assuming they knew he was there, it would take
  the Asylum maintenance crew weeks to creep through
  the hospital’s ventilation system (there are many un-
  necessary shafts and branchings, due to the odd ar-
  chitecture of the building), to map out Marrow’s home
  in the walls. Marrow has been inside the Asylum hol-
  lows for years, but even he has not explored the entire
  web of crawl spaces and old air ducts, mostly out of
  fear of approaching some wards too closely.
  During the course of the campaign, PCs should
  occasionally hear staff members complaining of los-
  ing or misplacing objects... this is usually due to
  Marrow’s raids. Marrow can be used as a deux ex
  machina for the GM, stealing vital clues, files and other
  items (dinner trays, sheets, towels, office chairs, end
  tables, pictures, drugs, box-spring mattresses, and so
  on... the list of items that Marrow has stolen is in-
  credible) and tucking them away in the hollows of the
  Asylum. Marrow may develop a crush on a female PC
  (attractive or not) in one of the wards, making him-
  self known to her and offering to help her escape.
  Quote: “Y-Y-Yer not supposed ta BE here.”
  LEFT TO RIGHT: D. NEUMONT, NEIL KEARNS,
  LANTERN JACK, LEON, JOSEPH
  
  77
  77
  D. Neumont
         [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Powers and Skills: [Senior Citizen.]
  Although not superpowered, David
  has a sense of underlying plots and
  dramatics. He has +1 to All PER Rolls,
  the full selection of Everyman Skills,
  and KS: Underworld Enemies on a 13
  or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Delu-
  sional Disorder (Grandiose, Believes he is Crusader,
  Common, Strong), Age: 60+
  Appearance: A small, shifty-eyed man in his late six-
  ties with unkempt dull gray hair. He wanders the ward
  as if lost, dressed in a rumpled patient uniform. A thick
  “C” has been scrawled on the left breast of the uni-
  form in black magic marker, and he has taped a small
  paper plate onto his left forearm like a shield. A crude
  five-pointed star, composed of unsteady lines, has been
  scribbled on the paper plate. The space outside the
  star has been filled in with what looks like blue and
  black finger-paint.
  Notes: Daniel befriended Crusader when the vigilante
  was imprisoned in the Asylum many years ago and
  has never forgotten him. When he heard that Sam had
  died, he took up “the uniform and shield” and claimed
  he was the reincarnation of Crusader. The staff view
  his actions and his frequent posturing with mild
  amusement. Although he has incontinence problems,
  Daniel can attend to his own hygiene and causes little
  trouble in the wards and so is allowed to move about
  as he pleases.
  Daniel claims he knows what happened when
  Crusader was killed and repeats it to anyone who
  comes to the ward, in a clear, steady voice. He claims
  Crusader, near-sighted and old, was the personifica-
  tion of “old school” Golden Age heroics, and his death
  symbolized the end of the Golden Age, brought about
  by the rising tide of killers motivated by revenge and
  hate, personified by Crusade. These vigilantes prefer
  to kill law-breakers rather than spending the energy
  to attempt to help or reform them. He points out that
  Crusade is the latest chapter in a continuing cycle of
  violence... just as Crusader murdered the elderly mem-
  ber of the RAVEN assassination bureau (UE, p. 8), the
  aging Crusader himself was murdered many years later
  by another assassin (Crusade and his training, UE, p.
  95, second column), and so on. The ironic twist is that
  at the end of Underworld Enemies, the implication is
  that Sally submits to the murdering culture she her-
  self despised, and therein lies the tragedy. In the frame-
  work of Underworld Enemies and Asylum, if Sally does
  not give into revenge (personified by the Purge ar-
  mor, UE, p. 81), the cycle of violence will end and her
  life can continue. If asked what is transpiring in Asy-
  lum, David will shrug his shoulders and tell charac-
  ters to talk to a “Madame Sosostris,” presumably some
  character in a future book.
  Noah
               [WARD 6]
  Skills: [Use the Incompetent or Skilled
  Normal template, depending on
  whether Noah is having a Depressive
  or a Manic Episode.] Noah has the full
  range of Everyman Skills (plus KS:
  Bible 11-), although when he is hav-
  ing a Major Depressive Episode, he must make an EGO
  Roll in order to use any of his skills or to defend him-
  self.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Variable Common Trig-
  ger, only when having a Manic Episode; this is usually
  in effect by the end of a normal day) 11-, 8-, Psycho-
  logical Limitation: Bipolar I Mood Disorder with Re-
  ligious Hallucinations (Hearing the voice of God, Very
  Common, Total), Distinctive Features: Disconnected
  Speech (Not Concealable, Major), Distinctive Fea-
  tures: See Appearance, below (Not Concealable, Ma-
  jor)
  Appearance: A wild-eyed white male, extremely tall
  and broad with dark, matted hair. A smell emanates
  from his rumpled patient uniform like something has
  crawled in there and died. He usually has a worn Bible
  clutched in his large hands (his hands are red, as if
  sunburned). He stares into the distance silently, his
  cheek muscles twitching, then paces in circles around
  the ward, mumbling and shaking his Bible. He often
  clears his throat, as if about to say something.
  Notes: Noah is a Catholic preacher who was picked
  up for brawling with a pimp in the Fell’s Point Har-
  bor. His speech is disconnected and inappropriate,
  switching from religion to random thoughts on white
  rats and bugs. If he is stopped and asked a question
  while he is speaking, his expression will shift wildly,
  and he may begin to shout, throw a punch at the char-
  acter, or start to cry. He often tells patients that he is
  in the Asylum because he masturbated too much and
  it kept him from being a good Christian. He warns
  them that they will share his fate (disfavor) if they
  don’t repent their evil ways. Noah also claims he can
  hear God calling his name (auditory hallucinations)
  and when the hallucination are particularly intense,
  he will grab other patients, shouting “I have the Spirit
  now! I have the Spirit!”
  In the mornings, Noah is sullen, but this fades
  as the day goes on (i.e., he is having a Mixed Mood
  Episode... he will wake up with a Major Depressive
  Episode, and it will change into a Manic Episode by
  the end of the day). By the time the evening comes
  around, he zips through the ward preaching about the
  Holy Spirit and writing religious songs to show his
  therapist. He is frequently put in seclusion because
  he screams at the other patients to repent and throws
  his Bible at those who are “not living up to his expec-
  tations.”
  
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  78
  Raymond
               [WARD 4]
  Skills: [Normal with 13 STR, 11
  BODY, 5 INT, and 7 EGO.] Limited
  Everyman Skills. PS: Cargo Mover at
  Avery Foods Grocery Store, 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Undif-
  ferentiated Schizophrenia with auditory and visual
  hallucinations (Raymond claims to see “other people”
  walking around the wards; Very Common, Strong),
  Psychological Limitation: Scared of the Dark
  (Nyctophobia, Common, Strong), Physical Limita-
  tion: Limited Everyman Skills (Moderate Mental Re-
  tardation, Infrequently, Slightly), Distinctive Features
  (Psychosomatic): Bizarre and Disturbed Speech (Not
  Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: A white male in his thirties, with a strong
  build and a slight gut. While neatly dressed, his green
  patient uniform seems much too small for him. He is
  bald, and has a slack expression.
  Notes: Raymond is 31. He was transferred from
  Holmesberg prison in Fell’s Point over eight years ago
  after he was found incompetent to stand trial on
  charges of burglary, terrorist threats, assault and reck-
  lessly endangering another person. He has had a life-
  long history of mental retardation due to birth trauma;
  when he was seven years old, he apparently suffered
  further brain damage when he fell from the roof of
  his father’s house. Before his arrest, he worked as a
  cargo mover at an Avery Foods Grocery Store in Fell’s
  Point (see Corpor-
  ations for a description
  of Avery Foods).
  Raymond’s speech
  is difficult to understand,
  as much of thinking is
  loosely associated and
  bizarre. He frequently
  claims to see ghosts and
  “people” created by the
  lights in the Asylum and
  often stares at light fix-
  tures and bulbs. He will
  not go into shadowy area
  in the Asylum, and he is
  afraid of the dark. At
  night, it is difficult for
  him to go to sleep, and
  he murmurs and whim-
  pers to himself when the
  lights are turned out.
  Robertson
               [WARD 4]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with a 7
  INT and 7 EGO.] Robertson has lim-
  ited Everyman Skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Berserk when a
  sharp object is pointed at him (Common), 14-, 8-,
  Psychological Limitation: Antisocial Personality Dis-
  order (“Antisocial Tendencies,” Common, Moderate),
  Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizo-
  phrenia with delusions (Chronic, Very Common,
  Strong), Physical Limitation: Limited Everyman Skills
  (Mild Mental Retardation, Infrequently, Slightly), Dis-
  tinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behavior (Not Con-
  cealable, Major)
  Appearance: A tall, stocky, middle-aged white man
  with rumpled, dark brown hair and a jutting chin dot-
  ted with gray stubble. He has an unkempt appearance,
  a slight hunch in his upper back, and moves his legs
  stiffly, like a robot.
  Notes: Robertson (“Rob”) is 37 years old and has a
  long history of psychiatric hospitalization and crimi-
  nal activity, primarily larceny (petty theft). While he
  has a tenth grade education, his INT has been dete-
  riorating ever since the onset of his Schizophrenia.
  He occasionally repeats brief phrases (“in my head,
  in my head, in my head”), seemingly unrelated to any-
  thing that is occurring around him. When nervous,
  he trembles and laughs loudly. He was admitted thir-
  teen years ago after arrested in the Fell’s Point Harbor
  for breaking car win-
  dows and stealing items
  from parked cars.
  Robertson has had
  episodes of violence at
  the Asylum, and will at-
  tack anyone who sneaks
  up on him or surprises
  him. The sight of a knife,
  syringe or sharp object
  being pointed at him will
  cause him to go berserk
  (the staff is aware of this
  and exercise caution
  when giving him medi-
  cal check-ups).
  LEFT TO RIGHT: RAYMOND, HAROLD WEINSTEIN,
  NOAH, ROBERTSON, MICHAEL TIBBET
  
  79
  79
  Michael Tibbet
               [WARD 3]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with a 9
  INT and 8 EGO.] +1 to Sight PER
  Rolls and the Talent: Lightsleep. Oth-
  erwise, Michael has only the normal
  range of Everyman Skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Para-
  noid Schizophrenia with Somatic Delusions (Very
  Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Disheveled
  Appearance (Concealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: A white male in his early twenties, with
  a neat and clean appearance. He is of average height
  and build, with curly black hair and slight sideburns.
  He avoids eye contact and always glances tentatively
  around him.
  Notes: Michael is much older than he appears (he is
  29). Although he seems neat and clean, orderlies have
  to supervise his personal hygiene daily in order to keep
  him looking presentable; when they cannot take the
  time to attend to him during the course of the day,
  Michael’s appearance unravels, with stubble growing
  quickly at the corners of his chin and neck, his hair
  becoming tangled, and he picks at (and dries his hands
  on) his patient uniform until it is rumpled and dirty.
  On the ward, Michael makes constant trips to the wa-
  ter fountain and to the bathroom, though he is quick
  to leave if anyone is standing behind him at the foun-
  tain or if anyone else is in the bathroom. His responses
  to any PCs who approach him will be tentative, cau-
  tious and fearful, and he will attempt to get away as
  quickly as possible. If cornered, he may scream for
  help and press himself against a wall or floor in order
  to keep distance between himself and the PC. He has
  frequent somatic complaints (mostly related to his in-
  testines, and the feeling that his insides are drying out),
  and he has a tendency to move his foot around or
  smoke in an agitated manner.
  Harold Weinstein
               [WARD 6]
  Skills: [Normal with 9 STR and 9
  CON.] He has all Everyman Skills,
  with AK: Fell’s Point Chelsea District
  8- and PS: Manager of Shakey’s Pizza
  Parlor on an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Common, Variable
  Trigger) 11-, 8-, Physical Limitation: Undiagnosed
  Brain Condition (Frequently, Greatly), Distinctive
  Features: Shaking Right Hand (Not Concealable, No-
  ticed).
  Appearance: This man looks to be in his late forties,
  with white, spiky hair. He is dressed in a standard sickly
  green patient uniform. His right hand is constantly
  shaking, and his tiny, bead-like eyes are almost hid-
  den beneath his thick white eyebrows. His speech is
  flat, and his face is expressionless.
  Notes: Harold (“Harry, please”) Weinstein is 33 and
  married, with one son who is currently enrolled in
  the Fell’s Point Community College. Until two weeks
  ago, he was manager of a local Shakey’s but was forced
  to seek treatment after he bashed one of his waitresses
  with a napkin dispenser after she refused to restock
  the napkins. Extremely sorry for what he did, he has
  only offered the explanation that “it seems the ol’ ticker
  [his brain, not his heart] isn’t working right.”
  Weinstein loses his temper easily, can’t remember
  things and is having trouble with simple math and
  spelling. Alternately confused and angry by his
  memory loss, he suspects his difficulties might be due
  to some tranquilizers that were prescribed for him a
  month ago, but the physicians suspect that his recent
  memory difficulty and behavior might be due to a
  brain tumor, so they are preparing an organic work-
  up for him (EEG, brainscan, psych-testing and a neu-
  rological exam).
  Female Patientz
  Victoria “Vicki” Atkins
                [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] Vicki has the
  normal selection of Everyman Skills
  except for AK and TF (she does not
  have a driver’s license).
  25+ Disadvantages: Vulnerability
  (Psychosomatic) x2 Effect vs. Mind Control Attacks,
  Psychological Limitation: Paranoid Schizophrenia
  with Delusions of Persecution (Common, Strong)
  Appearance: A young white female, about 5’ 8” with
  an average build, short black hair in a bowl cut, and
  light green eyes. She is well-groomed, clean and wears
  a standard patient uniform. She fidgets a great deal,
  and her eyes flicker, as if watching something out of
  the corner of her eye.
  Notes: “Vicki” is barely fifteen years old, but her
  Schizophrenia is maturing rapidly. She has informed
  her therapist that her father has set up radios through-
  out the Asylum (according to Vicki, he performed this
  feat during his first visit) that tune in to her brain
  waves and control her thoughts.
  Vicki’s therapist believes she has nailed down
  the reason for Vicki’s disorder and the distress and
  delusions that accompany it. The problems started a
  year ago, when Vicki’s father became extremely upset
  when he learned that she had gone on a date without
  telling him. The reason for his distress is believed to
  be that he was worried that some boy would take ad-
  vantage of her and get her pregnant. (This had hap-
  
  80
  80
  pened to Vicki’s older sister during her teens.) In or-
  der to keep tabs on her social life, her father took to
  questioning Vicki about every place she went when
  she left the house, sometimes even going so far as to
  follow her in the car. He listened in on her telephone
  conversations with friends, secretly went through her
  things and often grounded her without a good reason
  so he could keep her out of “trouble.” As these inci-
  dents became more common, Vicki began to have de-
  lusions about “radios” in the house that reflected her
  distress at her father’s invasion of her privacy. She is
  on medication, but it is not clear if she will recover
  enough so that she can leave the Asylum and return
  to her father.
  Rhetta Bourne
                [MEDICAL WARD]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] Due to her con-
  dition, Rhetta cannot run (Max 2”)
  nor can she use her Everyman skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological
  Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with De-
  pressive Features (Common, Total), Physical Limita-
  tion: Burns and constant pain (All the Time, Greatly),
  Distinctive Features: See Appearance (Not Conceal-
  able, Major), Hunted by Ashtray Art (Mo Pow) 11-,
  2D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A thin black female of indeterminate age
  with pockets of burned and blistering flesh across her
  body. The hair has been razed from her scalp, her right
  ear is gone, and her right eye is a milky white pustule,
  lined with red and black scar tissue. Her face has been
  burned so badly it is im-
  possible to get a clear
  idea of what she looked
  like before she was
  burned. She is dressed in
  a white, loose-fitting
  gown, and rarely moves
  or speaks.
  Notes: Rhetta, thirty-one
  years old, is a Southern
  black woman with
  Schizophrenia and de-
  pressive features who has
  been a fixture at the Asy-
  lum for the past fifteen
  years. Several months
  ago, Ashtray Art (UE, p.
  52) asked Rhetta if she
  would be willing to be
  one of his masterpieces,
  and she agreed, thinking
  he was going to paint her
  portrait. After the black-
  ened gas-soaked gown
  was peeled from her
  burned flesh, she was
  taken to the Fell’s Point Municipal Hospital and
  treated. Since her return to the Asylum, Rhetta refuses
  to eat and now will only be tube-fed.  Her current
  antidepressant might as well be a children’s vitamin
  pill for all the good it does her; she desperately wishes
  to die, but she is almost immobile from pain and the
  staff has been instructed to watch her carefully.
  Art cannot understand why “his” Rhetta is be-
  ing kept from him and why the staff won’t let him see
  her... he is anxious to see how she turned out.
  Charlotte Brisk
             [WARD 8A]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] +1” Running
  (6” Total), Everyman Skills, Contact:
  Male Staff Member (GM: Choose at
  Random) 11-, and Seduction on an 8
  or less (Charlotte’s still getting the
  hang of it).
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Border-
  line Personality Disorder (Common, Moderate), Psy-
  chological Limitation: Histrionic Personality Disor-
  der (Common, Strong), Psychological Limitation: Ob-
  sequious (Common, Strong), Distinctive Features:
  “Seductive” Appearance (Easily Concealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: A young white female, barely twenty
  years old, with cinnamon-colored hair and large
  brown eyes framed by thick, square-framed glasses.
  She is dressed in a standard green patient uniform,
  but it somehow tends to fall open in the front, allow-
  ing the viewer to see the curve of her breasts. While
  not unattractive, her face is oddly rounded and her
  head looks too big for
  her small body. She tends
  to remain in her room
  and avoid everyone else
  on the ward.
  Notes: Charlotte, 19, was
  admitted to the Asylum
  shortly after she sliced
  her wrists when she
  learned her “boyfriend”
  was seeing other girls.
  (Whenever she speaks
  about “him” and his in-
  fidelity, she speaks as if
  she had known him for
  years, rather than two
  weeks.) Behind her im-
  maturity there is an un-
  happy, lonely person,
  and her feelings are
  deeply suppressed. She
  tends toward selfishness
  and putting her feelings
  above those of others,
  often trying to gather
  pity and attention to her
  LEFT TO RIGHT: VICKI ATKINS,
  CHARLOTTE BRISK, RHETTA BOURNE
  
  81
  81
  problems. Charlotte tends to handle criticism and re-
  jection like a child (e.g., running away, refusing to talk,
  sulking in a corner or throwing a tantrum and stamp-
  ing her feet).
  Carol
               [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] Carol has the
  normal selection of Everyman Skills
  (including AK: Fell’s Point Southside
  8-, PS: Housewife 11-), but she must
  make an EGO Roll in order to use any
  of her skills while she is having a Ma-
  jor Depressive Episode.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Major
  Depressive Disorder with Guilt and Somatic Delusions
  (Very Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Cesar-
  ean Scar (Easily Concealable, Noticed), DNPC: Hus-
  band (Normal) and Children (Incompetent) 11- and
  2D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A slender young woman, not more than
  twenty, with long wavy black hair, a thin face with light
  brown eyes, small breasts and narrow hips. She does
  not wear a patient uniform; instead, she is usually
  dressed in matching light green sweatpants and
  hooded sweatshirt as if about to go out for a jog. She
  is usually found sitting slumped in a chair or against
  the wall of a ward, crying silently as her shoulders
  make small, shuddering movements. Her eyeliner
  makes its way down her cheeks in two tear-soaked
  streams.
  Notes: Carol is twenty-five years old (she appears
  much younger than she actually is). She has had four
  children, two of whom have already died. She believes
  that she somehow caused the death of her two chil-
  dren, even though both were crib deaths. Over the past
  few months, she has developed several somatic com-
  plaints, including asthma and chronic stomach pains.
  Although she has repeatedly visited a general-prac-
  tice clinic in Fell’s Point and has had numerous tests
  and medications, no explanation has been found for
  her sickness and she has not improved. She is afraid
  to discipline her other two children at all, and is hav-
  ing difficulties relating to her husband, who is abu-
  sive and considers her “pathetic.” She was admitted to
  the Asylum only recently, but she may be in for a long
  stay.
  Clarisse
    [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with a 9 INT
  and 11 EGO.]
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged if some-
  one comes too close to her “without
  permission” (Very Common) 8-. 14-, Psychological
  Limitation: Paranoid Schizophrenia with Grandiose
  Delusions and Auditory Hallucinations (Very Com-
  mon, Strong), Physical Limitation: Alcoholic (Fre-
  quently, Slightly).
  Appearance: A thin, formal-looking black female in
  her late fifties. The heavy lines on her forehead and
  around her mouth make her face look like a dried
  prune. She prefers to rest in chairs in the ward rather
  than move around and sits in a corner far away from
  everyone else. She occasionally can be heard humming
  to herself.
  Notes: Clarisse (real name Clarrisa) is a 57 year old,
  Baptist widower. Speaking to her can be frustrating;
  she stiffens when anyone approaches her without per-
  mission and will make threatening gestures until they
  go away (she sees almost everyone as the enemy). If
  she allows a character to approach, she will either ig-
  nore him completely or else nod her head slowly and
  respond to questions in thick, slurred speech that is
  difficult to understand (her word choice also tends to
  be peculiar). She is convinced that people are out to
  get her and her family, but these suspicions usually
  surface only when she is drinking. She has two chil-
  dren (although she claims that both of them died).
  Her husband was “killed” five years ago; he traveled a
  great deal and was unfaithful to her. Her delusion is
  that “they bumped him off when he was making his
  way home to me.”
  Jennifer Dorsey
         [ADMISSIONS WARD]
  Skills: [Normal with an 11 INT.] Jen-
  nifer has all the Everyman Skills plus
  AK: Fell’s Point Northside 8-, AK:
  Fell’s Point Chelsea District 11-, CK:
  Hudson City 8- and SC: Business and
  Finance on an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Obses-
  sive-Compulsive Disorder (“Takes a half-hour to walk
  through doors,” Very Common, Strong), Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: Meticulously Neat (Common, Mod-
  erate), Physical Limitation: Near-Sighted (Infre-
  quently, Slightly), Distinctive Features (Psychoso-
  matic): Obsessive-Compulsive Ritual (See below, Not
  Concealable, Recognizable).
  Appearance: A slightly overweight white female in her
  early twenties with wire-frame glasses. Her shoulder-
  length black hair is neatly combed, and her clothes
  are always clean and well-pressed. She never wears a
  patient uniform. She appears quite lucid and friendly,
  though she seems uncomfortable in the ward.
  Notes: Jennifer’s problem is that it takes her a half-
  hour to walk through a door. Whenever she tries to
  do so, she stops and repeats the following ritual: first,
  she taps each side of the door frame seven times, closes
  her eyes and mouths something to herself, as if pray-
  ing. Then she taps the door frame again in exactly the
  same spots with exactly the same fingers, and then
  
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  82
  begins the ritual again until she has completed it seven
  times... if she does any part of this ritual incorrectly
  (which happens often), she will begin to
  hyperventilate, stare around frantically, then start
  again from the beginning. The smallest distraction
  from the ritual (e.g., if someone speaks to her or if
  she has a random thought while performing the
  ritual), she must start over again, even if she was per-
  forming the ritual correctly before the distraction.
  Jennifer is twenty-five and earned her Business
  Degree from the Fell’s Point Community College less
  than a year ago. Shortly after graduation (about the
  time when she was experiencing stress hunting for a
  job), she began to manifest her Obsessive-Compul-
  sive behavior. (It is believed that Jennifer had the foun-
  dations of the disorder well before coming to the Asy-
  lum, but it recently became worse due to stress.) She
  was admitted to the Asylum only a week ago, and
  wants to leave as soon as possible... she finds the in-
  stitution oppressive and evil, and it only fuels her dis-
  order rather than ameliorating it.
  Alisha Downs
             [WARD 7B]
  Skills: [Incompetent with a 7 INT and
  7 EGO.] She has the Contact: The Baby
  Man 11-, Concealment 8-, Streetwise
  8-, Language: Gang Slang (Borough)
  and WF: Syringes.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Alco-
  holism (Common, Moderate), Psychological Limita-
  tion: Psychotic Disorder with Delusions and Halluci-
  nations, Linked to Heroin Addiction (-1/2) (Common,
  Strong), Physical Limita-
  tion: Heroin Addiction,
  Strong (Greatly Impair-
  ing; see I4I, p. 45), Dis-
  tinctive Features: Track
  marks on arms (Easily
  Concealable, Recogniz-
  able).
  Appearance: A short
  black woman of average
  height and scrawny build
  who looks to be in her
  late twenties. Despite her
  youth, she carries herself
  as if bearing a heavy
  weight, and her rail thin
  body is afflicted with
  tremors. Her appearance
  is haggard, and she looks
  hungry, gazing with a
  pleading eye at anyone
  around her, as if expect-
  ing a hand out. A patient
  uniform is draped limply
  over her body.
  Notes: Alisha is actually thirty-two years old. She
  drinks a great deal, and has been a heroin addict for
  the past eleven years. Her judgment and attention span
  tends to be lacking, and she pays little attention to
  others around her unless they have heroin or alcohol
  or can get access to it. She has a dim view toward men
  for many reasons: her father was not present for most
  of her childhood, she had a disappointing marriage
  (they are now separated but not divorced), and most
  heroin dealers she dealt with in the Borough were men.
  All of these factors led her to have a shallow, depen-
  dent ambivalence on men. If PCs speak with her, she
  may tell them that she needs money in order to buy
  her daughter back from the Baby Man, a dealer in the
  Borough who purchases children from young moth-
  ers, using offering drugs in exchange for the infants.
  If the PCs refuse, she will make obscene gestures at
  them and say she doesn’t need them anyway because
  “her boy, Clarence” is working with the crime lord
  Big Money in the Borough and will come after the
  PCs and “kill ALL their family” if she gives the word.
  Ellen
               [WARD 3]
  Skills: [Incompetent with 6 INT and
  6 EGO.] Ellen has no Everyman Skills
  except for Language: English at the 2
  point level (Ellen’s Language Skill,
  however, has a 14 or less “Activation
  roll”... if Ellen makes the roll, she can
  communicate coherently... if she fails the roll, she
  babbles a stream of disconnected words).
  25+ Disadvantages:  Catatonic (Epilepsy, Uncom-
  mon) 14-, 8-, Psycho-
  logical Limitation: Un-
  differentiated Schizo-
  phrenia with Delusions
  and 
  Hallucinations
  (Common, Strong),
  Physical Limitation: No
  Everyman Skills (Mental
  Retardation, Frequently,
  Greatly), Distinctive
  Features (Psychoso-
  matic): Childish, Schizo-
  phrenic Behavior (Not
  Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: A slightly
  overweight black female
  in her late thirties who
  rarely makes eye contact
  with anyone else in the
  ward. She has dispropor-
  tionately large breasts
  and thighs, and long, di-
  sheveled black hair that
  she falls across her face.
  LEFT TO RIGHT: CLARISSE, ALISHA DOWNS,
  CAROL, JENNIFER DORSEY, ELLEN
  
  83
  83
  Despite her obvious maturity, there is something
  childish in her movements and expressions, and she
  often giggles inappropriately. A sloppy dresser, her
  patient uniform is often stained with food and excre-
  ment and has been torn and stitched back together in
  several places.
  Notes: Ellen is 37 but acts like a five-year old. She pre-
  fers to speak in whispers, and if a character asks her
  to speak louder, she will either become silent or shout
  at the top of her lungs, all the while interrupting with
  stuttering, inappropriate laughter. She was voluntar-
  ily committed three years ago, and claims to have five
  children, two of whom were born during past hospi-
  talizations, one in the Asylum and another in a local
  hospital on the peninsula. [1] Ellen has a long history
  of mental retardation and was unable to complete
  school past the third grade. In addition to her schizo-
  phrenic hallucinations (auditory only), bizarre
  thought processes, she also has epilepsy.
  Esther
               [WARD 5]
  15  STR[2]13   DEX
  13   CON
  15   BODY
  8     INT
  15  EGO 10   PRE
  10   COM 6     PD
  6     ED
  3    SPD
  6     REC
  30   END
  25   STUN
  Powers and Skills: Esther has no su-
  perhuman powers but any character
  with psionic powers will notice some-
  thing “odd” about her psyche, as if
  some of her memories were recorded
  from someone else’s perspective. Her
  skills include PS: Seamstress 11-, KS: Sewing 11-, KS:
  The Bible 13-, and WF with Knives and Straight Ra-
  zors. She has +2 to Hearing PER Rolls.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Patho-
  logical Sinner (Common, Strong), Psychological Limi-
  tation: Nosy and Curious (Common, Moderate).
  Appearance: A white female in her forties with a di-
  sheveled appearance. She sullenly watches everyone
  in the ward, from the patients to the orderlies, and
  frequently can be found leaning forward and listen-
  ing in on other people’s conversations.
  Notes: Esther has been incarcerated in the Asylum for
  slashing her husband and children to death with a
  straight razor. A devout churchgoer her entire life,
  Esther seems possessed with a manic desire to com-
  mit sins, whether lustful or violent (though she is dis-
  posed to the later). Her psychiatrist is having diffi-
  culty finding the reason for her sinful urges. She does
  not meet many of the criteria for an Antisocial Per-
  sonality Disorder.
  Georgina
               [WARD 3]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] Georgina has
  all Everyman Skills, including PS:
  Housewife, 8- and WF: Knives, but she
  will not be able to use any of her skills
  when she is having a Major Depres-
  sive Episode.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Alco-
  holic (Common, Strong), Psychological Limitation:
  Borderline Personality Disorder (Common, Strong),
  Psychological Limitation: Dysthymic Disorder [3]
  with a superimposed Major Depressive Disorder (Very
  Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Scars on
  wrists (Concealable, Noticed).
  Appearance: A dull black woman in her early thirties
  with an average build and height, a thick, flat nose,
  and short black hair cut almost to the scalp. She ap-
  pears slow and passive, and is neatly dressed in a pa-
  tient uniform.
  Notes: Georgina, a 23 year old Baptist from the Fell’s
  Point Borough, was referred to the Asylum for a court
  case evaluation. She had a habit of setting fires when
  she was young, was sentenced to a Youth Develop-
  ment Center in Fell’s Point when she was seven. Five
  years later, she was charged with disorderly conduct,
  and three years after that, she was charged with Pros-
  titution and Arson with Aggravated Assault and Bat-
  tery. Recently she has been arrested for Voluntary
  Manslaughter after she stabbed her cousin to death
  while drunk. After the murder of her cousin, she tried
  to commit suicide by slashing her wrists but was found
  by the police before she bled to death.
  Eliza Grant
               [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Normal with an 8 INT and 11
  EGO.] It is not known whether Eliza
  has Everyman Skills or not.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Com-
  mon Variable Trigger) 11-, 14-, Psy-
  chological Limitation: Borderline Personality Disor-
  der (Common, Strong)
  Appearance: A small black female in her early thirties
  with a slightly unkempt appearance. She has dark
  black skin and large, bright eyes. She tends to rush
  1: Asylum records indicate that Ellen has only four children, and
  there is no record of Ellen having given birth to a child in the Asy-
  lum. Ellen, however seems quite insistent that she has five chil-
  dren. If questioned more on the subject, she will mumble some-
  thing about “Mr. Smiley Face probably took him” then burst into
  giggling.
  2: Esther’s strength is not apparent to the casual observer and should
  be treated as Invisible Effects (+1/2, Normal Sight).
  3: Georgina is constantly depressed at Moderate Intensity but oc-
  casionally has bouts of Strong Intensity depression.
  
  84
  84
  around the ward talking loudly to herself in discon-
  nected sentences.
  Notes: Eliza (pronounced “Uh-lee-zuh”) is 29 years
  old. She is anxious to leave the Asylum as soon as pos-
  sible because she feels it’s “a hideous, ugly place, an’ I
  don’t belong here.” A bundle of emotions, she acts
  immature most of the time and is alternately de-
  pressed, reactionary, hypersensitive, dependent and
  uses suicidal gestures as a dramatic means of getting
  attention. She has had several outbursts of violence
  (three) since her arrival in the Asylum a few months
  ago. She is extremely sensitive to any situation where
  someone appears to be taking advantage of her and
  may lash out with violence in order to “protect her-
  self.”
  Ivana
    [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with a 5 INT
  and 5 EGO.] Ivana has no Everyman
  Skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological/
  Physical Limitation: Advanced Dementia (Very Com-
  mon, Total), Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills
  (Frequently, Greatly), Age: 60+
  Appearance: This tiny, elderly white woman wanders
  silently around the ward. She wears a thin brown but-
  ton-up sweater over a patient uniform that appears
  much too big for her and sags in many places. Her
  face is relatively smooth of wrinkles, but her ghostly
  white hair and emaciated appearance betrays her age...
  her legs and arms are like
  gnarled sticks. She moves
  slowly and shows little or
  no reaction to anything
  going on around her.
  Notes: A daughter of
  Russian immigrants,
  Ivana was born in Fell’s
  Point in 1924 and was
  committed in 1952. She
  was diagnosed as psy-
  chotic and mentally de-
  ficient when she first ar-
  rived at the Asylum, but
  has become mute and
  withdrawn over the de-
  cades. Prior to her ad-
  mission to the hospital
  she was experiencing pe-
  riods of depression and
  disorientation and on
  several occasions had
  wandered away from
  home with no destina-
  tion. From all reports,
  she was developing nor-
  mally until age three, when she was thrown down a
  flight of stairs and seriously injured the front of her
  head.
  Her psychotic symptoms and her wanderings
  away from home apparently began after the death of
  her parents. She has shown no improvement since
  coming to the Asylum; Ivana can no longer care for
  herself and needs almost constant supervision. While
  she was capable of talking when admitted, she is pres-
  ently totally mute. It is unclear whether she is deaf,
  partially blind, or simply unresponsive.
  Jami “J.J.” Jackson
               [WARD 4]
  Powers and Skills: [Incompetent.]
  Jami has +1 Sight PER Rolls, all
  Everyman Skills (except Deduction)
  including PS: Hotel Maid and Waitress
  on an 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged if she feels “threatened”
  by a character (Common) 14-, 8-, Psychological Limi-
  tation: Paranoid Schizophrenia with Delusions (Very
  Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Suspicious
  and Hostile (Not Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: A black woman, maybe in her mid-thir-
  ties, dressed in baggy street clothes. Her hair is long
  and flares out in a halo around her head, and her ears
  are large. She appears guarded and suspicious, and she
  glares at everyone on the ward with barely-restrained
  hostility... any PC matching her gaze will hear her mur-
  mur what sounds like a threat under her breath.
  Notes: 
  Jami 
  (pro-
  nounced as “Jamie”) is a
  33 year old divorcee
  from the Borough with
  a criminal record of As-
  sault, Harassment, and
  Trespassing. Suspicious,
  guarded and hostile, she
  is quick to say that she’s
  not a Fell’s Point native,
  that she lived in Hudson
  City Northside for a year
  and owns a house there.
  Her delusions and perse-
  cution complex tends to
  revolve around “people”
  who took her house and
  her life away from her. If
  she feels threatened by a
  character (GM’s discre-
  tion), she will try to am-
  bush them in one of the
  shadowy corridors of the
  Asylum. During the at-
  tack she will kick the
  character repeatedly,
  then try and claw out the
  LEFT TO RIGHT: IVANA, ESTHER,
  GEORGINA, J.J. JACKSON, ELIZA GRANT
  
  85
  85
  character’s eyes with her fingernails. While attacking
  she will hiss under her breath, “ain’t gonna get my
  house THIS time,” followed by a stream of discon-
  nected words.
  Jo Anne
               [WARD 2]
  Powers and Skills: [Incompetent, with
  a 9 INT.] Jo has +1” Running (6” To-
  tal) and has the standard range of
  Everyman Skills, including AK: Asy-
  lum 8-, CK: Fell’s Point 8-, and PS:
  Cook on an 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Pyro-
  mania (Common, Strong), Psychological Limitation:
  Schizophrenia (Common, Strong, but currently in re-
  mission due to medication... it is now Common, Mod-
  erate), Distinctive Features: Mild Schizophrenic Be-
  havior (Concealable, Noticed).
  Appearance: A pale white female in her twenties, this
  patient is tall and thin, with straight whitish blond
  hair, blue eyes and a “willowy” appearance. She ap-
  pears clean, neat and alert to her surroundings.
  Notes: Jo is 22 years old and single. She lived with her
  two brothers until she was abandoned by her mother
  when she was three and the three of them were sent
  to the Fell’s Point Orphanage. From there, she was
  shuttled from the foster home to foster home in a cycle
  for eight years (living in five different homes during
  this period). She first displayed signs of her pyroma-
  nia when she was eleven and burned down the fourth
  foster home she stayed at, badly burning the family
  that had taken her in. She remained at the fifth and
  last foster home until she was sixteen, at which point
  she dropped out of school, and took a job as a meat-
  cutter in a Fell’s Point deli in the Southside. Jo has a
  tendency to collapse under stress, and once attempted
  suicide because of her Pyromania. She is believed to
  have problems with sex in general, and turns to fire-
  setting for sexual gratification.
  Katie, The Birdiladi
               [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent with a 7 INT and
  7 EGO.] Katie has no Everyman skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological
  Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizo-
  phrenia (Common, Strong), Physical Limitation: No
  Everyman Skills (Frequently, Greatly), Distinctive Fea-
  tures (Psychosomatic): Schizophrenic Behavior (Not
  Concealable, Major), Distinctive Features: Heavy
  make-up (Concealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: This patient is small white female in her
  early twenties, with long, straight black hair that hangs
  in tangles from her head. It is possible that one of her
  parents were Oriental, for her eyes are dark, almost
  like ink, and there are slight epicanthic folds at the
  corners of her eyes. Her dark eyes are made more strik-
  ing by thick blue eyeliner, and rouge has been applied
  to her cheeks so heavily that it makes her appear like
  a life-size Raggedy Ann doll. Despite the care she has
  taken with her appearance, she shrinks from others
  on the ward, and behaves oddly, slapping herself oc-
  casionally and making chirping noises.
  Notes: Katie is twenty-one and single. Despite her odd
  behavior, she tries to keep herself in “control,” espe-
  cially during therapy sessions because she desperately
  wants to be discharged. Unfortunately, her psychotic
  symptoms are likely to prevent this from ever hap-
  pening: Katie has auditory hallucinations and believes
  there is a bird in her head that communicates to her
  through whistles and chirps... when the bird becomes
  restless and flaps around in her skull, she slaps her
  head violently to make it calm down.
  Katie is extremely defensive and sexually imma-
  ture, with no idea how to react around men. Her ap-
  pearance reflects this immaturity... she wants men, but
  she doesn’t know how to behave to get one. Her un-
  certainty is evident if a male PC approaches her; she
  will shrink back violently and attempt to walk away
  as fast as possible. When she lived in Fell’s Point with
  her mother (a Korean; her father is dead), she would
  often create problems by making advances to males
  by staring at them intently, being highly made up, and
  walking unescorted through dangerous parts of the
  city.
  A doctor examining Katie will be able to tell that
  she has been pregnant in the past. What happened to
  her child, however, is unknown. If asked about it, Katie
  will give a strange, drugged smile and chirp, flapping
  her hands.
  Lauren
               [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Use the Skilled Normal tem-
  plate for Lauren’s Manic Episode and
  the Incompetent template for her De-
  pressive Phase.] Lauren has the full
  range of Everyman Skills (plus PS:
  Nurse 11-, Paramedic 11-, AK: Local
  Hospital 11- and WF: Syringes), although when she
  is in the Depressive Episode of her Bipolar Disorder,
  she must make an EGO Roll in order to use any of her
  skills or to defend herself.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Bipo-
  lar I Mood Disorder (Common, Strong). While hav-
  ing a Manic Episode, Lauren has the following Disad-
  vantages: Enraged (Variable Trigger, Common, GM’s
  discretion), 8-, 8- and Distinctive Features: Manic (Not
  Concealable, Major). In her Depressive Phase, she has
  Distinctive Features: Depressed (Concealable, Recog-
  nized).
  
  86
  86
  Appearance: An extremely thin woman, perhaps in
  her early twenties, this patient has curly blond hair
  (tied in a ponytail) that reaches down past her shoul-
  der. She wears a slightly disheveled green uniform and
  moves fitfully, like a bird.
  Notes: Lauren, 23, was once a registered nurse at a
  local hospital, but she lost her job after a psychotic
  episode where she anesthetized several patients and
  delivered them to the wrong operations. A month af-
  ter losing her job, she tried to kill herself and was ad-
  mitted to the Asylum for an evaluation. She has been
  in the Asylum for a year and has not shown any signs
  of recovery. She has been known to attack staff and
  patients during her manic phases.
  Louisa
             [WARD 7B]
  Skills: [Normal with 12 STR, 7 INT, 7
  EGO.] She has a limited range of
  Everyman Skills (Concealment, Shad-
  owing, Stealth 8-), plus Survival [Ur-
  ban] 8-, AK: Fell’s Point Borough 8-,
  and 2 points of Language (English).
  She is illiterate and can only write her own name. She
  cannot do simple math (3+3).
  25+ Disadvantages: At times, Louisa can become hos-
  tile and threatening. This should be treated as the En-
  raged Disadvantage (8-, 14-) with a variable, Uncom-
  mon trigger. She also has the Psychological Limita-
  tion: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with Delusions
  and Hallucinations (Common, Strong), Physical Limi-
  tation: 
  Limited
  Everyman Skills (Infre-
  quently, Slightly), Dis-
  tinctive Features (Psy-
  chosomatic): Retarded
  Schizophrenic 
  (Not
  Concealable, Major),
  Distinctive Features
  ( P s y c h o s o m a t i c ) :
  Echopraxia (mimics mo-
  tions of others around
  her, Not Concealable,
  Major), Distinctive Fea-
  tures: Scars on wrists and
  neck (Concealable, No-
  ticed).
  Appearance: This pa-
  tient is a black female in
  her thirties. Her features
  are unfocused and slack,
  suggesting a certain level
  of retardation, and she
  moves stiffly (her left leg
  is held straight when she
  moves, making her walk
  as if she has a peg-leg).
  She wears a ragged patient uniform and has a dishev-
  eled appearance. Occasionally, she mimics the motions
  of others near her (echopraxia).
  Notes: Louisa is a 34 year old, single female. She has
  been admitted to the Asylum six times (when not in
  the Asylum, she lives on the streets of the Fell’s Point
  Borough). She has a criminal record and has been in-
  carcerated in the Fell’s Point House of Corrections for
  Robbery, Theft, Assault and Aggravated Assault. Ex-
  tremely delusional and occasionally violent, she does
  not understand (or care) that she has committed
  crimes and is more concerned with making sure the
  staff  and patients know that she is pregnant with six
  children (who are already talking to her: auditory hal-
  lucinations) and that some of the other patients on
  the ward are stealing her money. She has a history of
  numerous suicide attempts and assaultive behavior on
  staff and patients. When answering a question, her
  speech tends to be long and confusing.
  Maria
               [WARD 3]
  Skills: [Incompetent with a 6 INT and
  6 EGO.] No Everyman Skills except for
  Language (3 Points). She is illiterate.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological
  Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizo-
  phrenia with Auditory Hallucinations (Common
  Strong), Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills
  (Moderate Mental Retardation, Frequently, Greatly),
  Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic, child-like behav-
  ior (Not Concealable,
  Major).
  Appearance: A white fe-
  male in her early twen-
  ties who speaks in an ex-
  cited, child-like manner.
  She is clean, neat and
  wears bright dresses on
  the wards, favoring yel-
  low and pink over other
  colors.
  Notes: Maria is 26 years
  old and mildly retarded.
  She has auditory hallu-
  cinations of her mother’s
  voice telling her to hurt
  herself, and can become
  angry when “bossed
  around or told what to
  do.” (She has never be-
  come violent during one
  of these infrequent dis-
  plays of anger; it is more
  like a pique.) Maria pre-
  fers to talk about herself
  LEFT TO RIGHT: LOUISA, MARIA
  KATIE, JO ANNE, LAUREN
  
  87
  87
  and gets extremely excited about clothes (she hates
  the green patient uniforms, and is glad that she “has
  clothes of her own”). Her sense of time and place is
  not good, and she is frequently confused about the
  year, date and the time of day.
  Maria’s family situation is something of a mys-
  tery. Some records indicate that she has a father and a
  brother... others insist that she was raised in the Fell’s
  Point Orphanage. One record even goes so far as to
  mention that Maria has a daughter (which the record
  claims she gave birth to in the Asylum). If the subject
  of her “daughter” is brought up, Maria becomes vis-
  ibly agitated, shaking her head, stuttering, and scratch-
  ing at her upper right arm, as if trying to remove some-
  thing. After a few minutes of this (and a slow disinte-
  gration in coherency of her speech and mannerisms),
  she will burst into tears and scream repeatedly that
  “she doesn’t want to smile anymore.” The Asylum staff
  will quickly usher her into the Medical Ward, and af-
  ter a few days of recovery, Maria will return, behaving
  normally.
  Mary Jane
               [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Normal with 6 INT and 7
  EGO.] Mary Jane has a limited range
  of Everyman Skills, including Climb-
  ing, Stealth (both at 8 or less) and Lan-
  guage: English at the three point level.
  She also has WF: Knives.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Para-
  noid Schizophrenia (Common, Strong), Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: Mixed Personality Disorder (Common,
  Moderate), Psychological Limitation: Drug Addiction,
  Weak (Various Drugs, especially alcohol, cocaine and
  heroin), Physical Limitation: Limited Everyman Skills
  (Infrequently, Slightly), 2D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: An emaciated, white female in her mid
  to late thirties dressed in standard patient “greens.”
  She has long brown hair, a tense face, and light brown
  eyes that dart across the ward as if looking for some-
  thing.
  Notes: Mary Jane (33) tends to be sullen and expresses
  occasional irritation and anxiety, including chewing
  her tongue. She reacts badly to criticism, is excessively
  sensitive and defensive and believes that other people
  (staff and patients) know more about her than they
  claim to. When confronted with a difficult situation,
  she tends to withdraw, either physically or emotion-
  ally (usually whichever one is easier... or both if the
  circumstance is extremely distressing).
  Mary Jane has a long history of drug abuse,
  mostly amphetamines and cocaine. She has a crimi-
  nal record: one charge of Assault involving a young
  boy in her neighborhood (the details are unclear and
  not listed in her file), and she was sent to the Fell’s
  Point Municipal Hospital after an accidental drug
  overdose which left her in a coma for four days.
  Mary Jane was admitted to the Asylum ten years
  ago after she threatened to roast her niece in the oven;
  even before this incident, however, her family was
  forced to lock Mary Jane in her room at night and
  hide all the kitchen knives in the house. Since her ar-
  rival at the Asylum, Mary Jane has expressed several
  murderous thoughts against her family and some
  against the patients and staff as well.
  Monica
               [WARD 3]
  Skills: [Incompetent with an 11 STR
  and 10 BODY.] No Everyman Skills
  except for English Language (speak-
  ing only, 3 points) and Stealth 8- plus
  -1” Running and -1 to Hearing PER
  Rolls.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Disso-
  ciative Amnesia (Common, Strong), Psychological
  Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with Au-
  ditory Hallucinations (Common, Strong), Distinctive
  Features: Overweight and Loud, Booming Voice (Not
  Concealable, Recognizable)
  Appearance: A large, overweight, well-groomed black
  woman in her late thirties. Her lower body looks
  disproportionally large compared to her upper half,
  and she speaks in a loud, booming voice when talking
  with others. When by herself, she laughs occasionally,
  as if listening to a private joke.
  Notes: Monica is 38 years old. She was admitted to
  the Asylum after she was picked up by the police in
  the Southside carrying a pistol without a license. While
  the police questioned her, she explained that she was
  often hearing things, such as people saying things to
  her “that made me laugh.” Shortly after she was picked
  up by the police, Monica was referred to the Asylum
  for diagnosis and treatment, and she has remained
  there for the past few months with no change in her
  condition. She still does not realize why she is hospi-
  talized and just wants to “get off th’ medicine” and
  “get out of th’ hospital.” The Asylum psychiatrists have
  noticed that she has several gaps in her long term
  memory.
  Mustang Sally
            [WARD 8A]
  Skills: [Normal with 8 INT, 9 EGO,
  and 14 COM.] Standard Everyman
  Skills, Contact: Asylum Cook 11-, Per-
  suasion 11- and Seduction at an 11 or
  less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Depen-
  dent Personality Disorder (Common, Moderate), Psy-
  chological Limitation: Histrionic Personality Disor-
  der (Very Common, Moderate), Psychological Limi-
  tation: Nymphomaniac (Common, Strong), Distinc-
  tive Features: Seductive (Concealable, Noticed).
  
  88
  88
  Appearance: A sexy, vi-
  brant teenager with
  short, dirty blond hair
  and an attractive figure.
  She always wears short
  dresses, with no panties
  or a bra, and often
  watches the male em-
  ployees as they go about
  their duties.
  Notes: Sally is a sexy six-
  teen year old who loves
  to flirt. She acts shame-
  lessly with the male staff,
  hanging on them and
  calling them “Daddy.”
  She carries on conversa-
  tions easily, and she fre-
  quently talks about how
  she would like to leave
  the Asylum and get mar-
  ried. Characters who
  speak to her for any
  length of time will notice
  that she keeps bringing
  the conversation back
  around to the subject of dinnertime. Anyone who fol-
  lows Sally’s daily routine will discover the reason for
  her preoccupation: after dinner, the Asylum dietitian
  leaves the institution, and she goes into the kitchen
  and socializes with the male cooks. She is having an
  affair with one of them, and they have sex in his office
  just off the kitchen almost everyday. Afterwards, he
  usually gives her pastries, apples, pie and cake to take
  back to her cell late at night. Sally’s sexual escapades
  have become the subject of many cruel jokes around
  the Asylum.
  Sally is pregnant, although she does not know
  it yet... her lover has a wife and several children and
  will be fired if his involvement is discovered. As soon
  as the Asylum staff becomes aware that Sally is preg-
  nant, PCs may notice that they begin to take an inor-
  dinate amount of interest in her.
  Norma Rae
            [WARD 8A]
  Skills: [Normal with 11 DEX and 8
  EGO.] Paramedic 8-, Seduction 11-
  and Contact: Asylum Staff Member
  (Male) at an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological
  Limitation: Borderline Personality Disorder (Uncom-
  mon, Moderate), Psychological Limitation: Histrionic
  Personality Disorder (Very Common, Moderate).
  Appearance: This woman is a slender Caucasian in
  her early twenties. She is neatly dressed, clean, and
  with curly blond hair and a perky cheerfulness about
  her. Her nose is tilted up-
  ward slightly, and it gives
  an attractive lift to her
  entire face.
  Notes: Norma Rae, 21
  years old, was aban-
  doned in the Asylum five
  years ago by her mother,
  who now lives in
  Hudson City. Bright and
  cheerful, Norma is
  treated almost like one of
  the attendants in her
  ward; sometimes when
  the staff nurses are
  short-handed, she helps
  take care of the mentally
  retarded patients and
  helps administer medi-
  cations to the other pa-
  tients. At first, Norma
  appears to be an ideal
  member to have in the
  ward, but any character
  who watches her for
  more than a few hours
  (male PCs may discover this immediately) will notice
  her unhealthy interest in the opposite sex. Norma is
  extremely popular with men (both patients and staff),
  and if characters aren’t careful to keep away from her,
  they will find themselves in jealous entanglements
  with angry male staff members and patients. Norma
  finds these conflicts extremely exciting and often goes
  out of her way to feed the fires between characters
  vying for her attention.
  Norma is the source of many items smuggled
  into the Asylum. With her many contacts among the
  male staff, she often receives expensive gifts, includ-
  ing drugs and alcohol, and barters them for other fa-
  vors. These items are occasionally turned into home-
  made weapons or are sold on the Asylum black mar-
  ket for other items.
  Margo Roche
               [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent with a 9 INT, 12
  PRE and 14 COM.] She has the stan-
  dard range of Everyman Skills, both an
  Asylum Psychiatrist and an Asylum
  Orderly as Contacts (11-) and the Se-
  duction skill at an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Bipo-
  lar Mood Disorder (Common, Strong, currently ap-
  proaching Manic episode), Psychological Limitation:
  Histrionic Personality Disorder (Common,
  Moderate...only when in Manic Phase), Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: Nymphomaniac (Common, Strong),
  Distinctive Features: See Appearance, below (Not Con-
  cealable, Major) and 2D6 Unluck.
  LEFT TO RIGHT: MUSTANG SALLY,
  MARY JANE, NORMA RAE, MONICA
  
  89
  89
  A p p e a r a n c e : T h i s
  woman looks like a de-
  partment store manne-
  quin. A slender white fe-
  male with an attractive
  nose, bright blue eyes
  and a beautiful face, she
  has forsaken the stan-
  dard patient uniform
  and seems to prefer
  wearing bright, revealing
  clothes. Her hair is light
  brown, so light as to be
  almost blond, and a
  cloud of perfume wafts
  behind her when she
  moves.
  Notes: Margo is a desper-
  ately lonely woman. She
  admitted herself to the
  Asylum less than two
  weeks ago due to escalat-
  ing problems in her per-
  sonal life (her husband,
  away on a business trip,
  is unaware that she has
  checked herself into the Asylum). She has often en-
  tertained the thought of killing herself, which usually
  surfaces after one of her “binges,” including spending
  her husband’s money on vanities (clothes, a new car,
  and so on) as well as being unfaithful to him while he
  is on business trips. She regards all the psychiatrists
  in purely sexual terms, likes to moan for no reason
  during interview sessions, and does her best to be se-
  ductive. If rejected by a PC, she becomes sullen and
  cloudy, then tries a new approach the next day until
  she succeeds.
  Rosebelle
               [WARD 4]
  Skills: [Incompetent with 6 INT and
  6 EGO.] She has no Everyman Skills
  except for Language: English (2 points,
  comprehension; she is illiterate) and
  Stealth at an 8 or less. Rosebelle will
  run away if attacked.
  25+ Disadvantages: Physical Limitation: No
  Everyman Skills (Severe Mental Retardation), Psycho-
  logical Limitation:  Major Depressive Disorder with
  Hallucinations (Common, Strong), Distinctive Fea-
  tures (Psychosomatic): Obviously Depressed (Not
  Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: A short, obese black woman who appears
  to be in her late thirties but acts like she is six or seven.
  Withdrawn and silent, she frequently picks at her pa-
  tient uniform or else sits in a corner of the ward, tear-
  ing up bits of trash. She looks as if she is sulking and
  ignores people who come close to her.
  Notes: Rosebelle is a
  single woman, 36, who
  was admitted to the Asy-
  lum twenty years ago.
  She suffered consider-
  able physical and sexual
  abuse from her brother
  ever since she was ten,
  and there has been little
  or no change in her con-
  dition since she arrived
  at the Asylum: she is
  withdrawn, regressed,
  and sometimes remains
  mute for days. She
  hoards and tear up trash
  on the ward, then wads
  it into the toilets in soggy
  clumps (“to keep the
  foul water from gettin’
  in,” she explains), and
  has occasional halluci-
  nations (whose content
  is unspecified). If the
  GM is in doubt to how
  she would respond in a
  situation, she generally
  acts like a seven year old.
  Rosebelle sometimes pats her belly, smiling and
  murmuring “all gone now.” Records indicate that she
  gave birth to a son while at the Asylum almost ten
  years ago and that the child was turned over to her
  family in Fell’s Point. Characters who follow up on
  this information, however, will discover that Rosebelle
  has no family in Fell’s Point (her brother died when
  she was twenty-three). If asked what happened to the
  child, Rosebelle will give a slow, wide smile (which
  looks forced) and then shrug, as if it is not important.
  The smile will remain on her face for several hours.
  Mary Smith
               [WARD 2]
  Powers and Skills: [Incompetent with
  7 INT, 7 EGO.] She has +2” Running
  (7” Total), but no Everyman Skills. She
  can only comprehend English at the 1
  point Language level, although she fre-
  quently gives no sign of having heard
  the speaker and will not obey the com-
  mands of the staff.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged if someone comes within
  one foot of her (Very Common) 11-, 8-, Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: Schizophrenia with Delusions and Hal-
  lucinations (Very Common, Total), Physical Limita-
  tion: No Everyman Skills (Frequently, Greatly), Dis-
  tinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behavior (Not Con-
  cealable, Major).
  LEFT TO RIGHT: ROSEBELLE,
  MARY SMITH, MARGO ROCHE, SUSAN
  
  90
  90
  Appearance: A black girl in her late teens, this patient
  seems to spend most of her time in seclusion, getting
  into fights, or yelling at others on the ward. She often
  lies motionless, back flat against the wall, peering out
  fearfully from behind her fingers. She bristles when
  anyone walks by, and her eyes dart back and forth... if
  anyone comes within a foot of her, she screams. Once
  in a while she shields her face with her arms, as if ward-
  ing off blows, and kicks her legs wildly while making
  choking sobs and screams.
  Notes: Mary Smith (18 yrs. old) used to live in one of
  the worst neighborhoods in the Borough. If she went
  outside, the boys would make her take off all her
  clothes and run around the street naked. If she re-
  fused or resisted, they would beat her. Raped once
  when she was thirteen and again when she fifteen, her
  mother, no longer able to protect her at home, had
  her admitted to the Asylum, where she has been for
  the past three years. Drugs have no effect on Mary’s
  condition. Calm at meals, she eats mechanically, and
  she never responds to anyone else on the ward.
  When someone comes too close, Mary cries out
  like a cornered animal and launches herself at the per-
  son, clawing, slapping and biting... if she can reach
  the character’s eyes, she will claw them out or wrap
  her arms around the character’s neck and squeeze as
  hard as she can. After incidents like these, the order-
  lies generally subdue her and throw her in seclusion.
  Susan
             [WARD 7B]
  Skills: [Normal with 13 STR, 9 INT, 7
  EGO, and 8 COM.] Susan has the stan-
  dard range of Everyman Skills (AK:
  The Fell’s Point Borough 8-), but no
  other skills or talents.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged when under stress (i.e.,
  when she gains a Stress Level or is hit with a Presence
  Attack; Common) 8-, 11-, Psychological Limitation:
  Borderline Personality Disorder (Common, Strong),
  Distinctive Features: Scars on wrists (Concealable,
  Noticed)
  Appearance: This tall black female looks to be in her
  early thirties, with thick arms and broad shoulders.
  She towers over many of the other females in the ward.
  Her face looks soft and passive, and she shows little
  expression or interest in her environment. She is neatly
  dressed in large sweaters, jeans and sneakers, and
  shuffles about the ward rather than walks.
  Notes: Susan is 32 years old and married. She had an
  emotionally troubled childhood and spent most of her
  youth in the Fell’s Point Orphanage. In the past five
  years that she has been at the Asylum, she has made
  eight suicide attempts. Whenever she talks about her
  suicide attempts, she always describes them in
  strangely distant terms; she says that sometimes
  “things come over her,” which she can neither describe
  or explain.
  Despite her passive appearance, Susan is ex-
  tremely sensitive to her environment and dependent
  on it. When she fails to receive positive support from
  other characters, she usually attempts to manipulate
  them through various attention-seeking behaviors,
  often becoming seductive, controlling, and demand-
  ing in social situations (i.e., a Borderline Personality
  Disorder). Under stress, she can become extremely
  hostile, suspicious and depressed, and if she finds her-
  self in a confusing situation, she must make an EGO
  Roll or else she will run away or attack what she con-
  siders to be the source of her confusion or distress.
  Heathen
  Sally dreamed. She dreamed of
  blood, and twisted shapes in red,
  green and flesh. She murmured in
  her sleep, turning restlessly.
  • • •
  The dream was thick and vivid
  with death. Shapes, shapes near
  to her, within calling distance
  and just past the walls, were mill-
  ing about in thick green herds,
  shuffling within gray stone walls.
  Within this ward, within her ward
  (compound), Sally felt something.
  A predator was moving amongst
  the green herds. They did not seem
  to recognize the figure for what
  he was, for they made no motion
  to run from him, nor was there
  any tension or undercurrent of
  fear... they seemed to wait, as
  if ready to die.
  There was a precision in the
  way the predator moved, the way
  the merest brush of his fingers
  seemed to kill every patient he
  touched. Sally wanted to cry out
  and warn the patients, but when
  she shouted, the words froze in
  her throat.
  The predator, garbed in white,
  continued his killings. His hands
  constricted, gouged, slaughtered
  all that came within reach. The
  green shapes did not stir until
  they all lay, broken, upon the
  floor.
  When the shapes had fallen from
  the predator’s touch, he stepped
  back and drew a deep breath, as
  if drawing life from the still
  figures that lay around him. The
  
  91
  91
  predator then hunched down, dipped
  his fingers (claws?) into the thick
  of the bloody matter, then raised
  his finger, letting the blood coil
  and run down his talon. His fin-
  ger was clothed in black, black
  gloves. The gloves were familiar.
  The red bled with the black,
  and carefully, the man began to
  write on the walls of the ward
  above the bodies. He whistled
  softly to himself as he did so.
  HEATHEN.
  • • •
  Sally was sleeping on the floor
  when she heard the familiar sound
  of the key rattling in the lock.
  She opened her eyes from where
  she lay.
  But this time when the door
  opened, Shreiver was not there.
  Instead, the doctor she had
  seen when she had first come to
  the Asylum that night so long ago
  was there, smiling. Sally smiled
  back without meaning to. It was
  Dr. Masters. It was good to see
  him.
  “Hello, Sally.”
  She nodded at him, still smil-
  ing.
  “I’ve come to return something
  to you.”
  His hand fell from behind his
  back, and her eyes followed the
  path of the blood-stained brown
  paper bag as it fell in front of
  her. The red smears on the bag
  stood out sharply to her senses,
  and she stared at them, hypno-
  tized.
  “I apologize for the mess,”
  Masters said, still smiling. “I’m
  afraid it’s true what they say
  about the unwashed heathen.”
  • • •
  Sally’s eyes burned, and she
  found it difficult to take her
  eyes from the bag.
  “It’s yours,” Masters said.
  “Despite what you’ve been telling
  Shreiver.”
  Sally did not move. The bag
  had fallen open slightly, and she
  could see the red and black con-
  tours of the Purge costume in-
  side. The bag smelled thickly of
  blood, and it made her ill.
  “You’ve been Purge all this
  time.” Masters’s voice was a gentle
  reprimand. “So I think you should
  be aware that I’m extremely dis-
  appointed in you. Lying to
  Shreiver, lying to me,” Masters
  frowned disapprovingly, but there
  was no harshness in his gentle,
  father-like voice. “Why did you
  do it, Sally?” He made a sweeping
  motion with his hand, as if to
  encompass the Asylum. “The pa-
  tients here, they are not heathen
  for you to butcher. They are
  people, just like you and I. Some
  of them... some of them are curi-
  ously enlightened.” Masters
  sighed. “Perhaps if I had been
  counseling you, this tragedy never
  would have happened.”
  Masters’s frown faded, and he
  became pensive.
  “I blame myself, really.”
  • • •
  Sally began to cry.
  “Shhhh,” Dr. Masters spoke,
  then stepped forward, closing the
  gap between them. She tried to
  draw away, but he moved faster
  than she could react. Before she
  had drawn another breath, he had
  bent down to where she lay on the
  floor and cupped her face in his
  strong hands, smoothing her tear-
  stained cheeks. “Shhhh now, don’t
  cry, it’s all right. Shhhh.”
  Dr. Masters leaned forward,
  and inclined his head slightly so
  that he could whisper in her ear.
  “You were right. Your lover,
  Sam, was here.” He licked his lips,
  as if savoring the taste. “Shreiver
  knows, she simply won’t tell you.
  It’s one of her shameful secrets.
  But don’t worry, Sally. Soon, when
  the patients come to punish you
  for what you’ve done, you will
  join Sam at last. And though the
  physical pain you will be sub-
  jected to will be excruciating,
  it will be brief, and the hurting
  will at last go away.”
  Sally began to cry harder, her
  frame shaking. Masters patted her
  on the back, the smile never hav-
  ing left his face.
  “That’s what you really came
  here for, isn’t it?”
  
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  He disengaged, then as a part-
  ing gesture, kissed her lightly
  on the forehead. His touch had
  been comforting, and his voice the
  softest and sweetest sound she had
  ever heard.
  • • •
  When Dr. Masters stepped from
  her cell, so lightly it seemed he
  had never been there, the brown
  paper bag, stained with blood,
  remained. It waited patiently on
  the floor, waiting for her as it
  had since the beginning.
  The door lay open a crack,
  enough for her to run if she wished
  to. Sally knew it wouldn’t mat-
  ter. This was it. The end.
  The echo of Masters’s voice
  lingered in the chamber.
  • • •
  Sally could smell the death
  seeping in through the crack in
  the door. The tears were drying
  on her cheeks, and she hugged her
  knees, rocking gently back and
  forth. Outside the door, she knew
  what she would find... there would
  be the flesh, the green, and of
  course, the red. The red would be
  smeared upon the walls like ink
  blots, and beside it, next to it,
  over the body of every victim would
  be written a word, again and again.
  She glanced at the stained
  brown paper bag before her. Its
  smears were fresh and glistened
  in the dim light of the cell. It
  would not be long before they dried
  on its surface, to become a shade
  of brown darker than that of the
  bag itself.
  She realized that there were
  no longer many choices open to
  her.
  She could run.
  She could stay here.
  She continued to stare at the
  brown paper bag, that in itself,
  presented a solution. There was a
  certain power in the costume, she
  could feel�it, and with it, she
  might be able to fight, buy her-
  self a few seconds, perhaps just
  enough time to escape...
  Sally went through the options
  again, repressing the panic that
  was building inside her. If she
  ran, she would not escape — there
  was nowhere to run, no one to run
  to in the Asylum. Even if she made
  it outside, she would probably be
  picked up again within hours by
  the police. The Asylum knew who
  she was. Even if they hadn’t be-
  lieved she was Purge before, they
  would now.
  And she could stay here. Wait
  for them, whether they were the
  staff or the patients, wait for
  them with the proof of her guilt
  lying next to her.
  She continued to stare at the
  bag and its drying stains.
  She could give in...
  Not give up, but give in, just
  for a little while. Something told
  her, tugged at her that there was
  some means of escape within the
  bag—
  No. Sally closed her eyes. She
  would never put on that costume.
  The other two choices were grim,
  but the last one was even more
  unpleasant.
  What choices did she have left?
  She felt a slight breeze touch
  her uniform, and she opened her
  eyes.
  • • •
  When she looked up, the Poet
  was waiting for her in the black
  rectangle of the door. He seemed
  so thin as to be insubstantial.
  “I didn’t do it,” she said.
  “I—”
  The Poet nodded, and Sally
  became silent. He understood what
  had happened. He extended his hand.
  Sally stood unsteadily to her
  feet, and she clasped his hand.
  In so doing, it was as if they had
  signed some formal contract. As
  his skin touched hers, the drugged
  haze she had felt before seemed
  to lift and reason returned. She
  could see more clearly, she could
  speak without pain. And she could
  remember.
  “I never should have left you
  that night in the Eastern Divi-
  sion,” Sally whispered. “I’m so
  sorry—”
  The Poet’s shook his head, and
  he seemed more apologetic than she.
  He gently pulled on her arm, to
  
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  the edge of the doorway, prompt-
  ing her that now was the time to
  leave. He stepped out and into
  the death-stained corridor beyond,
  leaving Sally alone for the last
  time in the cell.
  Sally’s eyes flickered to the
  blood brown paper bag that lay by
  her feet. Without even understand-
  ing why, she lifted up the bag
  and held it in her hand... she
  had to carry it just a small ways
  farther, then she could let it
  go. She folded up the bloody par-
  cel and placed it clumsily be-
  neath her shirt so that it pressed
  against her skin.
  She stepped from the sealed
  cell into the darkened corridors
  of the Eastern Division, follow-
  ing where the Poet led.
  • • •
  It was nearing night when the
  phone rang in Shreiver’s office.
  “Dr. Shreiver, there’s been
  an incident in the...” The voice
  swallowed, and Shreiver heard the
  sound of someone speaking to the
  caller on the other side of the
  phone, followed by screams and
  shouting. “Oh, Christ. Dr.
  Shreiver, there’s been several
  deaths on the ward where we kept
  the Robinson woman. The bodies...”
  “Where is Miss Robinson?”
  “We can’t find her, Dr.
  Shreiver. We think she’s loose in
  the hospital. And the uniform, uh,
  the Purge uniform, is missing from
  storage.”
  Shreiver frowned. There was
  something wrong. Robinson had been
  too drugged up to move. She had
  been certain of it.
  Someone had freed her.
  “Is Mr. Curtis still in the
  Admissions Ward?” Shreiver asked.
  “What?” The caller seemed sur-
  prised. “I’m sorry, Doctor, wha—”
  “Mr. Curtis. Is Mr. Curtis
  still in the Admissions Ward?”
  Shreiver repeated.
  “I’ll... I’ll check, Doctor.”
  “Call me back as soon as you
  find out.”
  Shreiver glanced out the win-
  dow of her office as she set the
  phone back on its cradle. The set-
  ting sky was framed in the window
  pane, throwing its last rays over
  the peaked roof of the institu-
  tion.
  • • •
  When the phone in Dr.
  Shreiver’s office rang again, it
  delivered the answer she expected.
  “Mr. Curtis is gone, Dr.
  Shreiver. We don’t know wh—”
  Shreiver, stiffening in an-
  ger, slammed down the phone with-
  out acknowledging the statement.
  Standing up quickly, she strode
  from behind the desk toward the
  door.
  She knew where the two pa-
  tients were going.
  As the door clicked closed
  behind her, the great leather arm-
  chair that faced the Western Di-
  vision thickened with shadows.
  
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  Chapter Four:
  Timeline
  Introduction
  The Asylum history exists piecemeal in texts and
  records scattered throughout Fell’s Point. Characters
  will never find any text that gives a complete and ac-
  curate of the history of the Asylum... attempts to pub-
  lish such books have always been a failure, either in
  execution (giving only false information) or through
  accidents involving the manuscripts, research materi-
  als and (not uncommonly) the authors, all of which
  conspired to prevent the text from ever seeing print.
  The pieces of text below that function as the “Asylum
  Timeline” are what characters can expect to find if
  performing research on the Asylum. Even Dr. Shreiver
  does not possess a complete version of the Asylum his-
  tory (though she has gathered bits and pieces into a
  makeshift journal hidden somewhere within the Asy-
  lum).
  Numerous fires, flooding and the disappearance
  of many records have contributed to the Asylum’s frag-
  mented history. While some of these events were acci-
  dents, others were deliberate attempts by the patients
  or the staff to destroy the Asylum’s origins. Much his-
  tory was lost in the succession of fires that occurred in
  the past century, starting as far back as the fire of 1904
  (which claimed buildings in Fell’s Point that housed
  Asylum records, not just the records stored at the Asy-
  lum itself) to the more recent fires engineered by the
  Pretender and Ashtray Art  for paranoid and artistic
  reasons, respectively (see Underworld Enemies and the
  Heresies chapter later on; these fires date into the past
  decade). Some Asylum residents have eaten large sec-
  tions of the records, others have specifically destroyed
  sections (one patient in the 1930s was obsessed with
  burning the founder’s name from all Asylum records
  with matches and had made her way through several
  volumes before she was stopped; in the aftermath of
  WWII, another patient, a former censor in the Army,
  also mangled several volumes with a thick black marker
  and a pocketknife). Other pieces and texts have sim-
  ply vanished. Characters traveling through the Asylum
  tunnels and the “veins” in its walls may run across yel-
  lowed pages of old manuscripts that were stuffed in
  the walls, as if to shore up the foundations.
  While the Asylum’s fragmented timeline presents
  a difficulty for PCs, it is intended to be a tool for the
  GM. The PCs may experience some frustration about
  the sketchy timeline, but not having the Asylum his-
  tory laid out cleanly for them will hopefully contrib-
  ute to the mystery of the institution and spark their
  curiosity. GMs should feel free to flesh out or change
  any portions of the history to accommodate their cam-
  paign, as inaccuracies and false information exist a-
  plenty in the records. Again, GMs should tailor the
  Asylum history to suit their needs.
  The Eldritch Era
  1600-1900
  The Mount Colony
  1610: The Fell’s Point peninsula has long been famous
  for the number of colonies that perished on its shores;
  one of its more infamous sites, however, has never been
  adequately addressed in records anywhere on the Point,
  not even in the annals of the Fell’s Point Historical
  Preservation Society. In the early 1600s, a colony was
  established on the Mount (the future site of the Asy-
  lum) and subsequently abandoned. No one knows
  what happened to the Mount Colony; only its burned
  remains were found once the English supply ships re-
  turned to Fell’s Point. It was presumed the Mount
  Colony was overwhelmed by Indians, but no bodies
  were ever found in the charred remains of the settle-
  ment. [1]
  There is little information available on the
  Mount Colony. It is believed that the colonists (na-
  tives of England) had not willingly come to the shores
  of Fell’s Point but had been forced from England in
  the wake of the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601. Osten-
  sibly, this law made each town responsible for its
  needier citizens (“idiots, lunaticks and distracted per-
  sons”), but some villages were known to shirk this duty,
  ridding themselves of potential burdens by kidnapping
  the homeless and mentally ill and dumping them in
  other communities under the cover of night.
  1: The GM can choose to replace the “Mount Colony” with the
  (CROATOAN) settlement on Roanoke Island in 1590.
  
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  Although reliable information is lacking, some
  historians have voiced the suspicion that the Mount
  Colony may have been composed of these indigent
  persons, some of whom were undoubtedly mentally
  ill. Instead of being shuttled from town to town, these
  “colonists” had somehow been shipped to the new
  world (how this was accomplished is unknown; it is
  possible that they were shanghaied or sold as slave la-
  bor to the merchant vessel of some joint-stock com-
  pany). Although no evidence of a ship has yet been
  uncovered near the Mount Colony, some historians
  believe that the colony ship crashed and sunk in the
  waters off the Fell’s Point peninsula, stranding the colo-
  nists on the Mount. [1]
  If the colonists were truly displaced persons and
  the mentally ill from England, at least one historian
  has voiced the possibility that other settlers on the pen-
  insula may have razed the colony. They may have feared
  the Mount Colony as a possible burden (indigents from
  the colony may have wandered to other settlements),
  or as another possibility, consistent with the beliefs of
  the mentally ill at the time, was that the Mount colo-
  nists had succumbed to demonic influences and moral
  turpitude, thus providing a justification for their de-
  struction. Still, an extreme set of circumstances would
  have been needed to provide a catalyst for such a vio-
  lent action.
  The Fell Point Asylum
  The Asylum’s predecessor, the “Fell Point Asy-
  lum” [2] was constructed in 1770, founded in 1773,
  and was destroyed by fire sometime in the early half
  of the nineteenth century. Only scraps of information
  exist on the Fell Point Asylum; the rest can be manu-
  factured by the GM according to the needs of the cam-
  paign.
  1773: The first public Asylum in the United States, the
  Fell Point Asylum, was established “for Persons of In-
  sane or Disordered Minds.” While the Hudson City
  Hospital, opened in 1791, provided segregated areas
  for the mentally disordered, the Asylum was solely
  devoted to the treatment of the mentally ill.
  1815: Faded pages of documentation; looked as if
  charred remnants from a book or manuscript:
  ...there existed evils in the Fell Asylum, appalling and
  revolting to humanity; and by appointment the government
  has set the example of placing these institutions under the
  control of a class of persons entirely unqualified for their
  management. There is no uncertainty that the personal
  character of the individual appointed will end the abuse,
  but the nature of the appointment was indicative that the
  Fell Point government felt insanity was not a curable dis-
  ease...
  The Fell's Point
  Asylum
  The Founder
  In the portions of the text below concerning the
  birth of the Fell’s Point Asylum, PCs may come across
  references to the Asylum’s “Founder.” Wherever his
  name appears, however, it was been burned from the
  text with a match, obliterated with ink, snipped out
  with scissors, and so on. In the scraps below, his name
  is written as the Founder, but GMs who are using the
  text sections as handouts should obliterate the word
  in some manner before giving it to the players. It is
  intended that the GM choose the Founder from their
  own campaign. If the GM does not wish to design the
  Founder and has no possible candidates for the posi-
  tion, the identity of the Founder can be left a mystery.
  The Fell's Point Asylum
  The foundation for the present-day Asylum took
  root in the middle of the nineteenth century (not long
  after fires destroyed the “Fell Point” Asylum). In 1851,
  Dorothea Dix came to Fell’s Point and convinced the
  Founder of her methods for the compassionate care
  of the mentally ill. She joined him to induce the Fell’s
  Point state legislature to establish a new state institu-
  tion for the treatment of the criminally insane. The
  success of their efforts persuaded the Founder to found
  an Asylum of his own (free from political control) to
  serve as many of the general public as could be allowed.
  1853, The Architecture Firm and Preliminary Stud-
  ies: The firm of Robert and Charles Dixon won the
  bid to design the Fell’s Point Asylum. [3] While Rob-
  ert Dixon was making preliminary studies of the site,
  Charles, with several associate architects, traveled to
  Europe to gather ideas that might prove helpful in
  building the Asylum. [1, next page]
  1: If the PCs look for evidence to back this theory, there are some
  archaeological sources on the point that record the presence of the
  wreckage of a ship not far from the Mount Colony; nevertheless, a
  lack of funds prevents conducting adequate surveys of the remains
  of the ship... only photographs of the ship’s blackened ribs have
  been taken and published in Fell’s Point archaeology journals. In
  addition, other sources have found several ballast stones in the foun-
  dations of the Fell Asylum (see below) that are believed to have
  been carried to the peninsula sometime in the 17th century.
  2: Archaic. (the peninsula was later to become “Fell’s” Point) for
  the sake of division, this first incarnation of the Asylum is referred
  to as the “Fell Point Asylum” or “Fell Asylum”; it should not be
  confused with the “Fell’s Point Asylum” that was constructed in the
  late nineteenth century
  3: Despite the requests of the Founder that anything that suggested
  a prison was to be avoided, the cost of materials and poor labor
  conspired against the Asylum builders. In the interests of time, they
  renewed the foundations of what they believed to be an old prison
  that was originally on the Mount, and then hollowed out the tun-
  nels and buildings into an Asylum for the insane. This old prison
  was the original “Fell Asylum,” which in turn, had been built atop
  the Mount Colony (see above).
  
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  1853, The Site: The search began for a suitable loca-
  tion for Asylum. Several miles outside of Fell’s Point,
  the real estate that composed “the Mount” was pur-
  chased for sixty thousand dollars.
  1860, Gatehouse: A gatehouse is erected to side of the
  main road. Two nail-studded oak doors of unusual
  thickness and weight were placed at the entrance gate
  to the Asylum, but these were destroyed by the fires
  that claimed the peninsula later in the century. What
  happened to the doors is unknown, but they were re-
  placed with the wrought iron gate that marks the en-
  trance today.
  1861, Civil War: In May, the construction of the Asy-
  lum was delayed. Railroad service throughout Fell’s
  Point was disrupted by the transportation of soldiers
  and supplies, and gunpowder could not be secured for
  blasting in the quarry.
  1862, Civil War: In spite of war, the foundation of the
  Western Division was laid, iron beams erected to sup-
  port the arches, and walls raised around the iron and
  brick skeleton. [2] A start was made on the barn,
  stables, granaries, carriage and wagon sheds, as well as
  a shop for repairs and several farm houses. South of
  the Western Division a power plant and laundry were
  constructed, including a ninety-foot tower to hold the
  water tanks. These outlying buildings were connected
  with the Western Division by an underground tunnel
  to accommodate the heating and water pipes.
  Next to the entry above, someone has
  drawn a crude skeleton with an unnatu-
  rally big head... much like the skeleton
  of a child. The spine of the skeleton is
  interlaced with scrawls, like tiny nerves
  or creeping ivy or something.
  1871, Western Division Drainage: This is located in
  construction notes somewhere in the Asylum librar-
  ies:
  ...Western Division was roofed at this time. The slate roof
  had suffered great damage during the storms that belea-
  guered the Point; in addition, much of the flooding had
  been deemed due to poor drainage through the building
  and foundation, and more tunneling was done into the foun-
  dations and the cliff face to carry off excess water. [3]
  Someone has drawn a knot in the mar-
  gin of this picture, with small lines
  trickling off the edges. The lines are
  drawn with red and blue ink... in the
  center of the knot, however, the red and
  blue lines have crisscrossed so much
  that the knot has clotted and become
  black in the center.
  Almost as an afterthought, excavation for the
  Eastern Division began at the end of this year.
  1885, Teamster: Mr. Gill is employed as a teamster. He
  hauled much of the material used in the construction
  of the original buildings with a six man mule team.
  [4]
  Asylum Structure
  The Asylum admitted its first patient in Decem-
  ber of 1886 (see below) and more soon followed. Be-
  fore this time, most of its potential occupants were
  housed in jails in Fell’s Point or, if the families of the
  mentally disturbed were wealthy, the insane relative
  was locked in the attic or basement of the family es-
  tate. For GMs, adventuring in a Horror Hero Eldritch
  Era campaign, the Asylum at this time consisted only
  of the Western Division, the gatehouse, laundry, power
  plant, and the outlying farm. Construction was still
  being performed on the Eastern Division.
  Staff consisted of the Medical Superintendent
  and Physician-in-Chief Dr. Edward Bourne, the As-
  sistant Physician Dr. Gardner, and the Superintendent
  of Nurses, Caroline Bourne (Dr. Bourne’s wife). Dr.
  Dawes was the physician in charge of Occupational
  1: Characters examining the old patient records will discover Rob-
  ert Dixon was interred at the Asylum in 1899 after he murdered his
  partner with a drafting pencil, stabbing him in both eyes and then
  in the heart, and then wrapped his partner’s body in the drafting
  designs of the Asylum. (These designs were purchased by an ob-
  scure art collector in Fell’s Point (the Curator). It is rumored that
  the designs contain additions to the Asylum etched by Dixon in his
  partner’s blood.) Dixon claimed he wanted to be buried in the Asy-
  lum, because he claimed that “it was the most perfect thing he had
  ever conceived.” He died in the Asylum in 1909, after he had wormed
  his way into one of the shafts beneath the Asylum and starved to
  death. He was later buried in the Asylum cemetery (“the Hill”), where
  his bones are believed to rest to this day.
  2: A great amount of iron was used in the Asylum’s construction; if
  the PCs manage to examine the designs of the Asylum, they will see
  that the walls of the Asylum might as well have been made of iron
  considering the density of the gridwork beneath the brick.
  3: The fact this passage states that “more tunneling was done into
  the foundations” indicates that some sort of drainage system or
  underground network was already in place, but no mention of it is
  made in the Asylum records prior to this time. If the characters ask,
  they cannot find any drainage tunnels located on the Asylum maps
  (they have been forgotten by all except a few patients who use them
  to travel outside their cells).
  This effort to extend the drainage system was ultimately a
  failure, as the Asylum is still plagued with heavy flooding to this day.
  Characters familiar with the current state of the Asylum and its flood-
  ing problems may wonder if the problem was due to poor drainage
  at all, or whether some other force is at work.
  4: Gill was a Black Dawn member (see Horror Hero) who arranged
  for the poisoning and slaughter of many animals under his charge.
  The animals were always uneasy around him, and occasionally, at
  night, he would chase one of the cattle down and feed on them.
  
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  Therapy, and in the 1890s, the neuropathologist Dr.
  Parson, and his assistant, Dr. Farrell, joined the staff.
  The senior staff was assisted throughout the remain-
  der of the century by anywhere from five to fifteen as-
  sistant physicians and clinical assistants.
  The First Decade
  1886, First Patient: On December 25, the first patient
  arrived at the Fell’s Point Asylum. She was a 40 year
  old woman with dementia; she expressed many delu-
  sions and claimed she was a scout for the Israelites,
  and that she had been wandering since birth in search
  of “Canaan.” [1] There is a narrative description of this
  patient from one of the psychiatrists at the Asylum (the
  psychiatrist’s name is not identified in the text):
  Her shoulders were bent at such a way that
  seemed to have a heavy weight upon them. While only
  forty, she seemed much older, with heavy lines about
  her face and a bend to her legs that made it look as if
  she had done nothing but walk for her entire life. Vari-
  cose veins lined her legs, and her feet were heavily cal-
  lused. Once she had arrived at the Asylum she rarely
  moved at all and spent much of her time drawing trees
  within her cell. She claimed that she was able to draw
  trees from memory, but none of the trees she drew
  bore any relation to any on the Asylum grounds.
  [2] They were curiously leafless and bent at long angles
  from the stem. She refused to allow her drawings to be
  taken from her, insisting that they were valuable tracts
  and books. [3] She was known to complain frequently
  and made a major worry of minor ailments.
  Next to this entry, someone has scrawled
  what looks to be a cross between a male
  and a female symbol.
  A sine wave has been drawn through the symbol. The
  wave runs from one side of the page to the other, cut-
  ting the circle of the male/female symbol in half, turn-
  ing it into a sideways yin-yang symbol.
  1: This woman is a distant relation of Dr. Shreiver; while her condi-
  tion is listed as “dementia,” she was actually a schizophrenic. The
  records of her presence, unlike many other entries in the Asylum
  records, are intact and easy to find if the characters trace genealo-
  gies within Fell’s Point and the Asylum records. It was important to
  the Asylum patients that Dr. Shreiver one day discover her past; it
  would be their crowning stroke before she is finally laid to rest within
  the Asylum walls.
  2: The trees on the Asylum grounds were mostly elm, beach, maple,
  hemlock and pine. The sketches the woman did resembled none of
  them (see 3, below).
  3: If the GM wishes to provide one of her drawings to the charac-
  ters, they may do one of two things... they may draw a rough sketch
  of what appears to be a crude family tree (with no labels) or else
  they may draw a rough map of the brain’s nervous system, using the
  spine as the base of the tree and running jagged “branches” through
  where the brain is located in the skull, enough so that the drawing
  looks like a tree. The patient did many of both kinds of drawing
  during her stay at the Asylum.
  
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  98
  1887, Bourne: Dr. Edward Bourne is offered the posi-
  tion of Physician-in-Chief and Superintendent of the
  Fell’s Point Asylum. At the time of the Trustees offer,
  Bourne was working at a Pennsylvania Hospital; from
  1878 to 1884, he had been employed at the Hudson
  City State Lunatic Asylum, which came to be known
  as a training place for Superintendents. Dr. Bourne, in
  turn, appointed his wife (Caroline, a graduate at the
  Bellevue Hospital Training School) as the Superinten-
  dent of Nurses, and a Dr. Gardner as an assistant phy-
  sician.
  1888, Luther Steward: The Asylum’s next donor (after
  the Founder himself) was the railroad tycoon, Luther
  Steward. Stationed in Washington D.C., he expanded
  his business interests south to Fell’s Point, where he
  established a prosperous hardware firm, along with
  many other business interests. While Steward’s great-
  est gift to Fell’s Point was a circulating library, his other
  dealings had a greater impact on the Point; as his in-
  fluence spread, he became a director of railroads, banks
  and steamship companies on the peninsula. Some of
  these steamship companies included the steamship line
  that serviced the Fell’s Point Dreamland Park at the
  turn of the century. His business connections brought
  him into contact with the Founder. [1]
  Steward became interested in the Asylum after
  the Trustees requested his advice concerning its invest-
  ments; he visited the institution a number of times and
  talked extensively with Superintendent Bourne. Stew-
  ard, apparently quite taken with the work being done
  at the Asylum, donated a million dollars to its con-
  struction, and it was used, as per his will, to finish reno-
  vation on the Western Division, complete both the
  Eastern Division and the Service Building, and to erect
  additional buildings to accommodate two hundred
  more patients. [2]
  1888, Suggested Name Change: A suggestion was put
  before the Board of Trustees, in light of Steward’s do-
  nation, to get approval from the state legislature to
  change the Asylum’s name. This suggestion was never
  carried out, and although the name of the institution
  was eventually changed to the Fell’s Point Hospital for
  the Treatment of the Mentally Insane (no mention was
  made of Steward), it was always referred to as “the Asy-
  lum” by the citizens of Fell’s Point.
  1893, Bourne’s Journal: [This fragment can be found
  in Dr. Shreiver’s personal journals.] A piece of manu-
  script, folded and charred at the edges:
  ...the shopkeepers of the city actively discourage our at-
  tempts. Products made at the Asylum are rebuked for
  their inferior quality and noted as having an unwholesome-
  ness and ungodliness in their construction. [Illegible.]
  ...also opposed to such goods and works. The domestics as
  a group said and thought that making articles for sale
  would be an injury to those now employed. Out-of-door
  employment was tried in general means; the patient was
  put under special charge of the servants, and set to work
  on the ground in such a way [illegible] safe to trust... [il-
  legible] taken to the keeper who has the same occupation
  with which he is acquainted, and induced to work at his
  trade.
  Scrawled List by Shreiver in Margin: Twin-mak-
  ers, bricklayers, joiners, tinners, black-
  smiths, 
  shoemakers, 
  tailors,
  brushmakers?, basket-makers, coopers.
  ...reward of a little tea, tobacco, beer or some other luxury,
  congenial to their taste, will induce them to occupy them-
  selves, either in the ward or out of doors. Indeed 454 pa-
  tients out of 612 are daily employed [3] — the others who
  are idle, are either fatuous or in such a state of disability
  as to be unable to work, and only very few idle from disin-
  clination...
  1893, Patient Products: If the PCs show any interest
  in products manufactured in the Asylum manufacture
  around this time, the GM should make a Sight PER
  Roll for them. If successful, the PCs may come across
  brief accounts of Luther Steward purchasing art and
  furniture from the Asylum to decorate his home in
  Fell’s Point. According to Bourne’s writings (either in
  his journals or in his log entry format) and perhaps
  contained in some of the historical accounts of art
  dealers in Fell’s Point, there is mention that Steward
  bought many of these works of art from a “little Van
  Gogh” in the Asylum. (The nickname was presumably
  due to the fact the patient was missing his left ear.)
  1894, Bourne’s Journal: A fragment from Bourne’s
  personal journals... if the PCs are familiar with some
  of Bourne’s journal entries, they may notice (Deduc-
  tion or PER Roll) that this fragment lacks much of the
  formal quality of his other entries. The script is hur-
  ried (not typed) and many ink smears blot the entry.
  ...shortly after Gill had shown us the outlying farm and
  foundations of the Eastern Building, Steward broke his
  silent observations, and taking in the new construction with
  some interest, verbally approved of the method of labor.
  He then remarked to me off-the-subject on the possibility
  of the dream of humane treatment being realized within
  the century. The mention of dreams brought the thought
  of my wife’s condition... [the next few lines are illegible]
  1: If the GM is using the background for the Black Dawn in Horror
  Hero, Luther Steward is the Incarnate Demon in charge of the Ameri-
  can Black Dawn Dominions. If the GM is not using Horror Hero,
  nor using extra planar creatures in their campaign, Luther Steward
  is either nothing more than a well-meaning (?) businessman or else
  he is a cultist with no magical powers.
  2: The Service Building was later (modestly) known as the Steward
  Building.
  3: It is impossible, especially considering the limits of the Western
  Division, that these many patients were at the Asylum, much less
  employed there. Nevertheless, no error is indicated in the text.
  
  99
  99
  ...most uncharacteristic of his previous silence during his
  visits, Steward seemed eager to press the point, even with
  the teamster present. He spoke that the constructions tak-
  ing place on the grounds were very much like birth, and
  that a denial of Caroline’s metaphor [1] would be foolish,
  which only served to anger me, both for the condes— [the
  next two lines illegible] ...and Gill listening upon, nod-
  ding in assent to Steward’s speech. Steward spoke that the
  Fell’s Point Asylum should be seen as organs of some-
  thing much larger, and what had begun with the Western
  Division should be carried out (“mirrored,” was the term)
  in the Eastern Division as well. The thrust of his speech
  after that was somewhat convoluted and off the subject, as
  I believe Steward fancied himself learned in the matters
  of anatomy, as he compared the twin buildings to hemi-
  spheres of the brain, both of... [illegible] ...the Mount as
  the womb, the description unseemly, lurid and most... [il-
  legible] ...returned to my wife. I found it then necessary
  to change the conversation as firmly as possible to prevent
  further elaborations, for the talk was becoming heated, and
  I feared my responses would thereafter be construed as
  impolite.
  1895, Bourne’s Journal: A fragment from Bourne’s
  personal journals:
  ...forced to labor by withholding... [illegible] ...every little
  indulgence was withheld, as long as they are idle. They
  soon discovered that employing was to their benefit; and
  when they saw others happily engaged, and in enjoyment
  of the little reward of their industry, they generally very
  soon petition for something to do.
  After prejudice against employing the patients
  about the house and grounds* had in some measure been
  overcome, there was still the objection of making anything
  for sale from the institution.
  Brief Footnote Scrawled by Shreiver at Bottom of Page:
  Plans and architecture in early founda-
  tions? See... [trails off]
  The Pulp Era
  1900-1945
  Asylum Structure:
  Pulp Era
  The Asylum’s Eastern Division was completed
  early in the century, and the Service Building and the
  Admissions Building followed in later decades; the Pulp
  Era Map is considered to be accurate for 1945, and
  GMs using it in earlier time periods may need to make
  cosmetic changes to it for the sake of accuracy. Spe-
  cific details of the interior of these buildings are not
  1: Caroline, most likely Bourne’s wife.
  
  100
  100
  dissimilar to the present day, and much of the infor-
  mation in the Asylum Grounds section can be used as
  is.
  The Asylum structure during this period was not
  terribly complicated. The operation of the Asylum was
  under the direction of the Medical Superintendent/
  Physician-in-Chief, followed by the Assistant Physi-
  cians, then the Superintendent of Nurses, who headed
  the Charge Nurses (the nurses who headed each of the
  Asylum wards), followed by the rank and file nurses
  and student nurses. The domestic staff usually reported
  to the Superintendent of Nurses who doubled as the
  Chief of Service.
  The staff members that occupied these positions,
  however, changed over time. The Asylum’s first direc-
  tor, Superintendent Bourne, retired in 1919 and was
  succeeded by Dr. Ross, who governed the institution
  until his retirement in 1945. In 1918, the position of
  Superintendent of Nurses changed from Caroline
  Bourne to Mary Hodges. Dr. Dawes, who had formerly
  been the Director of Occupational Therapy during the
  Eldritch Era died sometime before 1920 and was re-
  placed by Henrietta Keane in 1920. [1]
  1920, Ross and Staff: Once Dr. Ross assumed the po-
  sition of Superintendent, the staff grew. An adminis-
  trative assistant was added, a social worker was added,
  and several new psychologists joined the staff. From
  1920 to 1945, some of the more important staff mem-
  bers were as follows:
  Director Ross, MD
  Medical Superintendent
  Arnold Paton, MD
  Assistant Superintendent
  Lawrence Wood, MD
  Clinical Director
  William Elkins, MD
  Chief of Woman’s Division
  Adolph Gans, MD
  Chief of Men’s Division
  Henrietta Keane, OT
  Director of OT and
  Recreational Therapy
  Martin Meyers
  Administrative Assistant
  Gerrold Schaefer, PhD
  Chief Psychologist
  Mary Hodges, RN
  Superintendent of Nurses.
  Director of the Training
  School.
  Anne Barber, BS
  Chief Dietitian
  Sarah Meade, BS
  Chief Social Worker
  Doris Hamilton
  Secretary to the Medical
  Director, Medical
  Librarian
  Adrienne Elgin
  Librarian
  Allen Brown [2]
  Chief Engineer
  Catherine Dujon,
  Jane Grimes [3]
  Executive Housekeepers
  Reverend Hawthorne [4]
  Chaplain
  Special Cases
  While skimming through the text of this period,
  the GM may notice references to the Asylum’s “special
  cases.” This label was used by Superintendent Ross to
  refer to a select number of schizophrenic patients in
  the Asylum that had manifested “distorted” psychotic
  symptoms. These symptoms were of such a nature that
  a schizophrenic specialist, Dr. Solomon, was brought
  to the Asylum shortly after Ross became Superinten-
  dent (see the Timeline below). Unless the PCs are ad-
  venturing during the Pulp Era, the GM should not use
  the label “special cases” to refer to these patients (and
  if possible, not hint at the existence of these patients at
  all unless the players are specifically looking for these
  “special cases”). Ross, during his research in the Asy-
  lum, felt that there was something in the biology of
  these special cases had caused them to manifest un-
  usual abilities and was extremely interested in classi-
  fying (and duplicating) the effects.
  Census and Admissions
  The patient census at the beginning of the Pulp
  Era is sketchy at best; many records during this period
  were destroyed by fire or obliterated in one of the floods
  that struck the Asylum. An approximation of the pa-
  tient census in the first decade of the twentieth cen-
  tury was probably not all that much different from the
  Eldritch Era, in which case there was likely an average
  of a hundred patients a year between 1900-1905, slowly
  1: What happened to Dawes is unknown. In actuality, he was mur-
  dered in the Steward Building museum one night (reasons un-
  known), and his murder was considered an “accident” by the rest of
  the staff.
  2: Allen Brown was chief engineer and directed the Asylum’s me-
  chanical section, in which there were three engineers, two electri-
  cians, three pipe fitters, one plumber, one laborer, one night main-
  tenance man, one night watchman, one auto mechanic and three
  chauffeurs.
  Allen Brown was the bastard son of Gill, the teamster who
  originally worked on the construction of the Asylum (see 1885).
  Gill had raped Brown’s mother decades ago, and Brown was un-
  aware of his roots until one of the elderly patients commented on
  Brown’s resemblance to Gill. After this connection was drawn, it
  was only a matter of time before Brown discovered his true geneal-
  ogy. Upset at the revelation, he found himself researching Gill’s his-
  tory and strange practices, which eventually placed him in touch
  with the members of the Black Dawn that still remained in Fell’s
  Point. They told him about his father, his role in the Black Dawn
  cult, and encouraged Brown to continue his father’s work. After at-
  tending one of their rituals in Fell’s Point, Brown agreed. He set
  about fortifying the secret passages and tunnels in the Asylum and
  drafted several personnel working under him into the Black Dawn
  Cult.
  3: The duties of the Housekeepers included proper maintenance of
  the Hospital; direction of the sewing room, oversight of the Asylum
  linen, fabrics, furniture and rugs; making recommendations for re-
  pairs and selection of new purchases. Normally, there were three
  assistants, two seamstresses, 11 maids and 23 porters.
  PCs familiar with the Dark Corner Society mentioned in
  Horror Hero may discover that Catherine Dujon, one of the House-
  keepers, is related to Chantelle Dujon (Horror Hero, p. 152).
  4: Reverend Hawthorne was later interred at the Asylum after speak-
  ing with one of the patients; he claimed that the patient was the
  “voice of God” and had told him to set fire to his church in the
  Point, killing three of his congregation.
  
  101
  101
  growing through the rest of the decade to about 200 a
  year (this rise was attributed to the completion of the
  Eastern Division, which opened many more beds in
  the Asylum), and this daily average was maintained
  until at least 1932.
  During 1900-1910, the Asylum patients had
  come almost exclusively from Fell’s Point; as the
  institution’s reputation increased, however, the Asy-
  lum began to draw patients from all over the United
  States, especially from the South where there were few
  mental institutions at the time. [1] Patients were in-
  terred, on the average, for about eight months.
  Although detailed year by year records are not
  available, pieces of text reveal that admissions ranged
  from 210 to 274 a year (and discharges rose from 191
  to 279 a year), slowly decreasing as the Pulp Era ad-
  vanced. According to the records, only cases offering
  “some hope of recovery” were admitted. [2]
  Characters may notice that despite decreasing
  admissions throughout the Pulp Era, the average num-
  ber of patients remained the same... a core number of
  patients were always housed in the Asylum walls. The
  decreasing admission rate had no effect on their num-
  ber.
  The Pulp Era Timeline
  1901, The Gallery: The debt on Eastern Division was
  fifty thousand dollars, and with the extra funds from
  the Steward donation, the debt was liquidated; more
  funds from the Steward donation were drawn to build
  a Gallery on the Asylum grounds. [3] A ridge north of
  the Asylum was leveled for the Gallery’s foundation.
  1902, Staff Relocation: The entire Asylum medical staff
  lived in the two main Divisions. After some delibera-
  tion and because of his increasing workload, it was felt
  that Dr. Bourne deserved some relief from the con-
  tinuous care of the patients by building a house for his
  family on the grounds, and this would also have the
  added benefit of opening the rooms he had occupied
  in the Western Division to new patients. A Hudson
  City architect drew a pleasing design for the
  Superintendent’s House and designed it so that it had
  a lovely view of the cultivated fields. [4]
  1904, Service Building: Due to increasing number of
  patients, a new structure was planned to house the
  Asylum’s kitchens and dining rooms, with the second
  floor space designed for employees, thus releasing
  many rooms in the two Divisions for patients. At first
  this structure was supposed to be called “the Central
  Building,” but it soon became known as the “Service
  Building” or “Block.” Work was to begin as soon as the
  Bourne House was completed.
  1904, Bourne House: The Bourne House is finished.
  It was a brown shingled structure, two and a half sto-
  ries tall, with high ceilings, a gracious hall, large draw-
  ing rooms, dining room and kitchen on the first floor,
  and attractive bedrooms on the second floor. A barn
  big enough for the Superintendent’s horse and carriage
  was placed at the rear.
  1904, Fire: This event is listed in newspapers, in busi-
  ness logs and Trustee Minutes in the Asylum library.
  A fire burned down the
  Superintendent’s House and swept
  through Fell’s Point, devouring
  five hundred buildings in the busi-
  ness area, including many owned
  and rented by the Asylum Trust-
  ees. Thirteen warehouse buildings
  owned by the Trustees were burned
  down. The cause of the fire is
  unknown, but many Asylum records
  were damaged during the inferno.
  The two Divisions remained stand-
  ing due to solid construction,
  although a number of patients were
  killed.
  If the PCs trace the exact date of the fire, they
  will discover the fire occurred the day after Dr. Bourne
  and his wife moved from the Western Division into
  their new home. The cause of the fire was ostensibly
  that a lamp was accidentally knocked over in the Su-
  perintendent House, but this in no way would account
  for the fire that swept through the Asylum (if the map
  of the Asylum is examined, PCs will see that almost a
  hundred feet of dirt and gravel separated the main
  buildings from the Bourne House) or explain the
  greater fire that occurred simultaneously in the Fell’s
  Point business district.
  GMs using Horror Hero may link this to a Black
  Dawn event transpiring in Fell’s Point. It is possible
  that a war was occurring among the Dominions, or
  else PCs in the past were trying to destroy the Asylum
  and the evil within in its walls. It is entirely possible
  that the patients didn’t want Bourne (or his wife) to
  leave his residence the Western Division, or else they
  were attempting to kill him for purposes of their own.
  Characters may begin to notice the slow exodus
  of all extraneous services other than patient care from
  1: No matter how the Asylum’s reputation grew, however, well over
  half the patients during this era came from Fell’s Point proper.
  2: There’s a discrepancy in the records as far as this “policy” is con-
  cerned, however. Apparently, the Asylum still admitted a number of
  chronic patients (at far below the normal rate), whether they were
  schizophrenics (for Dr. Solomon, see below) or those who “heard
  voices” (i.e., “special cases,” see above). Chronics of this type with-
  out family were almost always admitted.
  3: The Gallery was later renamed the Steward Building (see the Asy-
  lum Grounds). Plans show that the Gallery had a basement, but it is
  not mentioned what it was used for in the records.
  4: Old diaries from Bourne or other staff members around this time
  will state that one of the reasons Bourne was interested in moving
  out of the Western Division was because of the “intense nightmares”
  his wife was experiencing (none of the diaries or texts remember
  the content of Mrs. Bourne’s nightmares). Dr. Bourne hoped that a
  change in surroundings would alleviate his wife’s condition.
  
  102
  102
  the Western Division (i.e., the construction of the Ser-
  vice Building and the Bourne House); while this can
  be rationalized by the growing patient population,
  there were other reasons for this exodus. Many staff
  members living in the Western Division reported
  symptoms of restlessness, sleepwalking, and night-
  mares... with the Superintendent of Nurses (Bourne’s
  wife) one of the staff members most adversely affected
  (see 1902, Staff Relocation, above). After one of the male
  clinical assistants vanished one night on the Western
  Division, many staff no longer had any desire to re-
  main in the building.
  1907, Steward’s Estate: In addition, the following frag-
  ment is mentioned briefly in the Trustee Notes or in
  the newspapers:
  ...the former Luther Steward Home
  in Fell’s Point was sold for fifty-
  five thousand dollars, and was
  later given to the Fell’s Point
  Historical Society. [1]
  1908, Service Building Completed: The Service Build-
  ing is finally completed, at a cost of 95,000 dollars.
  1909, Dixon: Robert Dixon (see 1853 and 1899) dies
  in the Asylum, after crawling into one of the Asylum
  tunnels and starving to death. His body was found
  curled in a fetal position. He was buried on the “Hill,”
  the Asylum cemetery.
  1911, Fell’s Point Gaol: From a notation about the Fell’s
  Point Prison at the turn of the century (for some rea-
  son, this particular fact seems to have escaped the Asy-
  lum records):
  ...when the Fell’s Point prison burned down in 1911, many
  prisoners were lodged in the Asylum, and many of them
  died there, ostensibly due to sickness and starvation. Nev-
  ertheless, this alone could not have accounted for the sheer
  number of deaths. Between 1892 and 1911, it is estimated
  that well over a hundred patients died in the Asylum...
  1913, Occupational Therapy: This segment is located
  in Dr. Shreiver’s Journal:
  ...Dr. Henrietta Keane followed Dr. Dawes as
  Director of Occupational Therapy and orga-
  nized classes for nurses. There were eight as-
  sistants in the Gallery shop, and two male aides
  to help with outdoor activity. Many patients
  paid for craft materials and take the finished
  products home; some made ornaments for
  their wards; other finished articles were sold
  to employees and visitors at the annual bazaar
  (illegible) furniture repair was accomplished
  by patients in Occupational Therapy. Skilled
  patients made stools, tables, chairs and writ-
  ing desks [2]. In time, an accredited School of
  Occupational Therapy was established under
  Keane’s leadership. During its first five years
  of existence, sixty students registered for the
  sixteen week course, coming from as far away
  as Louisiana, Wyoming, New York and Canada.
  Next to this entry, someone has drawn a
  silhouette of a person with tiny stick
  figures scattered inside him (?).
  World War I
  1917, Rising Costs: When the United States entered
  the war, a great drain was placed on the Asylum; sev-
  eral assistant physicians were drafted, six Asylum
  nurses went to France, and twenty-three former male
  nurses went into the Army.
  1918, Staff: Throughout the war, the Asylum was short-
  handed in almost every department. Some staff were
  drafted, and others left the Asylum for the higher wages
  being offered in munitions factories. Only two Assis-
  tant Physicians remained at the Asylum, and the short-
  age of nurses was so great that restrictions were placed
  on admitting violent and psychotic male patients.
  When harvest time came, painters, carpenters, plumb-
  ers, laundry workers, and warehouse clerks helped in
  the field; staff working hours were extended and vaca-
  tions were canceled. Needed items were delayed or lost.
  The pathological lab in the Asylum was discon-
  tinued, and the space turned into bedrooms. Although
  the war hastened its demise, its line of research had
  not produced any sufficient knowledge or practical
  results that have warranted its continuation.
  Next to this entry, someone has drawn a
  silhouette of a person with tiny stick
  figures inside him (?). The belly and
  head of the silhouetted figure are
  swelled, and the tiny stick figures fill
  his (?) interior like a nest of bugs or
  worms.
  1919, Bourne’s Journal: A fragment from Bourne’s
  personal journals... if the PCs are familiar with some
  of Bourne’s earlier journal entries (see the Eldritch
  Era), they may notice (Deduction or PER Roll) that
  this fragment lacks much of the formal quality of his
  1: What happened to Luther Steward is unknown. He sure had a
  hell of a nice house, though.
  2: This section has been underlined with pencil by Dr. Shreiver. Once
  again, finding that many portions of the Asylum actually were built
  and furnished by Asylum patients has made her uneasy, wondering
  what subtle changes were engineered over the years. Some of the
  items that were sold to the Fell’s Point community may be the basis
  of many Horror Hero adventures, either being cursed or unholy
  items that have circulated through the Point in the past century.
  
  103
  103
  other entries. The script is hurried (not typed) and
  many ink smears blot the entry.
  ...more often now my thoughts turn from Caroline, then to
  Steward, then again to the Asylum. I am convinced that
  Steward was not merely making a conjecture, for too of-
  ten... [illegible] [1] ...wake upon the grounds outside the
  Western Wing [illegible] ...rational man, yet when I en-
  ter the Wing, I feel as if the structure itself, just beyond
  the floor, opens into a far darker place, that falls so deep
  into the Earth that should the stones crumble away, I
  would fall into the abyss that— [illegible] —curses or
  demonology, but as I see the stones forcing themselves from
  the ground, the foundation of the Eastern Wing gaping like
  a hungry child, my heart becomes as ice. The wings like
  foul arms, its windows black eye sockets, filmed over in the
  twilight, its distended head, its fingers clutching at the
  Earth, pulling itself up from the blackness... [illegible]
  ...can it be that Caroline... [illegible] ...begged me not to
  let her die here... [illegible] ...and leaving me alone here
  in this terrible place. She has become one of the shades
  here, and in their eyes, I see the gray... [illegible] ...and
  I am afraid. I can feel its presence around me. It grows
  here, and I wonder whether I govern the Asylum, or
  whether the child governs me.
  1919, Bourne Resigns: Superintendent Bourne resigns
  at the end of this year. No explanation is provided by
  the Trustee files for the Superintendent’s resignation.
  [2]
  1920, Ross Appointed Superintendent: Dr. Ross be-
  comes the new Medical Superintendent and Physician-
  in-Chief of the Asylum. Characters searching for in-
  formation on Ross’s behaviors and temperaments may
  have to sift through documents of decisions he made
  at the Asylum as well as his conflicts with the Board of
  Trustees; otherwise, the only accessible information on
  Ross is the number of awards and positions he held at
  the Asylum and on the peninsula. A summary of his
  career is provided below:
  Born in Hudson City in 1881, Ross took under-
  graduate work at Hudson City University and obtained
  his MD degree at the University of Michigan in 1902.
  After interning at Birmingham State Hospital, he
  worked there as a Senior Physician from 1908 to 1916,
  followed by a period at St. Elizabeth’s in Washington.
  Dr. Ross was an instructor in psychiatry at George
  Washington University and later returned to Hudson
  City University to serve as a professor in their Psychol-
  ogy Department. During World War I, he was com-
  missioned a Major and Divisional Psychiatrist of the
  sixth Division in the Army of Occupation in Germany.
  During World War II, he was a member of the Medi-
  cal Examiners at the Armed Forces Induction Station
  in Fell’s Point and received the Selective Service Medal
  for his work.
  During his twenty-five years as Physician-in-
  Chief and Superintendent of the Asylum, Ross was
  elected President of the Medico-Psychological Asso-
  ciation. Ross also served as a Professor at the Fell’s Point
  College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Women’s
  Medical College, and the University of Fell’s Point. He
  was elected President of the Medical and Surgical Fac-
  ulty of Fell’s Point and the State Mental Hygiene Soci-
  ety, and held honorary memberships in several for-
  eign societies; he was also the associate editor of the
  American Journal of Insanity from 1878 to 1897 and
  from 1904 to 1921, for forty years he was also a mem-
  ber of the editorial board of the American Journal of
  Psychiatry, and for 27 years he was its Editor-in-chief.
  He published more than one hundred medical papers
  and contributed to a number of medical encyclope-
  dias and textbooks.
  The change in administration caused a great deal
  of unrest. Ross, for one, was angry at the number of
  “bad habits” which seemed to have become standard
  practice in many departments due to the pressure of
  the war; on the flip side, the ward attendants were dis-
  concerted by the long hours and low wages. Ross be-
  gan to perform damage control on the Asylum. He
  requested a number of physical additions to the Asy-
  lum, including an assembly hall, a stage, a gymnasium
  and OT quarters. He appointed seven consultants, all
  doctors, who gave time to the Asylum’s special needs.
  1921, Social Worker: The Asylum’s first trained social
  worker, Sarah Meade, began her duties in 1921. Dur-
  ing this year, she made over 493 visits to the Asylum
  and over 367 visits to former patients and families liv-
  ing in Fell’s Point. [3] She was responsible for main-
  taining the patients’ case histories, maintaining con-
  tact with paroled or discharged patients, helping indi-
  viduals transfer to other institutions, assisting with
  physical examinations and making contacts with the
  dispensary at the University of Fell’s Point. [4]
  1922: In 1922, Ross brought Dr. Solomon from St.
  Elizabeth’s to the Asylum. Shortly after his arrival,
  1: If the PCs ask, tell them that these illegible marks are not due to
  burns or ink blots... they look like some kind of fungus or rot has
  eaten away the pages so the entire entry cannot be read.
  2: If the PCs do some digging, they will discover Bourne’s wife died
  in 1918 shortly after murdering their two children. Bourne blamed
  the “unholy” influence of the Asylum for the tragedy, and staff ac-
  counts report that he was never the same after the death of his fam-
  ily.
  3: Characters may comment on how well her visits to the Asylum
  and patient’s families was tabulated, especially considering how many
  of her cases and records were “lost” during her work at the Asylum.
  4: Sarah was instructed by several members of the Asylum to keep a
  close watch on certain patients, who she suspected were unstable or
  were on experimental medication. The staff (among them, Dr. Ross
  and Dr. Solomon, see below) expected detailed, meticulous reports
  from her on as many as four dozen patients weekly. Of the other
  patients that were her responsibility, the staff seemed to inquire in-
  frequently or not at all. Sarah would often experience frustration
  over the extent of information that she was expected to manage,
  when only a small fraction of it was ever examined by the physi-
  cians.
  
  104
  104
  Solomon was given his own ward in the Asylum, which
  came as something of a surprise and a source of irrita-
  tion to the other psychiatrists.
  Not much is known about Dr. Solomon’s his-
  tory. He received his medical degree at the Chicago
  College of Medicine and served at a number of public
  hospitals, including St. Elizabeth’s in Washington, but
  he never remained at any one hospital for more than
  two years. His early papers and research projects seem
  to fluctuate between a number of different approaches
  to psychiatric problems, from biological factors to so-
  ciology. [1]
  One of Solomon’s odd traits was his obsession
  with schizophrenic patients; the reason for this has
  never been made clear... whether one of his relatives
  may have been schizophrenic or whether he had some
  peculiar interest in the disorder is not known, but out
  of his research came many papers on Schizophrenia,
  including as “The Conservation and Malignant Fea-
  tures of Schizophrenia,” “Schizophrenia: Peculiarity of
  Thought,” “Affective Experience in Early Schizophre-
  nia,” “The Onset of Schizophrenia,” and “Research in
  Schizophrenia.” After Solomon left the Asylum, he
  wrote many papers based on his work at the Asylum
  (PCs may be able to run across some of these papers
  in the Fell’s Point libraries) and his concept of psy-
  chiatry as the science of “interpersonal relations.”
  Solomon was a gifted clinician, student and
  speaker; he worked without interference from others
  in his own ward at the Asylum, treating young male
  schizophrenics. No female nurses were allowed in his
  section.
  1923, Solomon’s Debts: This is not mentioned directly
  in the Asylum records, but the longer the characters
  look, they may notice that Solomon frequently owed
  money to the Asylum. The reason for his large expen-
  ditures is unknown.
  1924, Pathology Lab: The records mention that at this
  time, the Asylum pathology lab was reorganized and
  refitted under the direction of a Harvard research
  chemist. [2] If the PCs have shown any interest in the
  Asylum’s pathology lab and how it developed over the
  years, the GM may choose to give them the following
  additional information:
  According to records, between 1924 and 1926,
  the pathology lab made over 2100 lab tests, including
  blood counts, urine tests and spinal fluid tests. [3] The
  Director of the Pathology lab analyzed many samples,
  seeking to find a relationship between nitrogenous
  constituent variations and types of mental disease. His
  findings corroborated the fact that there existed in the
  blood of schizophrenic patients a toxic substance. He
  believed he had discovered the existence of an increased
  amount of creatine in the blood of catatonic patients
  and a decreased amount of calcium. His findings were
  published in several medical journals. After he left Asy-
  lum in 1926, his special research was discontinued due
  to the lack of a suitably trained lab worker to carry on.
  [4]
  1924, Ross Research: Dr. Ross was interested [5] in
  Schizophrenia and related psychoses, and many of his
  research studies and articles were geared towards them.
  It was Ross’s belief that:
  ...these psychoses can all be de-
  fined as stress reactions, either
  conscious or unconscious. [6] In
  these psychoses, it is the envi-
  ronmental stimuli that impact on
  the subject’s personality that
  proves important, in many cases,
  much more so than heredity. This
  environmental stimuli is particu-
  larly acute during the subject’s
  early developmental years, and the
  stimuli is invariably a precipi-
  tating factor to the psychoses.
  This stimuli could be almost any
  difficult situation to which the
  subject appeared unable to adjust:
  the loss a family member or friend,
  marriage, sexual assault, or other
  traumatic experience or emotional
  pressure.
  More difficult to evaluate are
  the unconscious cravings of these
  subjects. Desires which can not
  be gratified or tolerated in their
  consciousness are channeled into
  1: To say that Dr. Solomon was difficult to deal with is something of
  an understatement; the remaining Asylum records include numer-
  ous hints of his personality conflicts and clashes with staff and pa-
  tients. Strongly opinionated and unpredictable, easily irritated one
  minute and bitterly sarcastic, critical and demanding the next, Dr.
  Solomon was not well-liked; his “sensitivity” to less intelligent staff
  members demanded that he institute a separate ward within the
  Asylum, not only isolating his patients for research and study, but
  also to isolate him from the rest of the staff.
  2: Ross was directly responsible for hiring the “Harvard chemist”
  and made his position as Director of the Pathology Lab extremely
  clear: he was to look for any physiological abnormalities in the
  Asylum’s “special cases” that might explain their condition and re-
  port them to Dr. Ross.
  3: This alone is not significant given the Asylum’s size, but consider-
  ing that these tests were administered to only ten to fifteen percent
  of the patient population (including all patients in Dr. Solomon’s
  Ward, who were given all these tests, especially the blood counts
  and spinal fluid tests, ten or more times in a year.), PCs may find
  this significant.
  4: What happened to the Harvard Research Chemist is unknown.
  His name is not given in the text.
  5: PCs might be inclined to say obsessed. The intensity of some of
  Ross’s later articles on the subjects leave no separation between the
  emotions of the researcher and the research itself.
  6: Thus, began Ross’s and Solomon’s efforts to use stress as a means
  of bringing forth “special cases” in the Asylum. Some PC’s may no-
  tice the use of the term “subject” rather than “patient” (or “indi-
  vidual”) in the notes, above.
  
  105
  105
  psychotic symptoms. The psycho-
  ses then become the subject’s way
  of handling a difficult or impos-
  sible situation, or a conflict into
  which the subject may have little
  or no insight. To treat such sub-
  jects, careful study is advocated,
  much like the private labs in-
  stalled at the Fell’s Point Asy-
  lum for...
  The article trails off. If the GM wishes, it can be
  at the end of a page... and the page following it has
  been torn out.
  1926, Administration: There are repeated entries dur-
  ing this year, usually spurred by Ross and Solomon, to
  create a better classification system for the Asylum
  patients. [1]
  1926, Admissions Building: A young Fell’s Point ar-
  chitect, Thomas Warren, was chosen to design the
  Asylum’s new admissions building. The new building
  had room for eighty beds, and was built with the needs
  of newly admitted patients in mind (reassuring sur-
  roundings, out of sight of visitors and officers, and
  away from disorderly patients). Warren placed the
  building on a natural plateau a thousand feet from the
  Western Division. [2]
  1926, Ross House: At this time, a house was built on
  the grounds for Superintendent Ross. The house was
  tentatively called the “Ross House.”
  1927, Ross House: In December of 1927, the Ross
  House was completed, and Dr. and Mrs. Ross moved
  in.
  1929, Admissions Building Opening: The dedication
  of the Admissions Building was held in May, even
  though much of the building was uncompleted. Paint-
  ing had not been finished in many of the rooms, the
  tiled floors had not been laid, and most of the
  Building’s equipment and furnishing lay in storage.
  When the Admissions Building finally opened,
  new staff accommodations were needed for the
  building’s personnel. As a result, unused spaces on the
  third floor of Western Division and Eastern Division
  were equipped with plumbing, [3] and these provided
  new rooms for attendants and office personnel. Addi-
  tional rooms were also necessary for nurses, so two
  new brick wings were added to the Bourne House.
  1930, Solomon’s Resignation: Dr. Solomon resigns. [4]
  1933, Suicides: There was a flood of suicides in 1933.
  PCs doing research may come across the following
  fragment, written in a careful, measured script:
  ...one dreaming patient, in a desperate attempt to turn off
  the paintings in his head, dashed his skull against the walls
  of the seclusion room until his head cracked like a clay
  pot. Another patient tore open the door of a medicine cup-
  board and seized a bottle of carbolic acid, drinking it be-
  fore a nurse could stop him. He smiled in relief as it went
  down his throat, gurgling that it would kill “the voice” that
  used him to speak the foul things that he could not possibly
  know. One patient drowned herself by placing her head in
  a toilet, and another one drowned in the same manner by
  using a wastebasket filled with water. As always, there is
  the water. [5]
  1939, Research: Ross writes to the American Founda-
  tion Studies in Government claiming that there are
  many advantages in pursuing investigations in mental
  institutions. He advocated that the finest research (of
  the period) was being done in hospitals, which had no
  formal connections with government; it was the back-
  ground, training experience and drive of the individual
  was most important in promoting research along the
  lines of individual interest.
  At the Asylum, Ross claimed, there existed a suc-
  cessful research program:
  ...here are kept complete records
  of historical material, findings
  and lab tests, which all serve as
  the foundation for valuable lab
  research. There is no research
  committee, no formal program, and
  progress is benefited as a re-
  sult. Politics is reduced to a
  minimum, as no research project
  has ever been financed by outside
  agencies, special gifts, or en-
  dowments used exclusively for that
  1: Ross wanted a better classification system for patients because
  the staff were not only having problems with making diagnoses and
  assigning patients to the proper wards, but when a mistake was made,
  some patients would become lost during transfer and would vanish
  completely from the Asylum. How many were lost and what hap-
  pened to them is unknown, but some were “special cases” that an-
  gered Ross greatly.
  2: As a side note Characters checking through the records will no-
  tice that there is a high suicide rate for patients who were placed in
  rooms facing the Western Division.
  3: While tearing openings in the walls, the workers found many
  things, including one body embedded in the walls, along with sheaves
  of old Asylum records that had been eaten by rats nesting within
  the walls.
  4: Solomon and Ross had a falling out around this time, most nota-
  bly over the decreasing funds available to Solomon (who borrowed
  extensively from the Asylum’s coffers to finance his research) and
  the lack of progress in Solomon’s research during his stay at the
  Asylum.
  5: Shreiver has been attempting to find the author of the above frag-
  ment. It seems that the patients would frequently devise ingenious
  ways of killing themselves, and these were rarely reported. As much
  as the many times when patients were prevented from committing
  suicide were never reported (except in the occasional nurses’ notes),
  there may have been other suicides that occurred that were never
  reported.
  
  106
  106
  purpose; all necessary equipment
  is purchased from the Asylum’s
  general funds, and at least one
  member of the staff, during the
  past fifteen years, has been des-
  ignated to give most of his time
  exclusively to work on some sub-
  ject in clinical research:
  [While PCs may come across the following stud-
  ies individually during their research, they were all
  compiled here by Dr. Ross in his letter, so this is the
  best place for PCs to get an overview of the studies of
  the Asylum during the Pulp Era.]
  STUDIES
  • 1921-1930: A study of the records of over seven hun-
  dred cases of schizophrenia with follow-up on those
  who have left the hospital, with the end in view of
  checking, particularly on prognostic criteria. This study
  was conducted by Dr. Harper. [1]
  • 1928: A critical and comparative examination, over a
  period of eight months, of the therapeutic effects of
  sleep, metrazol and insulin therapies. [2]
  • 1936: A several month study on the possible involve-
  ment of organic lesions of the auditory apparatus in
  various mental conditions, particularly paranoid and
  hallucinatory states, but also as the result of insulin
  and metrazol therapy; this study conducted by mem-
  bers of the clinical staff.
  • [Date Unknown] Studies in the pharmacological and
  clinical effects of barbiturate derivatives. This was con-
  ducted by an Asylum physician with a consulting
  chemist.
  1939, Deterioration of Care, Staff: The administration
  could never predict from day to day who would be on
  hand to work. Alcoholics, the decrepit, and even pa-
  rolees from the Fell’s Point prisons were drafted into
  the Asylum staff. [3] Conditions in the Asylum became
  appalling and patient care was possible only through
  the efforts of student nurses. These students were on
  duty 52 to 54 hours a week, their classes were acceler-
  ated, and their term of training was cut from 36 weeks
  to 30, and finally to 24.
  Next to this entry, someone has drawn a
  silhouette of a person with tiny stick
  figures inside him (?). The silhouette
  is thin and bent, and the tiny stick fig-
  ures are swarming inside his head and
  limbs.
  1939, Free Patients: During the Trustee Examinations,
  Chairman Ramses examined the list of Asylum “free
  patients.” In 1939, the average rate for patients was $38
  a week, but there were a number of patients that were
  paying a rate far below the norm (or no rate at all).
  Six...
  ...were of special clinical in-
  terest: a seventeen year old boy,
  a ward of the Children’s Aid So-
  ciety which paid his expenses; the
  illegitimate son of an insane
  mother, he had been placed on a
  farm where he spent much time day-
  dreaming. Among those paying a very
  low rate were the daughter of a
  poorly paid professor in a south-
  ern college, a clergyman from a
  small Texas town, the poor widow
  of a distinguished citizen in
  Fell’s Point, a much beloved
  teacher from Hudson City Univer-
  sity, and an elderly man beset
  with delusions and hallucinations
  who produced beautiful pieces of
  artwork that decorated the Asy-
  lum.  [4]
  World War II
  World War II: There was once a great deal of informa-
  tion available at this time period, but repeated fires
  and poor record-keeping took their toll. All that exists
  during this time period are the fragments listed be-
  low. [5]
  1944, Staff Pressure: Despite the pressures of the war,
  the Asylum’s skeleton remains intact. Four of the
  Asylum’s leading physicians, Paton, Wood, Gans and
  Elkins, all refused flattering offers of employment else-
  where.
  1: There was never any such doctor in the Asylum. The research
  dates, however, correspond to the time Dr. Solomon spent at the
  Asylum.
  2: These involved almost solely schizophrenics and patients with
  psychotic features.
  3: This was the true beginning of the decay, as the decrepit and the
  criminally-inclined began to aid in the Asylum takeover.
  4: These patients are included because they are “special cases.” GMs
  in a Golden Age Champions campaign or a Pulp Horror campaign
  might want to make use of them in their adventures. The selection
  of mental abilities that each of these patients possess is up to the
  GM. The reason they are paying such a low rate (or none at all) is
  due to Ross’s intervention: recognizing that they are “special cases,”
  he is determined to keep them tied to the Asylum for further study.
  If the PCs ask, the GM should inform them that later on in
  the text above, the elderly artist is mentioned as “missing his left
  ear.”
  5: The patients have persistently attempted to destroy all informa-
  tion on the Asylum during World War II. Information such as pa-
  tient census, employment records and so on look as if they took the
  worst of the damage.
  
  107
  107
  1944, Patient Employment: This piece is located in Dr.
  Shreiver’s Journal:
  Employment: The shortage of maids and di-
  etary help forced the staff to ask the patients
  to assist in their places. Soon, over fifty pa-
  tients were working in the kitchens and din-
  ing rooms with “evident delight.”
  Next to this entry, someone has drawn a
  silhouette of a person with tiny stick
  figures inside him (?). The tiny stick
  figures are organized within the sil-
  houette, and they march around inside
  the figure like a line of ants.
  This work experience during the war foreshad-
  owed the “work program” that was developed later at
  the Asylum. The change in work positions, from Oc-
  cupational Therapy to kitchen work, changed the atti-
  tudes of certain patients.
  1944, Patient Employment: This piece is located in Dr.
  Shreiver’s Journal:
  Asylum Employment: ...patients are often
  watched as they go about their duties, whether
  it is housekeeping, dietary, secretary pool,
  maintenance, and nursing. The patient is asked
  to work three hours a day, five days a week,
  either in the morning or afternoon. Assign-
  ments are made on the suggestion of the
  individual’s physician, after consultation with
  the Chief of Service and the department head.
  After the assignment is made, the Director of
  Occupational Therapy takes charge, reporting
  on the quality of the work accomplished.
  1944, Asylum and the War Effort: During World War
  II, the Asylum’s Occupational Therapy Department
  made garments for relief agencies. In 1944, over two
  thousand garments were made: including over three
  hundred for the Red Cross, two hundred for the
  Children’s Aid Society, and approximately a hundred
  for British relief. In addition, surgical dressings and
  metal traction splints were manufactured at the Asy-
  lum. [1] Later, the number of articles made in a single
  year reached five thousand. Bedspreads were crocheted
  and raffled at $110; the money was given to the British
  Refugee Children’s Fund.
  During the war, Occupational Therapy often had
  to improvise equipment for use. Sometimes the pa-
  tients constructed items from equipment cannibalized
  from the Asylum itself, including wiring, wooden
  beams, dismantled furniture, and so on.
  1945, Ross Retires: Ross retires. The Trustees arranged
  a testimonial dinner for him and gave him a inscribed
  silver tray. Dr. Wood also left the Asylum at this time,
  and he entered the faculty of Emory University to bol-
  ster its psychiatric department. Dr. Elkins and Dr. Gans
  remained at the Asylum.
  The “Modern” Era
  1945-1970
  The Central Building and the Ford Building were
  constructed during this period, and the Asylum farm
  fell into disuse after the herd was sold in the 1950s and
  the fields were abandoned. GMs can use the current
  map of the Asylum for this period. Adventures taking
  place before the 1950s should use the Pulp Era map
  (see the Pulp Era).
  The staff records of this era are a mess... more so
  than normal. It looks as if someone has taken a hack-
  saw to them, then scattered the bits throughout Fell’s
  Point. Characters will note contradictions (i.e., two or
  even three staff members occupying the same staff
  position at the same time), missing staff members
  (some of the staff have vanished completely from the
  records), and several mysterious staff positions that
  appear and disappear at random. As Dr. Shreiver was
  not at the Asylum for much of this era (she began her
  work in the 1960s), she has been unable (or unwill-
  ing) to correct the gaps and contradictions in the Asy-
  lum timeline.
  Throughout the timeline below, PCs may be con-
  fused about “Gans’s gender change” that occurs in the
  text (i.e., sometimes he is referred to as a female, other
  times male). Players who are unaware that Shreiver was
  once married to Gans (not common knowledge; she
  took back her maiden name in the early 1970s) may
  not realize that the “Dr. Gans” mentioned in the
  timeline is actually Shreiver.
  Adolph Gans, MD
  Medical Superintendent
  Daniel Harkness, MD
  Physician-in-Chief
  William Elkins, MD
  Assistant Superintendent
  (Assistant Medical
  Director)
  Lawrence Wood, MD
  Clinical Director
  Unknown
  Chiefs of Service
  Gerrold Schaefer, PhD
  Chief Psychologist
  Martin Meyers
  Administrative Assistant
  Marsh, MD
  Director of Research
  Unknown
  Director of Medicine
  Anne Kildare, RN
  Director of Nurses
  1: It is possible that because many of these items were manufac-
  tured in the Steward Building (see both above and in the Asylum
  Grounds) that they may have been cursed or defective in some man-
  ner. Items such as plague blankets, metal traction splints with metal
  burrs on the inside, and surgical dressings that drank the blood of
  the wounded found their way into Europe in the midst of the war.
  
  108
  108
  Joan Blackford
  Assistant Director of
  Nurses, Coordinator of
  Clinical Instruction
  Newland Day, MD
  Director of Children’s Day
  Care Program
  Emily Bedilia, OT
  Director of OT and
  Recreational Therapy
  Anne Barber, BS
  Chief Dietitian
  Eliza Gates
  Chief Social Worker
  Adrienne Elgin
  Librarian
  Allen Brown
  Chief Engineer/
  Plant Manager
  Reverend Abrams
  and Klein
  Chaplain
  Unwashed
  heathen
  Patientz
  Personnel Notes
  • Gans was Medical Superintendent and Physician-in-
  Chief until 1949 (see below). Dr. Gans (i.e., Dr.
  Shreiver) officially became the Asylum Superintendent
  in 1972.
  • Although the Physician-in-Chief position was cre-
  ated in 1949 (see below), there is almost no mention
  of the “Dr. Harkness” who filled the position other than
  he “passed away” in 1959. It is not even known when
  Harkness started his duties as Physician-in-Chief. Dr.
  Masters assumed this position in 1975, and he has re-
  mained at the Asylum to this day (again, who held this
  post between 1960 and 1974 is unknown).
  • A ”Dr. Morrow” replaced Elkins as the Asylum Clini-
  cal Director in 1965, but almost no records of Morrow
  or his work at the Asylum exist (see the
  Heresies chapter).
  • Schaefer held the Chief Psychologist position at least
  until 1958 at which point he was replaced with Dr. Ben-
  jamin Pope.
  • Meyers died in 1955. Who replaced him as Adminis-
  trative Assistant is unknown.
  • The Research department was established in 1968;
  Marsh headed the department until 1973, then van-
  ished. Who headed this department from 1973-1885
  is unknown.
  • The Medical department was established in 1967, but
  all of the personnel in this department from 1967 to
  1985 has been erased from the Asylum records.
  • Mrs. Kildare replaced Mary Hodges in 1959. As near
  as can be determined, however, from 1962 to 1968, five
  different Director of Nurses filled this position. GMs
  can make up names for these replacements.
  • The Assistant Director of Nurses, Coordinator of
  Clinical Instruction position was created in 1959.
  • The short-term Director of Children’s Day Care Pro-
  gram position opened in 1967, then Dr. Day left in
  1970, taking much of the Asylum Day Care program
  with him.
  Next to Dr. Day's entry, someone has
  drawn a smiley face with rays emanat-
  ing from it. Next to this is scribbled 1967
  -> 1999?
  • Emily (sometimes called “Emilia”) Bedilia replaced
  Henrietta Keane as Director of OT and Recreational
  Therapy  in 1958.
  • Many social workers filled the Chief Social Worker
  position. A “Miss Greene” apparently took over for
  Eliza Gates at some point after 1947, then Miss Greene
  retired in 1952. Between 1952-1956, there was no one
  to fill this position, then Eleanor Gardener came on
  board and remained until 1970. In 1965, however, Ellen
  Kingsley became the Director of Social Services and
  Miss Gardener was reduced to a staff position.
  • Chief Engineer/Plant Manager Allen Brown died in
  1965 and was replaced with Mr. Clarence Motto. Char-
  acters who trace Brown’s history through the Asylum
  records will notice that Brown was at the Asylum for
  almost sixty-five years... assuming he was in his late
  twenties or early thirties when he became Chief Engi-
  neer, Brown had a remarkably long life span and a hell
  of a constitution if he carried out the duties of Chief
  Engineer for the entire 65 years.
  • The Chaplain Reverends Abrams and Klein existed
  in opposition, but neither knew of the other’s true goals
  until 1969... Abrams was in league with the
  Shapeshifter Conspiracy, while Klein was a member
  of the Fortunattii Operattii (see Horror Hero: The
  Eldritch Era). The two of them played games within
  the Asylum (often using the patients as pieces) until
  they finally attacked and killed each other in the Asy-
  lum chapel in July of 1969. After their deaths, the Asy-
  lum chapel was sealed off and the Ford Building used
  for services.
  Information on patient treatment during this era
  is sketchy and incomplete, especially in the 60s and
  70s. If the national trends in mental health were true
  at the Asylum as well, then there was a growing use of
  psychotropic drugs throughout this period. There is
  some indication from the text that the Asylum coop-
  erated with other hospitals on the peninsula in drug
  research and maintained a friendly working relation-
  ship with the University of Fell’s Point’s research de-
  partments, but there is little or no other information.
  Modern Era Timeline
  1947, Ross Dies: Ross underwent a severe operation,
  returned briefly to Asylum, but then died in Septem-
  ber of 1947. [1]
  1: It is not known why Ross returned to the Asylum or what he did
  there; by all accounts, he should have been too debilitated to move.
  It is possible he returned to the Asylum to hide his notes and/or
  diary there, but where in the Asylum he hid them is unknown.
  
  109
  109
  1947, Gans as Medical Supervisor: It is listed in the
  Asylum Records that Dr. Gans acted as the Asylum
  Medical Supervisor for the last two years of Ross’s life.
  1947, Social Worker: Eliza Gates, the Asylum’s sole
  Social Worker, had 52 patients and seven employees
  referred to her by the staff. [1] Much of her time was
  spent counseling patients, especially in relation to their
  plans after discharge. She assisted with admissions and
  when necessary, arranged for the entry of patients into
  other mental institutions. She followed 317 former
  patients, assembling information on their activities to
  incorporate the details of their lives into their hospital
  file.
  1949, Gans Appointed Medical Director: In April, Dr.
  Adolph Gans was appointed the Medical Director of
  the Asylum. Ross had recommended Gans for the po-
  sition just before his death.
  1949, Gans and Asylum Reorganization: As part of his
  plans for the institution, Gans claimed that the Asy-
  lum needed one or two outstanding therapists, uni-
  versally acknowledged to be masters in the treatment
  and understanding of patients and whose time could
  be devoted fully to that end, and to the instruction of
  physicians who come here for training. He understood
  it would be expensive, but was confident that if such
  therapists were secured, a number of patients would
  come to the Asylum to fill the long-vacant beds.
  Gans submitted a reorganization plan and an
  outline of the duties of various personnel, the
  first such document in the records. The outline con-
  sisted of building up the most “perfect setting possible
  for patient care,” promote research and educational
  opportunities, promote hygiene, and research the hos-
  pital and the relation to community.
  1949, Gans: Fell’s Point Psychiatry Texts go so far to
  say that the:
  “...development of psychiatry and
  psychoanalytic training in Fell’s
  Point stems from Gans. He was a
  pioneer in psychoanalytic medi-
  cine, and the founder of and
  teacher in the Fell’s Point Psy-
  choanalytic Institute, consultant
  to the National Institute of Men-
  tal Health, and the President of
  the American Psychoanalytic As-
  sociation. His work, Psychothera-
  peutic Intervention in Schizophre-
  nia, grew out of his own clinical
  work at the Asylum, as well as
  such papers States of Being in
  Psychotherapy. It was chiefly
  through Gans’s efforts that the
  Asylum retained its certification
  as a teaching hospital in the pe-
  riod when such standards were con-
  stantly becoming more demanding.”
  1950s: GMs should make a secret Sight PER/Deduc-
  tion Roll for characters examining the patient census
  in the 1950's. If the roll is successful, the GM should
  inform the PC that a large number of patients (be-
  tween 35% to 61%) were paying below-standard rate
  from 1950 to 1960. The reason for this is not indicated
  in the Asylum records.
  1952: Miss Greene, the third social worker at the Asy-
  lum, retired in 1952. [2] A replacement could not be
  found until 1956, although much effort was expended
  in finding one as quickly as possible. [3]
  1955, Housecleaning: In a short period of time, the
  Asylum lost some of its most valuable employees by
  retirement or death. Mr. Meyers, Administrative As-
  sistant, who had labored to keep down expenses, died
  after 25 years of valuable service. [4] Watkins, who had
  spent fifty years in the laundry and dietary, retired at
  80; Koch, who had been an engineer at the Asylum for
  forty-eight years, died suddenly.
  1955, Suicides: A number of suicides occurred in the
  Asylum and received much publicity in Fell’s Point,
  damaging the Asylum’s reputation. After nearly six
  years without a suicide, two came close together in
  1955, and the next year there were five. [1, next page]
  After this, Asylum patients were carefully studied, and
  those who seemed especially upset were moved to more
  protected locations. Some of the staff reported that a
  “contagious hysteria” among the patients often fol-
  lowed a suicide of one of their number.
  1: Eliza Gates was Sarah Meade’s successor (see Pulp Era, Staff). What
  happened to Sarah Meade is unknown.
  2: Miss Greene was a mild, unassuming woman who did her duties
  faithfully and unquestioningly. Miss Greene was Eliza Gates’s suc-
  cessor (see 1947) although what happened to Eliza Gates is not men-
  tioned in the records. If the PCs do some digging they will find that
  Eliza Gates died of a heart attack in 1949.
  3: This was a problem because social workers were a necessary link
  to the outside world, and many patients who were discharged into
  Fell’s Point from 1952-1956 were lost for lack of a good liaison with
  the Asylum.
  4: Meyers died in an “accident” (unspecified) that occurred on Asy-
  lum grounds. This accident was arranged by Allen Brown (see Chief
  Engineer, Pulp Era, above), who had hoped to kill the Administra-
  tive Assistant. (Meyers had become a problem because he had fi-
  nally turned his attention to the unusual problems with the Asylum
  construction crew and maintenance.) Brown was more successful
  in murdering Koch: Brown suspected that Koch had caught on to
  his shady business dealings on behalf of the Black Dawn. (Koch had
  also started to question some of Brown’s construction practices, es-
  pecially the maintenance of the tunnels beneath the Asylum.) Brown
  poisoned Koch’s liquor flask, and the engineer, after sipping from
  its contents while working, died in one of the Asylum’s undertunnels.
  The conclusion of the Fell’s Point coroner was that Koch had a heart
  attack. This is one of the many examples of Brown’s “houseclean-
  ing” (weeding?) that took place during this period.
  
  110
  110
  1955-1961: Characters examining the patient census
  during the modern era may come across the following
  fragment:
  ...the rapid increase in operat-
  ing costs, combined with the low
  admission rate, disturbed the
  staff. The only place where money
  could be saved, Gans decided, was
  by giving up the residency train-
  ing program. If this were done,
  Gans argued, then senior psychia-
  trists could replace the younger
  residents, and these senior psy-
  chiatrists would give the major-
  ity of their time to the Asylum.
  While the atmosphere would un-
  doubtedly change (as the Asylum
  would no longer a teaching insti-
  tution), Gans felt the profes-
  sional atmosphere of the Asylum
  would not be affected if the house
  doctors were carefully chosen.
  There was concern that if the
  training program was abandoned,
  the Asylum might lose its accredi-
  tation, and employing senior psy-
  chiatrists would be just as costly
  as the residency program...
  Shreiver’s Notes: On the margin next to this entry,
  Shreiver has written “Morrow/Poe/Marsh.”
  1956: Eleanor Gardener, a social worker and a thera-
  pist, was found to replace Miss Greene, the social
  worker who retired in 1952. Gardener maintained her
  post until 1970. [2]
  1957-1958, Trustee Deaths: The Asylum Board of
  Trustees suffered losses in the 1950's. Taylor, who had
  helped establish the Asylum pension plan, died in 1957.
  Mathews, a Trustee for 28 years, who had improved
  the investment policies of the Asylum, died in 1958.
  Dr. Forbrush, Headmaster at a Fell’s Point
  School, and John Mott, President of the Mercantile Safe
  Deposit and Trust Company (and also a leader of the
  Fell’s Point Urban Development and other civic orga-
  nizations) was named to fill the second vacancy. [3]
  1960s, Budgeting: This information is listed in a text
  discussing the financial viability of mental institutions
  on the East Coast:
  For the first five years of the
  1960s, the Fell’s Point Asylum
  operated at a loss, in the last
  half, because of outside grants
  and a much larger endowment from
  income the books were balanced and
  a sum set aside each year for mod-
  ernization and new building. Ris-
  ing wages and salaries, and the
  cost of employee benefits took its
  toll. All areas within the Asylum
  were subject to constant evalua-
  tion within departments and across
  departmental lines. In addition
  to the monthly Administrative
  Staff meeting, which included all
  section heads responsible for non
  clinical work, and the monthly
  Medical Staff meeting with reports
  on utilization, clinical activi-
  ties, and evaluations, there was
  a weekly interdepartmental meet-
  ing at which all hospital activi-
  ties were discussed, and a weekly
  Medical Directors conference. Phy-
  sicians and department directors
  belonged to professional societ-
  ies, attended local and national
  conventions, and served as com-
  mittee members and officers. A
  rather unusual group, consisting
  of the administrative officers and
  Chairmen of the Boards of the three
  neighborhood hospitals and State
  College, met monthly for luncheon
  and a discussion of cooperative
  plans.
  1960s: The following is a text fragment on the Asylum’s
  Child Guidance Clinic:
  Adventure Seed: If the GM
  wishes, the Shapeshifter
  Conspiracy (see Horror
  Hero, p. 181) can use the
  Asylum as a way of indoc-
  trinating themselves into
  society. By replacing pa-
  tients with shapeshifters,
  the shapeshifters could
  seem to get “well” and be
  established into new (influ-
  ential) families. The men-
  tal instabilities of the pa-
  tients make them easy to
  replace... anything odd
  about them, whether
  memory lapses, sudden im-
  provement, or strange be-
  havior could all be ex-
  plained away by their
  “former” mental distur-
  bance.
  1: The suicides that did occur in the six years before 1955 were sim-
  ply better camouflaged than the ones that occurred at this time.
  In all fairness to the Asylum personnel, however, not all these
  suicides occurred in the Asylum, although if the PCs check, some of
  these extra-Asylum suicides had a strange similarity to “Asylum with-
  drawal symptoms.” In particular, one elderly woman home over-
  dosed on sleeping pills while she was home on an authorized visit.
  (According to her family, she had been obsessed with “going back to
  the land of paintings” [sleep?]) Other patients, who committed sui-
  cide within the Asylum, hung themselves ingeniously; these casual-
  ties were usually restricted to Wards One through Four in the East-
  ern Division.
  2: Gardener, much like Miss Greene, did not question what her work
  was being used for. The reason for Miss Greene’s retirement is not
  listed in the Asylum records, although if the PCs check, they will
  find that three weeks after her retirement, she was killed in an auto-
  mobile accident in Fell’s Point.
  3: The removal of some of the Trustees was orchestrated by Allen
  Brown (see Chief Engineer, Pulp Era, above), others were brought
  about by carefully forced retirements due to business pressure ex-
  erted by influential cultists in Fell’s Point. As a result of the removal
  of these trustees, the Asylum began to change and evolve. Forbrush,
  one of the people assigned to fill the vacancy, was believed to be a
  member of the Black Dawn. Mott was a wealthy but a stupid bore of
  a man, who was deaf and dumb to the concerns of the mentally ill
  in the Asylum. He frequently seemed to vote on whim on impor-
  tant decisions. Much of this whimsy was due to the advice of an
  astrologer he consulted regularly.
  
  111
  111
  ...from Dr. Day’s ideas on child
  care and child psychiatry, the
  Asylum’s Child Guidance Clinic
  proposal continued and expanded.
  [1] In an average year, 250 inter-
  views were held with children and
  their parents to select candidates
  for the program.
  1960s, Other Hospitals: Both the Greater Fell’s Point
  Medical Center and the St. Joseph Hospital, believing
  each hospital would eventually have a psychiatric unit,
  supplied their staff with psychiatric consultants from
  the Asylum. [2]
  1961, Dr. Gans: This fragment is the first item that
  mentions Dr. Shreiver’s (Dr. Gans’s) presence at the
  Asylum. Presumably, this was her first year as a mem-
  ber of the Asylum senior staff:
  ...was harshly critical and opin-
  ionated. She attacked many theo-
  ries held by psychiatrists, urg-
  ing reforms in the training of
  psychiatrists and in the treat-
  ment of patients. It was her view
  that residents should not be treat-
  ing psychotic patients but instead
  should begin their training by
  working with adolescents and young
  adults. Dr. Gans thought many of
  the current avenues along which
  psychiatry was moving were “blind
  alleys” and thought most commu-
  nity-psychiatric programs, which
  featured short-term treatment of
  a large number of people in local
  situations, did little permanent
  good. She felt that many patients
  needed to be removed from family,
  friends and their jobs and should
  be placed for a time in a tran-
  quil setting far removed from the
  turmoils of life.
  Dr. Shreiver may have come to the Asylum to
  teach in the Training School or to practice psychia-
  try... her exact position is not indicated in the records.
  If asked, she will claim that she was a Director of Train-
  ing during this period.
  1961, Financial Crisis. In the past, with few exceptions,
  the Trustees were able to set aside the income from
  their investments for future building operations. It was
  expected that the operating cost of the Asylum would
  be covered each year by the income from patients’
  board and medical fees. The situation changed in the
  mid-fifties, however, and became more marked by
  1960. Over the next five years, the weekly loss per pa-
  tient was:
  1960: $7. 1961: $20.00, 1962: $13.84 and 1963: $26.56...
  Which broke down to the following total losses
  in funds:
  1960: $100,000, 1961: $216,500, 1962: $128,600,
  1963: $300,000, 1964: $64, 000, 1965: $157,343
  Gans had a gloomy picture of the future of pri-
  vate psychiatric hospitals. He noted the many oppor-
  tunities now existing for the care for the mentally ill,
  the increased cost of private hospitals, and the limited
  aid given by the various insurance plans all had struck
  a blow at private psychiatric hospitals. [3]
  1961, Stabilizing the Patient Population: As the pa-
  tient census decreased, more long-term treatment pa-
  tients were admitted. In order to stabilize and increase
  the patient population, Gans reorganized the patient
  groupings, placing active treatment patients in the
  Western and Eastern Divisions, and the long-term
  treatment patients in the Ross House. [4]
  1962, Ross House as Geriatric Center: From a text in-
  dicating renovations at the Asylum:
  Plans were made at this time to
  use the Ross House as a geriatric
  center. It would serve as a home
  for elderly people no longer able
  to live alone or bear full re-
  sponsibility for their own care.
  Gans was certain that suitable phy-
  sicians could be found who would
  create a more hopeful and useful
  life for those patients. There were
  certain individuals in the O.T.
  department who he thought would
  be valuable in the newly orga-
  nized effort. [5]
  1: “Dr. Day” presumably was Dr. Newland Day, a prominent child
  psychologist at the time. It may come as a surprise to some charac-
  ters that he worked at the Asylum. See 1967 for more information.
  2: These hospitals did eventually have psychiatric units, but they
  were burned down or suffered an unfortunate “accident” due to in-
  terference from an Asylum patient.
  3: In 1961, the Blue Cross paid only for a limited number of days of
  hospitalization and commercial companies were no less discrimi-
  natory; many insurance policies written for $10,000 maximum were
  reduced to $1500 for mental cases.
  4: Gans thought the move would be more pleasing to the patients,
  as it grouped those with similar degrees of sickness together and
  avoided a considerable number of multiple moves. On retrospect,
  however, he often wondered what caused him to make such a move...
  he had never considered such an arrangement before.
  5: These people are not mentioned in the description, and no trans-
  fers from OT are observed in the Asylum records.
  
  112
  112
  1962, Gans and Ross House: Gans continued improv-
  ing the Geriatric Ward in the Ross House, creating...
  “...a friendly atmosphere and a feeling of rejuvenation
  and interest in daily living rarely found among geriat-
  ric patients, where apathy usually abounds.”
  1962, Gans and Ross House: Gans continued his
  changes and work on the Ross House as a geriatric cen-
  ter. He planned to employ volunteers and institute a
  diversified program of activities. [1]
  1963, Work Program: The following piece of informa-
  tion can be found from a number of sources (two cop-
  ies of this work program in Shreiver’s journals). The
  Work Program played an important role in the daily
  routine of almost half the patients. The extent of this
  program for a typical month is shown:
  Patients Hrs
  Work
  18
  428
  Clerical and typing, offices newsletter,
  mail delivery
  3
  71
  Commissary
  6
  131
  Dietary, kitchen, stock room, linen room
  1
  35
  [2] The Niche, displaying and selling gift
  items
  8
  215
  Greenhouse
  4
  130
  Grounds, rose garden, raking, hand trimming
  7
  169
  Library, checking-out, cataloging, filing
  1
  26
  Second library
  3
  98
  Nursing, light sewing. bed-making
  8
  141
  OT, Gallery, music and dancing assisting
  11
  264
  Print shop, using equipment, copier, folding
  4
  91
  Recreation, care of are, working with groups
  1
  40
  Sundry shop, care of stock, waiting on
  customers
  4
  62
  Schoolroom, supervising study hall, library,
  office
  4
  128
  Swimming pool, maintaining, teaching
  6
  148
  Upholstery shop, working in all areas
  2
  18
  Tour Guides
  2
  74
  Patient-Staff Council
  93
  2,269
  1965, Morrow’s Appointment: Dr. Morrow was ap-
  pointed the Asylum’s Clinical Director. According to
  excerpts, he was in charge of...
  ...what happens to the patients,
  to see their experience was con-
  structive, internally, interper-
  sonally and socially. He did the
  programming and scheduling of all
  activities of the junior, assis-
  tant and resident physicians, and
  he explored information about ad-
  vances and changes in the scien-
  tific and medical fields, passing
  his findings on to the rest of
  the staff at the Asylum. He evalu-
  ated the use of new drugs, safe-
  guarding their use, and he de-
  cided when medical consultants
  should be called, participated in
  the teaching program, and imple-
  mented research.  [3]
  1965, Modernization: The following fragment is lo-
  cated in Shreiver’s journals:
  ...modernization was pushed forward, although
  the cost ran into hundreds of thousands of
  dollars. After numerous organization difficul-
  ties, it was decided to move employees from
  the second floor rooms in the Service Building
  to the third floors of the Western and Eastern
  Buildings. These areas were then air condi-
  tioned and the twenty-one rooms made into
  offices for physicians. A new suite was set
  aside for medical records and the staff of sec-
  retaries who kept them up-to-date. [4]
  1965, Security: After following increased break-outs
  and escapes, Gans appointed Mr. Motto as Plant Man-
  ager. Motto had the difficult task of making and over-
  seeing repairs and renovations at the Asylum, often of
  an emergency nature. With skilled mechanics, Motto
  created new rooms for programs from little-used or
  forgotten areas. He gave increased attention to safety
  precautions, and the number of accidents to employ-
  ees dropped to such an extent that insurance was re-
  duced by $8000 a year. Security measures were ex-
  panded, the force of guards doubled, and the large iron
  gates at the gatehouse closed at 10PM for the first time
  in many decades. [5]
  1: There were many complaints in the Asylum records that Gans
  spent too much time in the Geriatric Ward and did not devote
  enough time to the operation of the Asylum itself. Many other staff
  members (including his wife) were forced to bear the duties that
  Gans neglected.
  2: The Niche is the Asylum “gift shop” that caters to patients, staff
  and visitors.
  3: This is the first clear mention of Dr. Morrow in all the Asylum
  records (except in the research studies... see 1968, below). It is as if
  his presence was carefully erased from the Asylum.
  4: Characters may wonder where all the money for this is coming
  from. The answer is not listed in the Asylum records, although the
  debt situation that seemed to be a problem in the early 1960's is no
  longer mentioned, even though the debt was close to $150,000 in
  1965.
  5: This is the first evidence that the Asylum had ever shown atten-
  tion to its own security. If the PCs ask, inform them that a number
  of security measures seemed to be focused on the Western Division
  and that the intention of the security measures seemed to keep pa-
  tients in rather than keep trespassers off the Asylum grounds.
  
  113
  113
  1965, Social Service Director: In the spring, Ellen
  Kingsley joined the Social Service Department and
  shortly thereafter became its Director. A graduate of
  Fell’s Point University, she received her Masters De-
  gree from Hudson City University, returned to Fell’s
  Point, and gained wide experience through work in
  the Family Welfare Association of Fell’s Point and the
  Family and Children’s Society. [1]
  1965: Burned fragment concerning the Trustees and
  the Asylum senior staff’s plans for the future of the
  Asylum:
  ...almost overwhelming in scope.
  Gans �illegible� the Asylum would
  be entering a new phase with much
  in its favor, including an excel-
  lent power plant and a substan-
  tial endowment. [2] All agreed that
  treatment programs should come
  first, then a program of clinical
  research, followed by programs
  making possible the extension of
  services to individuals outside
  the Asylum and to other institu-
  tions.
  [The next few lines are illegible.] ...she wanted
  a group of physicians who would
  not treat the Asylum as a “way
  station” to professional careers.
  Dr. Gans suggested a larger mem-
  bership, including religious, so-
  cial, economic, racial and above
  all, women. She also gave sugges-
  tions for improving the residency
  training program. [3]
  1966, Child Psychiatry: Fragment on the Asylum Child
  Psychiatry program:
  Dr. Day became Director of the
  Department of Child Psychiatry in
  1966. Day, a graduate of the Gei-
  ger College of Medicine in De-
  troit, received his psychiatric
  training at the Lowell General Hos-
  pital in San Francisco and the
  Children’s Hospital in Washing-
  ton, DC. He came to the Fell’s
  Point Asylum from a position as
  Chief of Children’s Psychiatric
  Services in a hospital in Wash-
  ington, D.C. and proceeded to de-
  velop and diversify child psychi-
  atric activities to support a
  training program in child psychia-
  try and to provide residents in
  adult psychiatry with proper ex-
  posure to childhood mental disor-
  ders. [4]
  Next to Dr. Day's entry, someone has
  drawn a smiley face with rays ema-
  nating from it.
  1967: Reports were presented to the Board by the en-
  gineering firm covering the electrical, hot/cold water,
  fire protection, natural gas and steam distribution, air
  conditioning and ventilation systems. With these re-
  ports, the Property Committee spent many sessions
  considering whether to abandon the ancient power
  plant or remodel it.
  It was eventually decided to renovate the interi-
  ors and add a new building if necessary. Contracts were
  let for the renovation of outside utilities, and for many
  months the Asylum was laced with trenches as pipes
  and wires were replaced. As areas were remodeled and
  attempts were made to install new electrical panels,
  more and more accidents occurred. The tunnels un-
  der the Western and Eastern Divisions, which were
  reported to contain a miscellaneous collection of pipes
  and wires claimed the lives of three workers during a
  sudden collapse. In a period of five years, more and
  more accidents began to wear on the expense, leading
  to more than one and a half million dollars spent on
  improvements.
  1967, Children’s Day Care Program: In the fall of 1967,
  the Children’s Day Care Program for emotionally dis-
  turbed children opened at the Asylum. The children
  received individual therapy while their families were
  involved in intensive case work. The western section
  of the Ross building, once devoted to Occupational
  Therapy, was made into rooms for this service, and
  the Child Guidance Clinic also moved into quarters in
  the same building.
  1967, Department of Medicine: A new Department
  of Medicine was established this year, with Dr. ———
  [5] as Chief of Service, ably assisted in day-to-day ac-
  tivities by ———, Medical Assistant, and ———,
  LPN. A new set of offices was built on the ground floor
  1: Kingsley worked for the government for five years when she re-
  turned to Fell’s Point, then began working for the welfare associa-
  tions of Fell’s Point, although there is no indication that she quit
  her government position in order to pursue community work. Her
  “governmental position” is not specified. Any character who pokes
  too far into this matter will gain a fifteen point Mystery Hunted
  (CIA) as long as they remain in Fell’s Point.
  2: Where the “substantial endowment” came from is not specified.
  3: This second paragraph concerns Dr. Shreiver’s (Dr. Gans’s) sug-
  gestions... suggestions which were ultimately ignored, much to her
  frustration.
  4: There is a large amount of praise for Dr. Day in the records. He
  was described as a “cherub-faced” doctor, and often amused the
  patients and staff with his jokes and pleasant demeanor. During his
  stay at the Asylum, he was often referred to as “Doctor Smiley Face,”
  a title that apparently pleased him.
  5: This name, and the ones following, have been scratched out by
  someone’s fingernail. Their names are not listed anywhere else is
  Dr. Shreiver’s journals. If the GM wishes, the Idiot King may have
  been playing “ad libs” with fragments like these.
  
  114
  114
  of the Eastern Division to accommodate this depart-
  ment. The Department was responsible for the per-
  sonal health of the institution, for emergency treat-
  ment, and for the screening of new employees (these
  employment examinations usually ran to about four
  hundred a year). [1]
  1968, Department of Research: Dr. Marsh became the
  Director of a newly established Department of Re-
  search, while Dr. Benjamin Pope took over the leader-
  ship of Psychology Services. During this time, Dr.
  Saidal was transferred to Child Psychiatry to assist Dr.
  Day and his assistants. [2]
  1968, Department of Research: During the first year,
  the Asylum’s Department of Research was occupied
  with developing a system of collecting data on patients
  and storing it so it was immediately available to staff.
  [3] Characters may find records of the following five
  studies conducted at the Asylum:
  Date Unknown: Research Study One, An Analysis of
  Patient Characteristics Associated with Use of Psycho-
  tropic Drugs at Asylum. [4]
  1959-1966: Research Study Two, A Study of Selected
  Characteristics and Follow-Up Data from the Asylum
  Child Guidance Clinic, 1959-1966. [5]
  1960-1964: Research Study Three, Follow-up Survey
  of Admissions, 1960-1964 at the Asylum.
  1960-1970: Research Study Four, Patient Characteris-
  tics at the Asylum, 1960-1970.
  1966-1968: Research Study Five, A Study of Older Pa-
  tients Admitted to the Asylum, 1966-1968  [6]
  1968, Masters, Psychiatric Staff: Dr. Masters joins the
  psychiatric staff. He had spent ten years as a practicing
  psychiatrist and also held an appointment as Assistant
  Professor of Psychiatry at the State University as a
  teacher of psychosomatic medicine and had worked
  as a liaison with other medical specialties in the Uni-
  versity Hospital.
  1968, Gans: In December, Gans asked that he be re-
  lieved of Administrator and retain only the responsi-
  bility and management of the Ross Building. This re-
  quest was not granted. [7]
  1969, The Central Building: The decision to construct
  the Central Building is made. The low bid (2.5 mil-
  lion) for the construction of the Central Building was
  made by E. J. McIntyre Construction Company. [8]
  On May 13, 1969, the cornerstone was laid by both the
  Governor and the President of the Board, in the pres-
  ence of Trustees, employees and friends.
  1963 to 1970, Staff Changes: Characters examining the
  Asylum Social Services Department will notice that
  between 1963 and 1970, the number of Social Work-
  ers stationed at the Asylum rose from two to ten and
  case referral rose from sixty patients a year to 410. [9]
  1969-1970: Under Day’s direction, the Child Guidance
  Clinic was caring for forty-five children, with two as-
  sistant doctors, Dominquez and Lievano, who had re-
  ceived part of their training at the Fell’s Point Mallinger
  Clinic. [10]
  1970: Dr. Day also worked at a series of child care clin-
  ics and day care centers in the Point, including serving
  6: This research includes J. Hess Curtis, the Poet (see Asylum
  Grounds). Much of the information taken from this report was gath-
  ered from notes made by Gans while he was working in the Geriat-
  ric Ward.
  7: Gans spent an increasing amount of time among the elderly pa-
  tients, but the reason for this is unknown.
  8: The plans for the Central Building can be obtained from E.J.
  McIntyre company records. The company still exists on the Point,
  although they have experienced dramatic losses of profits and work
  since the Central Building project; the reason for this is unknown.
  Because the Central Building is a relatively new structure, the pa-
  tients have not had a chance to tailor its construction as much as
  they would like; say, as they have done with the Western and Eastern
  Divisions.
  9: The incoming patients and expansion created this bureaucratic
  “clotting.” The rising number of social workers was necessary, as
  many patients were beginning to slip through the cracks in the sys-
  tem.
  10: Unknown to the staff, Day hired these two South American doc-
  tors from detention centers in Paraguay and Chile. One of them
  was placed in charge of the Clinic’s shock shop, which operated 24
  hours a day, seven days a week, and the other assisted Day in the
  center’s psychosurgical operating suite, where the latest techniques
  in lobotomy were used.
  1: Any character who inquires about the cost of establishing a de-
  partment like this one should be informed that it would cost at least
  several hundred thousand dollars. Where the Asylum got this money
  is unknown
  2: No mention is made of what happened to Saidal (or Dr. Day)
  after this. Dr. Marsh is not mentioned at any point after 1973... who
  was placed in charge of the Department of Research from 1973-
  1985 is unknown. Any character who inquires about the cost of es-
  tablishing a department like this one should be informed that it
  would cost a good chunk of money (though not as much as the
  Department of Medicine, above). Where the Asylum got the money
  for establishing these new Departments is unknown.
  3: The current state of the Asylum records attests to the dismal fail-
  ure of this attempt.
  4: Although mentioned, no copies of this research is available, in
  almost any database. Only one hardcopy exists at the Asylum;
  Shreiver has hidden it and is secretly studying the material (see Her-
  esies). Several doctors are mentioned extensively in this report... in
  addition to Dr. Gans, there is also mention of a “Dr. Morrow” and a
  “Dr. Poe.”
  5: A portion of this research was done by Dr. Newland Day (see
  1960s and 1967, above). Some of it appears to be missing. This re-
  port is odd because it mentions a “Child Guidance Clinic” at the
  Asylum, but no official record of it exists... only the Child Day Care
  Center which was in operation in the 1960s. The research study does
  not shed any light on this discrepancy.
  
  115
  115
  as a counselor at the Fell’s Point Orphanage for a year.
  In 1970, he went to oversee the Sunshine Project that
  was instituted by the Fell’s Point state government and
  subsequently resigned his post at the Child Guidance
  Clinic for a chance to help disadvantaged children
  through the Sunshine grant.
  The Fire of 1969
  Fire of ‘69: In March, a patient set fire to her bedroom
  and caused the worst conflagration in Asylum history.
  This patient sprayed her mattress with hair spray, set
  it afire, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
  The Supervising Nurse on the ward and a senior aide
  smelled the smoke, gave the alarm, and checked every
  patient off the ward. Mr. Motto and the fire brigade
  quickly brought quantities of sand and sawdust for a
  barricade to contain water damage. The fire, which fed
  on the ancient pine beams in the attic, should have
  been prevented from spreading by a curtain of water
  laid down by the sprinkler system, but the failure of a
  series of sprinklers in the Western Division caused the
  fire to spread throughout the Fifth and Sixth Ward,
  trapping many patients in their cells. While fire fight-
  ing apparatus arrived promptly from a local depart-
  ment, joined by additional equipment from other parts
  of the County, it was necessary for the firemen to break
  through the slate roof and through the Western Divi-
  sion walls to reach the flames. Damage, which
  1: Shreiver acted as Medical Director in Gans’s absence. The delay
  in appointing her Medical Director came from the Trustees, who
  examined several other applicants before reluctantly passing on the
  reins of the Asylum to the (much-disliked) Dr. Shreiver. Shortly af-
  ter Gans’s death, Dr. Shreiver took her back her maiden name.
  amounted to nearly $85,000, was covered by the in-
  surance company, but thirteen bedrooms and two
  wards had to be vacated for some time.
  A leaf has been pressed into these pages.
  It looks like it was gathered in au-
  tumn, for its surface is brown and
  crusty and bits of it have flaked off
  and crumbled in the pages.
  1969, Gans departs Asylum: In April, Gans became ill,
  then died suddenly in August. His portrait was hung
  with those of Dr. Bourne and Dr. Ross in the Eastern
  Division.
  1969, Shreiver: Dr. Shreiver became the (acting) Medi-
  cal Director of the Asylum in April of 1969; in 1972,
  she assumed responsibility for complete administra-
  tion of the Hospital. [1]
  1970, The End: The journals end at 1970, presumably
  because Dr. Shreiver knows what transpires after this
  point. GMs should refer to Heresies for information
  on the years after 1970.
  
  116
  116
  Chapter Five:
  Wards
  As night fell on the Asylum,
  the pair of shadows, still clad
  in their thin patient greens,
  threaded their way through the
  darkened back ways of the Eastern
  Division, bypassing the heavily-
  trafficked halls and areas where
  the ghostly staff seemed thick-
  est. The Poet flowed like a breeze
  ahead of Sally, his movements
  smooth and controlled. His hand
  no longer rested on her shoulder,
  as it had when they first met,
  and the freedom seemed to give
  him new energy.
  Watching the Poet’s motions,
  it seemed to Sally that the Asy-
  lum was mirroring him... she could
  feel the Division coming to life,
  as if stirred by the murders and
  the broken shapes that Sally had
  left in her wake.
  It seemed that the Asylum was
  awakening. The sensation terri-
  fied her.
  The Purge costume lay like a
  growth, a second heart, thumping
  against her side.
  • • •
  The two shadows paused in an
  abandoned corridor, at what the
  edge of the Eastern Division where
  it joined the Central Administra-
  tion Building. The Poet indicated
  to Sally that they were to pause
  for a moment.
  “W-” Sally struggled to catch
  her breath. The haze of drugs still
  formed a residue in her head, and
  she found herself unsteady. The
  Purge costume was warm beneath her
  uniform. “We can’t go outside,
  they’ll catch—”
  The Poet shook his head. He
  opened his mouth, then shut it
  again, as if afraid to speak.
  “Do you know of someplace
  safe?” Sally whispered.
  The Poet nodded, seemed about
  to speak again, then stopped him-
  self.
  Sally let the silence drag for
  a moment, and she watched a strange
  expression cross the Poet’s face.
  He seemed desperate to say some-
  thing, but the words eluded him.
  Sally recalled that Shreiver had
  said the Poet was mute.
  Sally reached out and touched
  his shoulder. His bones were light,
  and felt almost brittle beneath
  her hand. The skin was stretched
  taut between his shoulder blades.
  “It’s okay...” Sally spoke.
  “It’s okay. I trust you.”
  Sally watched in surprise as
  he grasped her hand, then pointed
  at himself, as if desperate to
  communicate something.
  “J... J Cur-tiss,” the Poet
  whispered fearfully. His tongue
  was dry and scratched the roof of
  his mouth, and his words were heavy
  with dust and age. Sally could
  almost hear his throat crack. “My
  n-name is J Curtis.”
  “Yes,” Sally said, staring at
  him. His lips were trembling, and
  Sally realized he was frightened
  that he had spoke. She grasped
  his hand tighter, in what she hoped
  would be reassuring.
  “My name is Sally Robinson.”
  His expression relaxed, and
  Sally felt a warmth�pass between
  them.
  
  117
  117
  Introduction
  This section describes the remaining wards in
  the Asylum (the First Ward/Receiving Ward is de-
  scribed in the Admissions Building entry, above). The
  way the Asylum is laid out, Wards Two through Five
  are located in the Eastern Division, while Wards Six
  through Eight are caged in the Western Division. As
  mentioned before, the GM is under no obligation to
  divide the wards in this manner, nor limit the num-
  ber of Asylum wards to eight... the wards below are
  simply the core wards that are always present in the
  Asylum. Other, more dangerous wards seem to be cre-
  ated in the Asylum on a regular basis (and according
  to the needs of the GM’s campaign).
  The wards are not given a specific location
  within the Eastern and Western Divisions (i.e., no “first
  floor,” “second floor,” and so on) because these wards
  drift within the Asylum. Characters should never be
  sure where a particular Asylum ward is located.
  Ward Building Blocks
  The following aspects could be considered the
  bare essentials of an Asylum ward; they are assumed
  to be present in all the wards described in this chap-
  ter. If these areas are not included in an Asylum ward
  description, then the GM should add them according
  to the information presented below.
  The Door: Most ward doors are big and made of heavy
  metal; they can either have a solid metal surface or
  (more often) they may have a one square foot view-
  ing window set into them that allows visitors and staff
  to look beyond the door before opening it.
  The doors all give a prison-cell clang when they
  close. They do not have handles... to open them, staff
  members insert a five inch key into the door (the key
  is called a “portable doorknob”) and then open the
  door. Some of the older doors have conventional locks.
  Dayroom/Main Area: This is the main mingling area
  of the ward, and is where most patients are herded
  when the day begins. The floor tend to be linoleum or
  bare tile (usually in a black and white checkered pat-
  tern or some other pattern appropriate to the theme
  of the ward). Furnishings include chairs and sofas too
  heavy for a normal human being to throw (some of
  them are filled with sand; see Furnishings, below). The
  windows in the lobby and in the patients’ cells are cov-
  ered with metal bars, grills, or screens, locked tightly
  and checked occasionally by the orderlies and nurses
  (see Windows, below).
  Furnishings: Asylum furniture is a product of utili-
  tarian convenience and the necessity of protecting pa-
  tients from themselves and others. Tables and chairs
  in both the dining areas and the wards are fastened to
  the ground and to the walls. Care is taken to make
  SAMPLE WARD
  
  118
  118
  sure that most furnishing cannot be moved, thrown
  about, or used as weapons (in general, it will require a
  15 STR or more to budge or loosen a piece of furni-
  ture from its fastenings; in the violent wards, charac-
  ters will need a 20 STR or more). Most furniture in
  the Asylum should be treated as “heavy wood/steel re-
  inforced furniture” on the Object List on p.177 of the
  Hero System Rulebook.
  Windows: Most windows are covered with locked
  metal screens, bars or grills. The screens are generally
  DEF 5, BODY 5, and bars and steel gratings have DEF
  6, BODY 6. The glass is generally reinforced and has
  DEF 3, BODY 3.
  Bathroom: Plumbing problems are always occurring,
  and nowhere is this more evident than in the Asylum
  bathrooms. Whether one is assailed by the stench of
  toilet overflow, or forced to pad through puddles of
  stale gray water, it as if the Asylum itself is vomiting
  forth everything the patients force into it. The bath-
  rooms are usually crowded with those needing to use
  the facilities, along with sick patients and various mas-
  turbators who wedge themselves in the stalls.
  The Nurse’s Station: The Nurse’s Station can be a small
  room adjacent to the ward that has a window that
  looks out onto the ward or a separate room in the
  middle of the ward that has a glass wall rising from
  waist level upwards. The Nurse’s Station usually con-
  tains a telephone, a refrigerator, the light and sound
  box for the ward (controlled by the key held by the
  charge nurse), an alarm system (usually a buzzer for
  waking patients up), and a desk. A typewriter is usu-
  ally located on top of the desk, and ledgers, log books
  and files are packed in the drawers.
  The Nurse’s Station is where the patients’ charts
  are kept, telephoning done, reports typed, meals pre-
  pared, and so on. It is frequently crowded and the
  nurses tend to become frustrated trying to complete
  their duties. The ward rules are usually posted here
  for the nurses and orderlies to read. The metal cabi-
  nets (DEF 4/BODY 3) in the nurse’s station that hold
  the medications, needles, tranquilizers and so on are
  (usually) kept locked.
  Patient Quarters: Depending on the ward, the patients
  may have their own rooms (cells), or they may all share
  a common dormitory room. See the examples pre-
  sented in the wards described below to see how these
  dormitories are usually structured. The doors to the
  patient quarters cannot be locked.
  Seclusion Rooms: See Seclusion Rooms, below.
  Storeroom: There should be a storeroom located
  somewhere on the ward. It can store cleaning supplies,
  toiletries, paper towels, sheets, and even the occasional
  dead body. The door is usually locked tight.
  Staff: Despite the number of patients on the ward (and
  there can be a great many of them), staff will gener-
  ally consist of ten nurses and orderlies and one to six
  student nurses. Four nurses and orderlies work on the
  day shift (8 AM to 4 PM), four nurses and orderlies
  on the evening shift (4 PM - 12 Midnight), and two
  on the night shift (12 midnight to 8 AM). The charge
  nurse on each shift is responsible for running the ward.
  All these personnel are supervised by the administra-
  tive psychiatrist responsible for the ward (chosen by
  the GM).
  When GMs are building their own ward, it’s
  important to note that at no point after the ward is
  constructed do they have to abide by their own de-
  sign, even after the PCs have stepped in and have had
  a look around the premises. The institution constantly
  changes, and the GM can continue to tailor their pri-
  vate spaces in the Asylum as the campaign progresses...
  dormitories become larger or smaller, new walls ap-
  pear, the floor swallows the nurse’s station, and so on.
  This rule extends to the staff and patients in the wards
  as well.
  Seclusion Rooms
  Patients who disturb others, break ward rules,
  or behave inappropriately are often placed in “seclu-
  sion.” Three to five seclusion rooms are located in ev-
  ery ward in the Asylum, and some wards (especially
  the violent and disturbed wards) have more than this.
  Despite policy, the staff really does not need a reason
  to imprison a character in these rooms.
  Most seclusion rooms are small, containing
  nothing but a mattress, and sometimes not even that.
  The mattress does not usually have sheets or blankets,
  but some rooms come equipped with actual beds
  bolted to the floor and complete with built-in re-
  straints (5D6 Entangles that Take No Damage from
  Attack [+1/2] and Prevent the use of most Accessible
  Foci [-1]). [1] While some seclusion rooms have a
  window that looks out on the grounds (see below),
  most only have a foot-square viewing window set in
  the door so the staff can check on the patient. The
  door can be locked only from the outside.
  High-Detention Seclusion Cells: In the disturbed
  wards (where most costumed and vigilante PCs are
  likely to find themselves if they are imprisoned at the
  Asylum), the seclusion rooms are more secure than
  the ones described above. These “strong rooms” are
  slowly replacing the once-classic padded cells (al-
  though these padded cells can still be found in half
  the wards in the Asylum).
  The strong room is a medium-sized, squarish
  room (about two or three square hexes), with cream-
  colored, smooth, hard-finished walls, and a dark
  brown linoleum floor, absolutely bare. A postless bed
  1: If a suicidal patient is placed in a seclusion room, he is placed in
  restraints, tied to the bed with leather straps, or else he is accom-
  panied in seclusion by an orderly (if staffing can afford it).
  
  119
  119
  is fastened to the middle of the floor and is covered
  with a smooth, heavy rubber bedspread and pillow,
  both of which are the same color as the floor. The
  hinges of the door are rounded at the top, to allow for
  “sliding off” should patients attempt to hang them-
  selves on a door hinge with a shoe-string or belt. The
  locks on the door are made of flexible rubber, and the
  windows are triple layered and set in a 10” box frame.
  On the outside of the window are steel bars, and the
  inside windows are shatter-proof glass covered with a
  steel mesh grating.
  Maximum Detention Cells: If a strong room won’t
  hold a character, they will be thrown into a window-
  less storage room in one of the basements. The ceil-
  ings, walls and floors of these cells are all composed
  of thick blocks of stone, sometimes covered with thin
  mattresses infested with fleas or padding covered with
  urine stains, unidentifiable dried brown smears, and
  flecks of blood. There is nothing else in the room. The
  only exit to the room is the equivalent of a vault door
  (DEF 7, BODY 7). Any character attacking the door
  should be informed that they may break their hands
  or feet attempting to bust it down, and kicking or strik-
  ing the door will create echoes that resound through-
  out the lower levels of the Asylum. The maximum de-
  tention cells become extremely cold during the night,
  and bugs and insects are present in great numbers no
  matter what the season. These cells have no window
  ports in the doors, as they were not designed to serve
  as cells for patients.
  Ward Two
  Canto Five
  Door: A huge steel door with no doorknob and a
  chicken wire-embedded security window guards the
  entrance to the Second Ward. The door is slimy to the
  touch, as if covered with some invisible secretion. The
  security window is blurred (as if someone has been
  breathing on it), and the glass looks smeared with what
  looks like saliva or semen.
  Description: The unnatural frenzy that claims this
  place can be felt even in the near-darkness of this ward.
  Patients whirl about the dayroom, never stopping,
  never resting; it is as if the patients are being lashed
  with invisible whips that drive them through the ward.
  They leap on top of beds, scamper and crawl beneath
  tables, and their feet pad wetly on the floor of the ward
  as they continue their wheeling flight. Obscenities fly
  throughout the room, and patients shout and curse
  at the staff,  other patients, and sometimes at figures
  only they can see.
  Patients: This is a coed ward. Thematically, all patients
  who have let their passions overcome their reason re-
  side here. Sexual relations frequently take place in this
  ward; staff-patient, patient-patient, and so on, and
  those not having sex are usually masturbating or do-
  ing some other sexual (and unsatisfying) act. Every
  patient’s uniform appears rumpled and damp, and
  their hair is mussed.
  Hallucinations: Most patients on this ward are tran-
  quilized before they go to sleep and secured to their
  beds with black leather straps that are always fastened
  just a bit too tight. Characters who go to sleep on this
  ward will feel as if they are being lashed with black
  whips as they struggle against the straps in their sleep.
  The GM may add other hallucinations as they see fit...
  the character may experience distorted flashbacks of
  sexual experiences or fantasies they have had in the
  past or entertain in the present. These experiences or
  fantasies will always fall short of being satisfying (i.e.,
  the character may continually pursue a target of their
  affections in their dreams and never reach them).
  Main Room: No comforts such as couches and arm-
  chairs are on this ward; only hard-backed heavy
  wooden chairs resistant to being stained or damaged
  are present. Most patients sleep in a large dormitory
  just off of the main dayroom. The mattresses of the
  dormitory beds feel damp and smell of sweat; no mat-
  ter how much the staff seems to clean the patient uni-
  forms, sheets and beds, the smell never leaves. The
  Technical, High-Detention Seclusion Cells: The door is DEF 5,
  BODY 5, and the bed is DEF 5, BODY 5. The interior steel mesh
  of the window is locked (the lock is DEF 4, BODY 4, but the lock
  has a chance of wedging the window shut if the characters mangle
  it enough when they attack it). Characters can also attempt to
  rip the mesh off the inside of the window (DEF 5, BODY 5).
  After this, all they need to do is break the three layers of shatter-
  proof glass (each layer has DEF 3, BODY 3) and then bend or
  tear away the steel grating fastened outside the window (DEF 6,
  BODY 6).
  Every Phase the character attempts to break down the
  door or window, make a PER Roll for the orderly or nurse on
  duty (the PER Roll will be at a -2 or -3 due to the room’s con-
  struction which muffles noise). The staff will investigate the dis-
  turbance and call the guards to tranquilize the patient if the char-
  acter seemed to be in danger of escaping. After this incident,
  they will continue to keep the patient on heavy tranquilizers as
  long as the character is in seclusion to prevent further damage
  to the room and to the patient.
  Stress, Ward Two: Past the frenzy of the patients, the unclean-
  ness of this ward sinks in. There is a filthy, salty scent in the air...
  it comes in humid waves that almost knock characters off their
  feet. The scent is partly putrid, partly erotic, and falls just short
  of stimulating the senses. An invisible residue covers every sur-
  face in the ward and clings to the skin. Clothes and uniforms
  feel too tight, one’s skin feels damp and sticky, and the murky air
  is clogged with sweat and unfulfilled lust.
  The General Presence Attack/Stress Intensity in this ward
  varies; there are long, low periods of 2D6 or 4D6 intensity
  (Spooky/Wrong) which slowly build to a 6D6 intensity (Threat-
  ening) and then climax in an 8D6 intensity attack (Dangerous).
  After the 8D6 intensity fades (no longer than one night) the in-
  tensity drops back to the 2D6/4D6 level. During the periods of
  Threatening and Dangerous intensity, any strangers (or PCs) on
  the ward will be attacked by the patients; staff will always seem
  to fade or vanish before any of these attacks take place.
  Thematic, Ward Two: PCs
  should never feel comfort-
  able in this ward... every-
  thing falls maddeningly
  short of providing com-
  fort or release. The food
  served to the patients on
  this ward is squishy, un-
  pleasant, and unsatisfying.
  Using the bathroom pro-
  vides no relief, an itch can-
  not 
  be 
  successfully
  scratched, sleep is unsatis-
  fying, and so on. At inter-
  vals chosen by the GM,
  characters should be
  forced to make an EGO
  Roll or lose one point of
  Psychological Resistance.
  The effect is cumulative.
  Temporary Psychological
  Limitations gained in this
  ward are usually related to
  sexual disorders and
  paraphilias. All Seduction
  Skill Rolls are performed
  at +2 while characters are
  on this ward.
  
  120
  120
  bedsprings on the beds creak as if in bad need of oil-
  ing. Laundry is done only once or twice a week on
  this ward, as the staff has given up trying to keep the
  patients clean.
  Nurse’s Station: The nurse’s station is a cubicle in the
  center of this ward with a clear plastic window that
  rises from the waist level upwards. The windows (one
  on a side, four total) are smeared with dried saliva
  and other secretions, so much so it looks as if the win-
  dows are clouded or fogged. Tape is peeling at the bro-
  ken areas of the windows, and patients usually stand
  just outside the station, masturbating or staring hun-
  grily at the nurses inside the station.
  Ward Three
  Canto Six
  Door: The pair of doors to this ward are almost too
  large to be taken in with the eyes. The doors grind
  open like the maw of some great beast, the steel edges
  hungrily tearing at the paving stones beneath them.
  Past the doors, the ward opens into a dark, narrow
  hallway that plunges down into darkness. The walls
  are reddish-pink, and an acrid smell yawns from this
  ward and forces its way through the skin.
  Description: Once characters have been swallowed
  and have passed through the long, dark hallway, they
  will find themselves in a large, roughly oval-shaped
  room that reeks of acid and bile, a mixture of acrid
  urine and stale feces. Patients thrash and moan at the
  edges of the room (as if being consumed by the walls
  and floor) and wail hungrily as if they have not been
  fed in some time.
  Patients: Patients crouch in corners and beneath the
  tables, their teeth gnashing and snarling, others lie on
  the floors, rolling and kicking... there are so many pa-
  tients, in fact, that it seems impossible to walk across
  the ward without stepping on their backs. Some pa-
  tients rub feces on each other and some take clumps
  of it in their hands and cram it into their mouths as if
  eating chocolate cake. Rather than use the bathroom,
  patients simply urinate on the floor or on each other,
  and leave it for others to walk through.
  There seems to be no prevailing mental distur-
  bance that characterizes the patients on this ward;
  there is an eclectic mix of schizophrenics, personality
  disorders, manic-depressives, impulse-control disor-
  ders and severe depression. If captured, greedy and
  gluttonous villains in the GM’s campaign will be im-
  prisoned with the patients on this ward. In addition,
  any characters who overindulged in alcohol, drugs or
  other substances (sex does not count... sexual offend-
  ers are placed in the Second Ward) will be sentenced
  to this ward by Dr. Masters.
  Characters may find many ties to the Asylum
  black market in this section; staff and patients smuggle
  drugs and food into this ward on a regular basis.
  Hallucinations: Characters falling asleep for the first
  time on the stinking mattresses of this ward will be
  lulled to sleep by a light snowfall. As they descend
  deeper into unconsciousness, the snow changes into
  huge hailstones, and where the snow falls, it blackens
  into a sodden mess that covers the floor of the ward.
  The patients thrash in their sleep as if they are being
  pelted with rocks and cry out, struggling in their re-
  straints and chewing on their blankets.
  • Characters will sometimes choke and cough in their
  dreams, as if buried in fetid slush or embedded in an
  icy paste. Characters will wake up blue and trembling,
  and their skin will feel foul and unclean.
  • Other patients howl, as if in the grips of terrifying
  dreams that tear and mangle their consciousness. As
  the characters spend more time in the ward, they will
  begin to have visions of some huge slavering beast,
  perhaps a huge dog (yet far too huge to be any dog
  the characters have ever seen), watching over them
  and tearing them apart with its dagger-like teeth. Its
  eyes are red, phlegm drips from its jaws, and it howls
  as if it had three throats, not one.
  Main Area: This ward was originally designed as a
  kitchen and traces of this construction can still be
  found throughout areas of the ward (the storeroom,
  for example, is extremely large, and many of the pa-
  tient cells in this ward resemble pantries or food
  preparation rooms). It was decided, however, that an-
  Stress, Ward Three: Hunger and excess fills this ward, and the
  heavy chill makes it seem more like a meat locker than a patient
  dormitory. Smells of piss, soiled clothing, and bile dominate. A
  vile slush covers most of the floor of the dayroom, and the entire
  ward is more like a garbage dump than anything else. Staying in
  this ward for any length of time will cause a feeling of filth to
  pour over the character.
  The intensity in this ward varies between 2D6 and 4D6
  (Spooky and Wrong). When night falls, the GM should add +2D6
  to the stress intensity; if the PCs should happen to be confined
  here during winter, the GM should add an additional 1D6 to the
  Presence Attack.
  A more serious effect will manifest itself when a charac-
  ter spends more than a few days on the ward... the character will
  begin to starve. They are fed on a regular basis, but it seems
  (feels?) like the food simply passes through the character’s sys-
  tem without being digested and spills out into the growing col-
  lection of waste that chokes the bathrooms and the dayroom
  floor. The effects of starvation are described on p.27 of the Hero
  System Almanac; for the purposes of Asylum, it is assumed that
  for every day past the third characters spend on the ward, they
  will lose 1D6 characteristic points of STUN and BODY (no de-
  fense)... the character will also lose points of STR, DEX, CON
  and EGO at the same rate as they lose BODY. This effect will be
  halted as soon as the character escapes the ward (not just leaves
  the ward, but escapes); STUN is recovered as normal, as is BODY
  (1 Recovery per month). STR, DEX, CON and EGO return at
  the same rate as the character’s BODY.
  
  121
  121
  other kitchen would require additional expenses that
  the Asylum could not afford, and this “kitchen area”
  was changed into a ward for the patients.
  There is a notable lack of furnishings in the
  dayroom, and the tables and chairs in the main area
  are of gaunt stainless steel. Their legs and cross-braces
  smell faintly of human excrement. Patients sleep in a
  large dormitory off the main area, reached by a large
  swinging door with a circular window set into its top
  half. The dormitory consists of rows of thin beds and
  foul-smelling mattresses upon which sheets and blan-
  kets swell like boils.
  The Nurse’s Station: The Nurse’s Station is a small
  room adjacent to the ward; the staff enters the nurse’s
  station through a small locked door on the entrance
  hall. A large window allows the staff to look out onto
  the ward, but the window seems covered with a gray
  film that makes it difficult to see into (reducing the
  staff within to vague shadows and blurs). Announce-
  ments from the speakers in the nurse’s station echo
  loudly throughout the dayroom and dormitory, as if
  in the bowels of a cavern.
  Ward Four
  Canto Seven
  Door: Characters may miss the door to the Fourth
  Ward; it resembles a minor storage room door, and
  there is no indication that the door leads to a ward...
  it is as if the builders wanted to save on expenses by
  not placing a sign at the entrance. The door opens
  only under protest (it’s like getting a dead man’s fist
  to unclench); beyond it is a short section of corridor
  that leads to a huge vault door marked Ward 4; the
  door must be at least a foot thick, and looks as if it
  was set into the corridor unnecessarily (there doesn’t
  seem to be a reason for two doors to this particular
  ward). Beyond the great door, characters will find
  themselves in the entrance hall, below.
  Entrance Hall: The great stone walls of the entrance
  corridor to this ward lean forward slightly, as if they
  are about to smash against each other.
  Description: This large ward is split into two
  dayrooms by a dividing wall that is made of strong
  glass from three feet upwards. At first, this glass might
  be mistaken for a mirror, for patients on both sides
  lumber toward it in sync, smack their chests against it
  simultaneously, then wander backwards, mumbling
  to themselves.
  Patients: The patients in this ward are blank, faceless,
  dimmed beyond recognition. Characters interred here
  will be lost amongst a sea of unrecognizable patients.
  Although their features tend to blur together, the num-
  ber of patients are divided exactly in half by the wall
  that separates the day rooms.
  Patients at Night: At night, the night shift seems to
  turn a blind eye to the patients, and the two groups
  rise from their dormitory beds and file into the
  dayrooms. Like a wave, the two groups stumble to-
  ward the wall and throw themselves against it, at-
  tempting to knock it down and make it fall on the
  opposing group. As they do, they all mumble under
  their breath... it sounds like they are asking a ques-
  tion, but the question can never be made out. The
  patients always fail to bring down the wall (although
  the crashing of the waves outside the Asylum makes
  the attempt seem possible... a thunderous crash seems
  to strike the cliff outside right when the patients strike
  the dividing wall), but they always return and try again
  the following night in a never-ending cycle.
  Nurse’s Station: The nurse’s station is like a hub in
  the darkened chaos. It is cylindrical shaped, and the
  staff spend most of their time staring at a small black
  and white television in the center of the station and
  turning the TV dial from program to program. As the
  dial on the TV changes, the dynamics in the ward seem
  to shift, patients tiring and falling asleep, others being
  roused suddenly, and others whipped into frenzied
  motions.
  Ward Five
  Reaching the Fifth Ward is a nightmare. The cor-
  ridors surrounding this ward twist like a maze through
  the Asylum, and characters will find that they will get
  lost, be forced to retrace their steps, become lost again,
  and end up winding through broken sections of the
  Asylum and abandoned corridors until they come to
  the area that looks like it is still under construction.
  There, set calmly into one of the walls, is the door to
  the Fifth Ward.
  Entrance Hall: No sooner will characters enter this
  ward before their feet will come splashing down on
  the thin layer of water that coats this floor. Upon ex-
  amination, characters will find that the water is slug-
  gish, black and foul... it is mushrooming out from be-
  neath the bathroom door adjacent to the hallway. The
  water stretches down the hallway and into the
  dayroom.
  Description: This ward is like a marsh; it is dreary,
  and the air is humid, vaporous and malignant. “Pol-
  luted” is the only word that begins to describe this
  ward, but it still falls short of describing the horrible
  smell. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling scatter in
  the faint mist that covers this ward, and gurgling wa-
  ter (echoed by the gurgling and bubbling speech of
  the patients) runs from the bathrooms and shattered
  pipes to spread itself across the floor of the ward.
  Patients: Many patients run naked and wild in this
  ward. The majority seem angry, and they lash out at
  each other, not only with their hands, but with their
  Stress, Ward Four: There is
  strong, underlying tension
  in this ward, like an under-
  tow. During the day, the
  stress intensity in the
  Fourth Ward fluctuates
  between 2D6 and 4D6
  (Spooky/Wrong) and will
  rise to 6D6 (Threatening)
  when the nighttime ritual
  begins (see below). Claus-
  trophobic characters will
  be extremely uncomfort-
  able on this ward, and
  characters will find that
  the longer they remain on
  this ward, the more their
  behavior seems to fluctu-
  ate between cautious
  hoarding (i.e., they will be
  unwilling to waste any
  charges from their gadgets,
  will always try and con-
  serve their END, and so
  on) and wasteful violence
  (i.e., Pushing attacks
  against targets who are in
  no need of the extra
  “oomph” to take them
  down, blowing a whole
  clip of charges just to make
  a Presence Attack, and so
  on). It is the GM’s discre-
  tion on how often this
  fluctuation this occurs, but
  the character will alternate
  between the two dayrooms
  depending on which
  mood currently affects
  them.
  
  122
  122
  heads, chests, feet, and even tear at each other with
  their teeth. Sweat glistens on their bodies like slime.
  Other patients are submerged in their blankets
  or lie face down in the brackish water that covers this
  ward, gurgling and repeating words to themselves,
  forming bubbles in the water with their speech. No
  matter whether they are submerged or running wildly
  through the dayroom and dormitories, all the patients
  on this ward speak in a strange warble, as if their
  throats are filled with phlegm.
  Hallucinations: Characters who go to sleep in this
  ward will find themselves slipping down into uncon-
  sciousness... soon followed by the feeling that their
  beds and bodies are slipping down into the mire of
  the ward. First the bed’s metal posts sink into the
  muck, then the lower bed frame, then the top until
  the black slime has covered the character’s bodies and
  has begun to seep into their mouths. The last things
  characters will see before drowning is an encroaching
  blackness and a trail of air bubbles that float upwards
  to the ceiling of the ward.
  Bathroom: An examination of the bathroom will show
  a large crack running through the tiled floor from
  which the water in the entrance hallway flows. Rather
  than settling back into the crack, however, the water
  seeps out the door and down into the main portion
  of the ward, carrying its stench with it. Characters ex-
  amining the crack will see air bubbles popping up
  along the crack, as if people are trapped beneath the
  water and their air bubbles are floating to the surface.
  Canto Eight: The Great Tower
  Characters who seek admittance to the West-
  ern Division (and the Sixth Ward and beyond) must
  pass through the Fifth Ward and proceed to the base
  of the main tower in the Eastern Division (see the de-
  scription of the Eastern Division in the Asylum
  Grounds). At the base of the tower lies the exit from
  the Fifth Ward/entrance to the Sixth Ward.
  The Entrance and Exit: Two doors, an outer door and
  an inner door, each one with an ugly green viewing
  window one foot square, mark the exit from the Fifth
  Ward. When a character seeks to enter or leave the
  Fifth Ward, they must press a button on a black panel
  by the outer door, and two red lights flare from a con-
  sole near the handle of the inner door. The two red
  lights, obviously diodes, are strangely distorted by the
  viewing window and almost appear as tiny flames, as
  if from candles. After a moment, a staff member will
  open the inner door, close it behind them (after which
  the red lights by the inner door wink out) and the
  staff member then looks cautiously through the outer
  door’s viewing window to see who seeks admittance
  or exit. Once the staff member confirms the visitor,
  the outer door is opened and the visitor brought into
  the chamber between the outer and inner door. The
  outer door is then sealed, and the inner door is re-
  opened to allow visitors into the tower area. Once at
  the base of the tower area, characters can pass into
  the joined corridor between the Eastern and Western
  Division.
  The Poet seemed to know every
  bend and turn within the Divi-
  sion. He used them strategically
  to step along past the emptiness
  of staff and patients who only
  appeared to have bodies in the
  strange half-shadows of the Asy-
  lum.
  As they traveled, Sally no-
  ticing that the Poet seemed to be
  skirting the edge of the Eastern
  Division, never coming close to
  an exit, yet never seeming to
  travel deeper into the building.
  He seemed to be keeping his bear-
  ings by sticking close to the ex-
  terior walls. On occasion, the two
  even backtracked, though Sally was
  certain that the Poet had not lost
  his way... there was some method
  to his route that she could not
  determine.
  At last, the two figures came
  to the edge of a great corridor
  that seemed to span the Eastern
  and Western Division.
  “J?” Sally’s whispers echoed
  alarmingly against the stone. De-
  spite her trust in her guide, she
  knew she did not wish to approach
  the Western Division. “Where are
  we going?”
  The Poet swallowed, as if un-
  comfortable. He started to motion
  Stress, Ward Five: There is
  a great, burning violence
  in this ward that gives a
  +2D6 to all Presence At-
  tacks against the PCs as
  long as they are on the
  ward. Furthermore, this
  ward exerts a near-con-
  tinuous 6D6 to 8D6 stress
  intensity (Threatening to
  Dangerous) while charac-
  ters are here. The stress
  does not seem to come
  from the ward itself as
  much as the rabid patients
  trapped inside its confines.
  Thematic, Ward Five: Violent and sullen patients are interred in
  this ward. Characters with the Berserk and Enraged Disadvan-
  tages will find that these Disadvantages are exacerbated as long
  as the character is in the ward (this also applies to Psychological
  Limitations such as “Bad-Tempered,” “Violent,” “Destructive,” and
  so on). Every day a character is on this ward, they will lose one
  characteristic point from INT or EGO (all relevant Skills are af-
  fected) and gain one point to all wrath-based Disadvantages or
  sullen/morose-based Disadvantages (not both... depending on the
  inclination of the character, only one type of Disadvantage is ex-
  acerbated per stay on this ward; it can change from visit to visit,
  but not while the character is confined). The points to INT and
  EGO will be recovered at a rate of one per day (with the Disad-
  vantage points fading at the same rate) once the character es-
  capes the ward.
  Characters will also have considerable difficulty concen-
  trating on this ward. Any skill that takes longer than a turn (in-
  cluding skill-based powers) will be performed at -1 on the chart
  for every level past one Turn the Skill requires (see Hero Rulebook,
  p. 18). Characters will receive no bonuses for taking extra time
  with skills, but they will suffer penalties to any skill that requires
  more than a turn for its “base time” (see Base Times for Skills,
  AC#23, p. 36).
  
  123
  123
  for her to follow him down the
  corridor, then remembering him-
  self, he spoke.
  “The...” Sally watched the
  Poet’s jaw tremble. “Th-the Luh-
  Lower Wards lie ahead. In... in
  the Wes-tern Duh-vision,” the Poet
  stammered. “Wuh-Within are the Uh-
  Asylum’s most disturbed patients.”
  He seemed to gather himself for a
  moment.
  “You-you will be able to es-
  cape th-there.”
  Sally gazed down the corri-
  dor, past the bricked over win-
  dows, and the distant flickering
  of what seemed to be fires blaz-
  ing in the black holes of the West-
  ern Division.
  • • •
  “What are those fires?” Sally
  asked. She glanced through the
  windows of the corridor to see
  the flickering lights that danced
  in the windows of the Western Di-
  vision, like tiny red mosques just
  inside the barred windows. “It’s
  like a...”
  “Forge,” the Poet said, then
  started, as if surprised at him-
  self. Sally looked at him. He had
  turned pale, as if making the meta-
  phor had weakened him. “They...”
  His voice was dry, but he no longer
  trembled as he spoke. “...the fires
  are tied to the... pipes and ven-
  tilation that lead to the Asylum
  fuh-furnaces. It can get hot in
  there, the walls...” The Poet swal-
  lowed. “The walls sometimes sm-
  smolder in the heat.”
  The door to the Western Divi-
  sion was of heavy iron and tow-
  ered over the two of them. While
  the Third Ward had had a door that
  seemed to too large to be taken
  in by the naked eye, the door to
  this ward radiated a hostility that
  clawed at Sally and froze her skin.
  Despite the fires that blazed
  beyond the door, the corridor was
  cold and seemed to dwarf them with
  its heavy, threatening weight.
  Entrance to the Western Division
  The two approached the door,
  with Sally standing slightly be-
  yond the Poet as they traversed
  the corridor. Sally watched as the
  Poet gently reached out to push
  back the door.
  “H-Here is the entrance,” the
  Poet said his voice dropping as
  the door slid back beneath his
  touch. “Quiet now. We must be
  qu...”
  As the door slid back into
  darkness, shadows erupted around
  them.
  • • •
  The shades peeled themselves
  from the walls, slithered from the
  blackness, and descended from the
  ceiling like four-limbed spiders.
  Before Sally could even draw a
  breath, a thousand shades thun-
  dered around them.
  • • •
  It seemed as if the two of
  them were ringed by walls of flesh
  and the putrid green of patient
  uniforms... but where Sally had
  seen only the blank gazes and slack
  faces on the patients in the East-
  ern Division, here she saw alert-
  ness and fury.
  Beneath her uniform, the Purge
  armor blazed, as if sensing the
  threat. The fiery sensation
  against her side only served to
  paralyze Sally all the more.
  “Who are you?!!” the shades
  cried in unison, and at the com-
  bined fury of their voices, the
  Poet became pale and shrunk back.
  Sally flinched as a bearded face
  with white trailing at the cor-
  ners of his lips thrust itself
  toward her. “Who is it that in-
  vades the Asylum while alive?!!
  Dead, dead, all dead here!” The
  bearded man howled, his eyes dart-
  ing across her features. “You...”
  the man’s eyes shifted to the frail
  form of the Poet, and a hungry
  sneer split his face. “You may
  come. Come... but alone.” The
  bearded man did not look at Sally
  as he spoke. “Tell that other with
  you that it may crawl back along
  the fool’s way it traveled.” The
  man’s hand lashed out on the Poet’s
  arm, then tightened like a vise.
  “You who are dead can come
  here only to stay.”
  
  124
  124
  • • •
  The black words fell upon Sally
  and it seemed that each struck
  her heart, and only when she saw
  the Poet look as if he was about
  to give in, she found her voice
  again.
  “You let�him go!” she found a
  sudden fury overwhelming her, and
  she felt the Purge armor pulsing
  by her side. The Poet’s face
  snapped toward hers, as if sud-
  denly remembering her presence.
  “If it’s not allowed to go any
  farther, then he’s coming back with
  me! We’re traveling together, him
  and I...  let him go... or...”
  Sally frowned, hoping that her
  silence would serve as some form
  of threat. The patients clustered
  around them, and she was certain
  if they decided to strike or con-
  test her move, there would be noth-
  ing she could do.
  The Poet was looking back and
  forth between the bearded man and
  Sally, upset, then seemed to calm
  himself, as if remembering some-
  thing. Mustering himself, his
  voice seemed to deepen, not with
  anger, but with conviction.
  “It is permitted that we pass
  here.” He turned and steadied him-
  self against the raging patients.
  “It is not your pl—”
  “The bitch queen has no POWER
  here, fallen one!” the bearded man
  hissed, his words boiling in his
  vehemence. “You cannot speak with
  her voice to any effect here!”
  His face pressed against the
  Poet’s, who tried to step back,
  momentarily taken by surprise.
  “And as for your�voice, fallen
  one...” The bearded man’s anger
  turned again to a knowing sneer.
  “We know that your voice left you
  many years ago.”
  “Wait here, Sally,” the Poet
  said, without taking his eyes from
  the bearded man. “I will see what
  contests our passing. Don’t worry,
  I will not leave you here.” He
  touched her arm briefly. “I will
  return soon.”
  She watched as the Poet was
  swallowed in the shadows around
  him, proceeding toward the door
  to the Sixth Ward.
  • • •
  When at last the Poet returned
  from beyond the sixth door, there
  was pain in his pace and Sally
  felt the same cold washing over
  her that she had felt in the cor-
  ridor before. Her face paled as J
  closed with her, his light tread
  echoing in the stone corridors.
  The door to the Sixth Ward
  that they had opened was slammed,
  sealed, and the howling and jos-
  tling shadows had receded from the
  Poet as if to torture him with
  his own thoughts. His eyes were
  upon the ground, and his brow
  sagged beneath the weight.
  “They... they are... right, this
  time. I have been forbidden to
  enter these wards.... but... time
  is so short, why...” But he turned
  his head upward, steeling himself
  as he watched Sally’s features.
  “We must find a way to go on. If
  you remain here, then—”
  The Poet stopped, not wanting
  to go on. Sally read his meaning.
  Her eyes flickered to the great
  door that had closed fast behind
  the Poet. “Isn’t there any other
  way?”
  The Poet shook his head. “This
  was the only way I knew... and
  with this entrance closed to us,
  I —” He seemed to diminish as he
  spoke. “I do not know these wards
  as well as I should.”
  “Haven’t you ever come down
  here before?” Sally asked, scan-
  ning the corridor. There was no
  sign of the shadows that had
  plagued them before, but there was
  still something threatening about
  the corridor and what lay beyond
  the door.
  “Once, I crossed here,” the
  Poet replied. His brow seem to
  become heavier, and they cloaked
  his eyes in shadows. He seemed to
  be recalling a painful memory.
  “Though I was not trying to
  leave... I was tricked here, but
  I was able to escape... with help.
  I returned back to the First
  Ward... where I belong. So there
  lies some small reassurance,” The
  Poet smiled, and laid a light hand
  on her forearm. “Even if escape
  is denied to us through here, we
  still have a means to retreat.
  
  125
  125
  One can enter even these darkened
  wards, perhaps to the final one
  itself, and still return.”
  But his eyes flickered
  slightly as he said it, and his
  frame slumped more, as if the
  weight he carried had doubled.
  • • •
  They were sitting in silence
  when the shadows returned.
  Sally at first felt nothing,
  but the Poet’s features suddenly
  cleared and became sharper. His
  fragile hands, which had been
  folded at his chest, disengaged
  and fell lightly to his sides, in
  what Sally, strangely enough, felt
  was some sort of threatening ges-
  ture.
  “J, what...?”
  Then she heard the whispers
  of flesh against the coarse fab-
  ric of the patient uniforms as
  the shadows gathered at the far
  end of the corridor. They thick-
  ened about the door of the Sixth
  Ward, and Sally, now conscious of
  their presence, also became aware
  of the fury building at the door...
  the shapes were planning to swarm
  them. At the side of her chest,
  the Purge armor began to burn,
  coaxing, whispering at her to slip
  it on, just for a short time. The
  sensation was so strong Sally
  flushed and felt herself become
  dizzy.
  “They’ve heard,” the Poet
  said. His voice was strangely calm
  and relaxed. “They must believe
  you’re responsible for the
  deaths.” With one step, he inter-
  posed himself between the massing
  shapes and Sally, blocking her
  view. “Don’t look at them. When I
  tell you to, you must run as fast
  as you can back to the Eastern
  Division, and if possible, reach
  one of the administrators... un-
  der no circumstances stop for a
  patient and—”
  The Poet halted, and suddenly,
  Sally felt it too... it was a feel-
  ing, sharp, like an emotional
  charge... anger, rage... wrath,
  rising like a tide within the cor-
  ridor. It was not coming from the
  shapes, but from throughout the
  corridor from every direction at
  once. The charge ran as hot and
  fierce as the patient’s anger, if
  not more so... it seemed to bleed
  from the walls and stream into
  the corridor like a rising swell.
  Against Sally’s side, the Purge
  armor seemed to stir, as if being
  prodded to new life by the rage
  seeping from the environment.
  There was an ebb, then the
  fury exploded within the corri-
  dor.
  Ward Six
  Cantos Nine and Ten
  The fury broke upon the walls
  of the Western Division like the
  crashing of a great wave. It was
  a terrible, silent sound that sent
  a tremor through the corridor,
  through its very foundation, and
  drove the shadows back. It felt
  as if a continent of silent, un-
  seen water was plunging into the
  corridor.
  Following this came the ter-
  rible feeling, like an incoming
  tide, that rippled down the cor-
  ridor toward the Sixth Ward door,
  indifferent to all except its in-
  exorable path. In its wake, the
  patients were suddenly gone, swept
  away, their howling cries lost
  amidst the terrible silence that
  enfolded in the corridor. As
  quickly as it had struck, the ter-
  rible sensation receded from the
  door, so fluid, that Sally ex-
  pected to see white foam trail in
  its wake.
  The corridor was empty except
  for Sally and the Poet.
  “Where did they run?” Sally
  whispered, but the Poet seemed too
  stunned to speak. “You felt it,
  didn’t you? That great tide... like
  a wave of thought, like an im-
  pulse...”
  The Poet touched his finger
  to his lips and shook his head
  with fear. “No, Sally, no, do not
  speak of it.” His face was pale
  and frightened. “Come... we have
  little time left.”
  He took her hand and the pair
  made their way toward the unguarded
  door to the Sixth Ward.
  
  126
  126
  Door: The door to the Sixth Ward lies past the en-
  trance to the Western Division described above. The
  door to this ward is heavier than the doors to the first
  few wards the characters may have seen, and the win-
  dow of the door is thickly netted with wire. Beyond
  the window, there is a narrow stretch of hallway that
  terminates at another locked door exactly like the first.
  There is what looks like a doorbell on the side of the
  outer door. Orderlies (escorts) sentencing new char-
  acters to this ward will press the doorbell with their
  finger, and wait. After a while, a staff member inside
  the ward will open the locked door at the end of the
  hall, enter the hall, then close and lock the inner door
  behind him. After making sure it is secure, the staff
  member will proceed to the outer door, look warily
  in the window to check on the delivery, then unlock
  it. Once the patient is inside the hall, the outer door
  will be sealed and locked, and the inner door will be
  reopened and the character escorted into the ward.
  [1]
  Description: The Sixth Ward is situated right above
  the glowing furnace that spills heat throughout the
  depths of the Asylum and upwards; many heating
  pipes and ventilation ducts have broken and split along
  their seams in this area, and a blistering heat fills the
  ward. The cells stretch down the corridor like a giant
  prison, red lights above some cells, nothing above oth-
  ers... there are so many cells, it seems as if a thousand
  patients are imprisoned here.
  The doors to the patient rooms are almost al-
  ways flung open, but for some reason, many of the
  patients refuse to step outside. Some of the doors to
  the cells are like arches, the sides of the door arcing
  upwards to a point, with a barred window. At some
  point in the past, it appears that an artist worked on
  many of the cells on this ward, for the cell walls are
  painted in burning red and orange colors that twirl
  into pictures of flaming blossoms and ancient
  mosques. [2]
  Patients: All the patients on this ward sweat profusely,
  and the ward is unbearably hot, as if a thousand cast-
  iron radiators were breathing heat into the ward. One
  patient hops like a frog throughout the ward to avoid
  placing his feet on the floor too long, other patients
  hiss and spit like broken steam pipes, and one patient
  tip toes around the ward, as if every paving stone and
  tile is a red-hot coal. (Tears well from his eyes, then
  seem to steam away into vapor as the characters
  watch.)
  Hallucinations: The Hallucinations in this ward are
  more dangerous than any hallucinations the charac-
  ters may have experienced previously within the Asy-
  lum grounds.. .while prior hallucinations may have
  caused a character discomfort and stress, hallucina-
  tions in the Sixth Ward take on physical malevolence.
  Characters will take STUN damage from injuries or
  burns they receive while hallucinating and may be-
  come brain-dead if they “die” during the course of
  the hallucinations. Moreover, characters should be-
  come aware that the hallucinogenic state/dream state
  of many of the patients on this ward seems to define
  how the Sixth Ward operates; in essence, the halluci-
  nations are shaping the ward itself. This should cause
  characters some concern.
  Characters beset by Temporary or Long Term
  Psychological Limitations or who fall asleep or un-
  conscious on this ward will have visions of great flames
  erupting from the stones and the foundation, melt-
  ing the walls like tallow candles and setting fire to those
  within the cells. Other dreams and hallucinations in-
  clude:
  • Characters will dream that rings of fire surround
  the cells, trapping those inside and broiling them.
  Characters who awake from this dream will notice that
  many cries and sobs issue from the cells where the
  patients are sleeping, as if they can feel the heat pour-
  ing from the walls. If characters are trapped in the
  cells, they will awake with second and third degree
  burns on their skin from where they were touched by
  the flames.
  • Characters in a dream or hallucinogenic state will
  get the feeling that the entombed patients in this ward
  are not only crying out their pain, but their crying
  seems to be done in a chant or litany that cannot be
  made out. Characters may awake with their voice
  hoarse and a word poised on the edge of their lips, as
  if they too were chanting while they slept.
  Main Area: Unlike previous wards, the Sixth Ward is
  set up much like a hotel... small tomb-like cells flank
  the walls, and a long sweltering corridor runs down
  the center of the ward to a lobby in which the patients
  mingle. The highly reflective floors (mopped and
  waxed to such an extent they seem to be sweating)
  and brightly painted walls (red and orange colors
  dominate) serve as kindling for the bright lights that
  burn down from the ceiling fixtures, so much so that
  the harsh glare of the bulbs blossom into an inferno,
  forcing characters to squint and shield their eyes as
  they move through the ward. Every patient has their
  own cell and sleeping quarters, and the steel bars and
  locked metal grills on the windows appear to be much
  1: This “open-close-open-close-open” pattern is true for the en-
  trances of many of the wards in the Western Division. Most pa-
  tients are usually admitted to this ward shackled, chained and
  cuffed, then are deposited at the entrance to give them a moment
  to look across the ward that they have been sentenced to.
  2: Ashtray Art (Underworld Enemies, p. 52) did the paintings on
  this wing. The paint is flammable, and should the temperature
  rise too high, or should someone strike a match to its surface, the
  cell walls will burst into flame and blanket the entire ward. As the
  flame travels across the walls, it will become apparent to viewers
  that Art used paint only in certain areas, for the flame trails move
  in a definite path, tracing the perimeter of the blossoms and
  mosques first, making them glow red-hot, and then consuming
  the rest of the wall. Despite its potentially lethal consequences, the
  effect is quite breathtaking.
  Stress, Ward Six: The stress
  level on this ward varies
  between a 4D6 and a 6D6
  General Presence Attack
  (Wrong/Threatening).
  Thematic, Ward Six: GMs
  should blur the lines be-
  tween hallucination and
  reality in the Sixth Ward;
  the characters should
  never be certain if what
  they are experiencing or
  who they are talking to is
  real or not. This effect will
  become more pronounced
  as the characters move
  deeper into the Asylum
  wards, and it is important
  to foreshadow its effects as
  far in advance as possible.
  
  127
  127
  stronger than elsewhere in the Asylum (the steel bars
  are DEF 7, BODY 6, and the metal screens are rein-
  forced so that are DEF 6, BODY 6).
  Speakers embedded in the ceiling broadcast a
  low, crackling static, with intermittent bursts of reli-
  gious hymns and chants that sound as if they are com-
  ing from a phonograph.
  Nurse’s Station: The nurse’s station is set into the wall
  of the dayroom and has a window that looks out into
  the ward (a locked door in the entrance hall allows a
  character to enter the station). A humid red light
  shines around the window like a halo, and the win-
  dow itself seems somehow melted or steamed up. In-
  side the station, a nurse shifts uncomfortably on her
  chair, and most of the staff in this ward leave many of
  the buttons on their uniforms undone.
  Canto Eleven
  PCs have two routes of egress from the Sixth
  Ward... they may leave the way they came in, or they
  may use a hidden passage in the back of the ward to
  enter the Seventh Ward. Characters can either be
  shown this passage by a patient (the staff are not aware
  of it) or the characters may stumble across it on their
  own if they are trapped in the Sixth Ward. The secret
  passage is a disused administration corridor that runs
  behind the Sixth Ward. The patients have decorated
  its expanse with what appear to be small offerings...
  pyramids of tiny stones and pieces of tile, smeared
  purple and yellow paint scratched into the walls so
  that they appear as tiny hieroglyphics, and tiny corpses
  of rats, insect husks and even what appear to be hu-
  man bones jut forth from beneath mounds of dirt and
  rubble in this section. This corridor is silent, and char-
  acters who speak will instantly feel like they have vio-
  lated some sort of sanctuary or temple. Despite the
  multitude of offerings in the passage, the middle of
  the corridor remains clear and unobstructed, enough
  for one person to walk through without their feet
  touching the devotions that line the corridor. Even-
  tually, characters will come to the crumbling end of
  the corridor:
  Passing through the silence
  of the administration corridor,
  Sally and the Poet came to the
  edge of the Sixth Ward, where the
  footing became crumbling and un-
  certain. At first, it looked like
  renovations were taking place
  here; cables, dangling wires, and
  piles of broken bricks and stone
  littered their path. But studying
  the wreckage, it seemed to Sally
  more like some great battering ram
  had smashed through the floors and
  walls, or a localized earthquake
  had hit the passage, and left noth-
  ing but dust and jumbled rock in
  its path. The entire area looked
  like some great, green sink sur-
  rounded by a jumble of rock and
  broken stones.
  Then the stench hit her.
  She wrinkled her nose and re-
  coiled from the rim, her eyes wa-
  tering... it was as if a drainage
  pipe has burst in the depths of
  the Asylum, and was spouting the
  foul, acrid stench that rose from
  the Seventh Ward.
  “What is that smell?” Sally
  choked between her words, cover-
  ing her mouth and nose and winc-
  ing with every inhalation. The Poet
  looked little better and was press-
  ing his uniform to his mouth and
  nose to filter out the stench.
  “We’ll have to stay here for
  a moment,”  he apologized, “to
  get use to the smell before we
  can proceed. The ward beyond...
  it is much larger than the oth-
  ers. It is broken into three wings,
  each crammed with patients.”
  The “M” onument: Although characters may not no-
  tice it at first (the stench and the rubble before them
  may draw their attention), a monument to Reverend
  M (see Shadows of the City) rests at the edge of this
  rocky precipice; it is his portrait, ten feet high, painted
  on the wall with strange shades of purple and yellow.
  His arms are outstretched as if he has just caused the
  landslide that the PCs see before them, and the ice
  blue eyes of the painting follow the characters as they
  move around the rubble. As the characters will have
  to wait to accustom themselves to the stench before
  moving on (see below), they will have plenty of time
  to discover the monument as they wait by the top of
  the rubble.
  Hallucinations: Any character experiencing halluci-
  nations or under the control of a Temporary or Long
  Term Psychological Limitation who stare at the
  “M”onument will see Reverend M’s eyes blink, and
  then he will step from the wall, robes flowing around
  him. In the dim light of the corridor, his skin is ex-
  tremely dark, and his silvery beard seems to catch the
  light and give his face a pale glow. Reverend M will
  wait for the characters to bow before him, and if they
  show him the proper respect, he will speak of things
  transpiring in the Asylum, chanting and flourishing,
  as if on a pulpit. The GM can decide whether “M”
  knows anything of relevance to the characters; this
  hallucination should be used as a role-playing oppor-
  tunity.
  If the characters attack Reverend M once he
  steps from the wall (or ignore him), his eyes will burn
  and he will point defiantly into the sink of the Sev-
  
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  128
  enth Ward, as if commanding the characters to fall
  into its depths.
  Ward Seven
  It is possible to enter the Seventh Ward through
  the conventional entrance, much like with Ward Six
  and its inner and outer doors, above. If characters en-
  ter through the conventional entrance, however, they
  will immediately be set upon by one of the groups of
  orderlies that patrol the Seventh Ward (see the Patrol,
  below). Characters using the rubble-laden stair that
  bridges the Sixth and Seventh Ward, should refer to
  Canto Twelve, below:
  Canto Twelve
  Sally and the Poet gazed down
  the crumbling embankment into the
  Western Division’s Seventh Ward.
  The floor ahead of them was deso-
  late and empty... a ruin that
  seemed more the result of a poor
  foundation that any person’s at-
  tempt at destruction or revenge.
  The rock face was so badly shat-
  tered that it made a series of
  staggered stairs that led down the
  face of the wall.
  It looked as if someone might
  be able to make their way down,
  but not back up.
  Stage Directions: Characters need to make a Climb-
  ing roll to descend the rubble-laden stair. The roll is
  made at -2 when heading down the rubble, -6 when
  attempting to climb back up. Even if a character suc-
  cessfully makes the roll, it requires three times the nor-
  mal amount of time to navigate the rocks.
  This is a problem, because there are always pa-
  tients on guard in this area, and if possible, they will
  wait until the characters are ascending or descending
  the stair, then push rocks down on characters (this
  attack will occur by surprise unless characters pos-
  sess Danger Sense). As a general rule, the number of
  patients on guard depend on the characters them-
  selves... the group will usually consist of one more
  patient than the characters can comfortably handle.
  Characters on the stair will be at 1/2 DCV and any
  character fighting on the rock face must make a DEX
  Roll every Phase or tumble downwards, doing 2D6
  Physical Damage for every hex they fall (GM’s discre-
  tion as to how far the characters fall; it could be any-
  where from one to six hexes). Characters affected by
  Knockback or Knockdown automatically tumble
  down the rocky slope.
  This area is unsteady and may collapse upon
  characters who use firearms or grenades in this area,
  or even trade punches of sufficient force. Whether or
  not the walls or floor in this section collapse is up to
  the GM.
  The First Wing [7A]
  The first step was somewhat
  more than Sally expected. As her
  foot touched the crumbling rock,
  her legs fell out from beneath
  her.
  Shale and slate slid down the
  sides of the slope and ran from
  Sally’s hands as she tried to stop
  her descent. She felt a sharp pain
  in her palms, and saw a sheen of
  blood stain the stones that rolled
  beneath her. When she tumbled at
  last onto a level place, she looked
  upwards to try and see the top,
  but it proved impossible... so many
  rocks had been dislodged and col-
  lapsed beneath her touch, Sally
  wondered if they had ever born
  the weight of a living person.
  As she raised herself to her
  knees to try and spot her guide,
  the Poet, coughing on the dust
  she had left in her wake, col-
  lapsed beside her, a few pieces
  of stone and tile clattering around
  him. Covered with dust, he looked
  like some form of broken statue...
  his face and hair had been grayed
  further by the stone dust and plas-
  ter.
  There were no sounds from
  above, no more of the bellowing
  or screaming from the Sixth Ward,
  so the two of them paused for a
  moment to catch their breath.
  “When I... when I first came
  through here,” the Poet puffed,
  resting his chest over his knees
  and taking deep breaths, “...this
  area was whole, undamaged. The
  damage was done... when a pa-
  tient...” The Poet paused, cough-
  ing on the dust raised by their
  descent. “...when a few patients
  attempted to escape from the Asy-
  lum many years ago. There was a
  tremendous battle in these corri-
  dors, that stretched all the way
  to the Eighth Ward.” His voice
  had a slight drone, as if he was
  trying to steady himself from his
  fall by speaking. “It was here,
  as elsewhere, that the rocks were
  broken and shattered.”
  “Did the patients escape?”
  Sally checked her arms and legs
  as she spoke... except for some
  minor cuts, she seemed to be fine.
  Stress, Ward 7A:  Menace
  and barely-restrained
  bloodlust surrounds the
  characters, and the stress
  level on this ward fluctu-
  ates between a 6D6 Gen-
  eral Presence Attack
  (Threatening) and an 8D6
  Attack (Dangerous). Char-
  acters have a good chance
  of being assaulted during
  their visit, either by the
  ghostly orderlies or by one
  of the patients.
  Thematic, Ward 7A:  Char-
  acters with the Berserk,
  Enraged or any rage-based
  Psychological Limitations
  will find these psychoso-
  matic Disadvantages exac-
  erbated on this ward. Ev-
  ery day characters are on
  this ward they will lose one
  characteristic point of INT
  or EGO and gain one point
  to one of their rage-based
  Psychological Limitations.
  Once the character escapes
  this ward, they recover at a
  rate of one point per day.
  Characters will
  also have considerable dif-
  ficulty concentrating on
  this ward as per Ward 5,
  above (i.e., tasks that take
  more than a Turn to per-
  form are done at penal-
  ties).
  If any mentalist at-
  tempts to contact or attack
  any of the patients on this
  ward with psionic powers
  (Mental Illusions, Mind
  Control, Telepathy, and so
  on), the mentalist will au-
  tomatically go Berserk.
  The chance to recover is an
  8 or less while on the ward
  and 14 or less once the
  character is off the ward.
  
  129
  129
  “Did they manage to escape the
  Asylum?”
  The Poet shook his head, and
  his voice dropped slightly. “No,
  not all of them.”
  • • •
  “Turn your eyes there.” The
  Poet nodded to the winding corri-
  dor that wove ahead of them through
  the wing. The floor looked as if
  it had been freshly mopped, and
  it shone like the surface of a
  river. Where the flickering red
  lights above the doors shone down,
  it cast the floor red.
  “That way leads into and past
  the first wing of the Seventh Ward.
  That winding hall should carry us
  through all three wings, and then
  on into the Eighth Ward...” He
  raised himself unsteadily to his
  feet. “That is where me must go.”
  Door: The conventional entrance to the Seventh Ward
  is much the same as the entrance for the Sixth Ward,
  above.
  Description: The Seventh Ward is broken into three
  wings (7A-7C). The sheer number of violent patients
  that exist in Fell’s Point is enough to justify the pres-
  ence of these three wings. A winding corridor leads
  from the entrance through the ward and passes
  through all three wings in turn. Characters who en-
  tered the Seventh Ward through the crumbling stair,
  above, will find themselves deposited near the entrance
  door of the ward, but hidden in shadow so that the
  patrols, below, will not spot the characters until they
  step out onto the corridor. The smell the characters
  may have caught at the top of the stairs persists on
  this level.
  The Patrol: Groups of three grim orderlies patrol the
  Seventh Ward at regular intervals and are quick to
  force patients back to their cells or into seclusion if
  they stray from their dormitories or into the dayroom.
  Characters entering this ward are likely to encounter
  the orderlies soon after their arrival; the shadows in
  white will form a clot around visitors, refusing to let
  them pass (if the characters are being escorted by Dr.
  Masters or Dr. Shreiver, the orderlies will let them
  pass).
  The Patients: There is a tension in the air, and all the
  patients in this ward have an alertness about them that
  is not present in other wards. They blend into the walls,
  moving slowly, but their movements are predatory and
  hungry. Several are strapped in their seats, their faces
  red from the effort of trying to free themselves from
  the leather straps that encircle their wrists, ankles and
  waists. Most sit in straight-backed metal chairs, a few
  lumber around, and some sit menacingly in the cor-
  ner, watching everyone else with an angry glare.
  When the sun sets on this ward, the horizon’s
  red light drapes across the patients, making them look
  as if they are bathed in blood.
  Hallucinations: Hallucinating characters will believe
  the central corridor that winds through this wing is a
  scalding purple river in which the shrieking wraiths
  (patients) are boiled. The orderlies seem to blur until
  the soft tread of their rubber-soled shoes echo like
  the galloping of horses, and their features become
  bearded and heavy, their arms swell, and they seem
  more bestial than human. The setting of the sun on
  the ward comes with a torrent of boiling blood that
  gushes through the corridors, drowning each patient
  in turn.
  As with the Sixth Ward, characters may take
  STUN damage (no defense) from hallucinations and
  dreams on this ward.
  The Main Corridor: As mentioned in the Description,
  a winding corridor leads through the first wing, then
  through the second and third wings, then to the el-
  evator to the Eighth Ward (see Cantos 16 and 17). The
  corridor’s width varies throughout its course, seem-
  ing to widen as it nears wards containing patients who
  are especially ill, only to narrow sharply as the Sev-
  enth Ward approaches the Eighth. It is heavily waxed,
  slippery, and characters can see their reflections on
  the floor. The corridor is quite narrow at the entrance
  to the ward but will swell outwards as the characters
  approach the first wing. Characters touching the floor
  will notice that it seems quite warm... it is possible
  that the heating difficulties that were present in the
  Sixth Ward are present in this ward as well.
  Main Area: The first wing of the Seventh Ward is simi-
  lar to the layout of the Sixth Ward (i.e., a corridor
  flanked by small cells) and many of the patients are
  confined in their cells, tearing at the doors and frames
  as if being immersed in the small rooms is unbear-
  able. The patrol of orderlies walks the corridor, forc-
  ing the arms and heads of patients back inside their
  cells (for some reason, many doors have their win-
  dows missing, or have wire mesh with gaps large
  enough to allow the patients to stick their fingers,
  hands and arms out into the corridor... the effect is
  quite disturbing, as if the patients are drowning in
  the walls of the Seventh Ward). The cells in the Sev-
  enth Ward are extremely clean and hot, almost boil-
  ing in some sections.
  Canto Thirteen:
  The Second Wing [7B]
  Entrance: Characters who follow the winding corri-
  dor from Wing A will come to Wing B in short order
  Stress, Ward 7B: The stress
  level on this ward may
  fluctuate anywhere from a
  4D6 General Presence At-
  tack (something is Wrong)
  to an 8D6 General Pres-
  ence Attack (Dangerous) as
  night falls on the wing.
  While characters are un-
  likely to be attacked on this
  wing, the disturbing na-
  ture of the ward contrib-
  utes to any stress or hor-
  ror the characters may be
  experiencing.
  Thematic, Ward 7B: Char-
  acters who spend more
  than a day on this ward
  will lose one characteristic
  point of INT and gain one
  point in the Catatonic Dis-
  advantage. The longer
  characters spend on the
  ward, the greater their
  chance of becoming one of
  the 
  ward’s 
  walking
  wounded.
  If any mentalist at-
  tempts to contact or attack
  any of the patients on this
  ward with psionic powers
  (Mental Illusions, Mind
  Control, Telepathy, and so
  on), he will automatically
  be 
  Stunned. 
  The
  character’s limbs will go
  limp, they will stand still
  for a few moments, then
  collapse to the floor. The
  mentalist will not be able
  to read anything from the
  patients before they fall
  unconscious. 
  While
  stunned, the character will
  hallucinate (see above).
  
  130
  130
  (see Description, below). There is no door that marks
  the separation between wings; the corridor continues
  its winding path uninterrupted.
  Description and Patients: The winding corridor
  passes through the first wing to a second wing con-
  nected to an outdoor court (fenced with razor wire).
  The stunted and withered patients in this ward stand
  around as if rooted in place, and many have been
  placed on suicide watch for fear they might do harm
  to themselves if left alone. Some stand in place and
  swing slightly, like pendulums, and others simply
  stand in place, sometimes for days at a time. All of the
  patients have dark stains on their clothing, open
  wounds and cuts on their wrists and necks that have
  yet to heal... it looks like most of the wounds occurred
  a long time ago, but the patient’s constant tearing and
  scratching of the scabs reopens the wounds and causes
  them to bleed all the more. Cries and sobs can be heard
  on this ward, but none of the screamers can be seen.
  (It is as if all the screamers are hidden inside their
  cells, but once the characters look in the cells to check
  to see if anyone is there, the cell turns out to be empty
  and the cries of lamentation seem to come from some-
  where else.)
  The nurses in this wing are extraordinarily cruel,
  and whip and push the patients in order to make them
  comply with the daily schedule. When finished driv-
  ing the patients out of bed and forcing them to dress
  and bathe, the nurses return to their nest in the nurse’s
  station. From there, they watch the patients, looking
  for another opportunity to step out behind the glass
  window and “spur” them into action. The number of
  cigarettes the nurses smoke make their laughter and
  speech more like ragged croaks than anything human.
  Hallucinations: In addition to the hallucinations men-
  tioned in Ward 7A above, characters who hallucinate
  on this ward will find themselves in a blackened for-
  est whose trees are composed of the bodies of the pa-
  tients in the ward. The trees moan and sigh as blood
  trickles from their limbs and gaping mouths. The dis-
  tant croaking of the nurses sound like monstrous
  birds. Occasionally, terrible black shapes swoop and
  hover above the forest, cackling, and the characters
  will be certain that these flying shapes are hunting for
  them.
  As with the Sixth Ward, characters may take
  STUN damage (no defense) from hallucinations and
  dreams on this ward.
  Cantos Fourteen and Fifteen:
  The Third Wing [7C]
  Description: There is a sterile feel to this ward... the
  smell of disinfectant in this ward isn’t a sickly-sweet
  smell, it is harsh (like cleanser) and grates the nos-
  trils. The floor of the wing of seven C is hot to the
  touch and sand-colored (as are the walls... the ceiling,
  however, is a discolored red that shines oddly in the
  flickering fluorescent light). It is possible that this area
  is touched by the furnace and heating ducts that run
  through the Asylum, as is the case in the Sixth Ward
  and Ward 7A.
  Patients: A herd of naked and half-naked patients fill
  this ward. Most of the front part of this ward is taken
  up by a number of passive patients, many of whom
  lie on their backs on the floor, occasionally being
  forced to their feet by the orderlies. Other patients
  roam in circles around the supine patients, sometimes
  stepping on or over them on their wandering, pur-
  poseless journey. Some of the supine patients seem to
  having fits and their shaking limbs pull and brush at
  their bodies, as if brushing away insects or flies.
  A third group of patients crouch and huddle in
  the corners of the room, squatting with their arms
  wrapped around their knees as if to hold themselves
  down. The inertness of this ward seems to clash with
  the running patients and the waiting tension of those
  patients hunched at the edges of the ward. The faces
  of all the patients are perpetually squinting; some faces
  look sunburned, even though the patients do not seem
  to be let outside at any point during the day.
  Hallucinations: Hallucinating characters will see a
  shower of fire descending upon and around them, the
  drops of flame scouring away the floor of the ward
  and leaving sand and dust in their wake. Intermixed
  with the burning rain, paint on the ceiling peels away
  like snowflakes and drifts down, scalding the skin of
  anyone it touches. When the flakes strike the floor,
  sometimes they spray sparks, like flint striking ten-
  der. Characters who wake up from this dream will have
  minor burns on exposed portions of their body.
  As with the Sixth Ward, characters may take
  STUN damage (no defense) from hallucinations and
  dreams on this ward.
  Main Area: The dayroom in this wing is huge and
  stretches many yards in all directions, like a plain. The
  fountains and bathroom in this area, however, are
  overflowing, so a small current runs from a corner of
  the dayroom and flows across to the exit on the other
  side. The patients seem to shun this current when-
  ever possible. The winding corridor that passed
  through the first two wings of this ward stops on one
  end of the dayroom, is replaced by the stream of wa-
  ter crossing the dayroom, then resumes once the wa-
  ter touches the opposite bank of the dayroom and pro-
  ceeds to the elevator (see Elevator, below).
  The walls of this ward are covered with blas-
  phemous graffiti, defaming God and the Asylum it-
  self in bold, unimaginative terms.
  Bathroom: Despite the trickle of water that trails out
  from beneath the door to the bathroom, the urinals
  and the sinks in this wing seem to have dried up... in
  many cases there is little or no water in the toilets,
  and the empty sinks give metallic screams when the
  knobs are turned.
  Stress, Ward 7C: The stress
  level on this ward may
  fluctuate anywhere from a
  4D6 General Presence At-
  tack (something is Wrong)
  to an 8D6 General Pres-
  ence Attack (Dangerous) as
  night falls. Characters have
  a good chance of being ver-
  bally, physically, or sexually
  attacked on this ward dur-
  ing their visit.
  Thematic, Ward 7C: If any
  mentalist attempts to con-
  tact or attack any of the pa-
  tients on this ward with
  psionic powers (Mental Il-
  lusions, Mind Control, Te-
  lepathy, and so on), have
  the mentalist roll the Effect
  dice, then turn that into an
  Ego Attack directed back
  against the mentalist... the
  character will feel as if hot
  pellets are being stabbed
  into their brain. As soon as
  the characters ceases using
  their mental powers, the
  pain will go away, but they
  may notice their skin is
  flushed and small trickles
  of blood are coming from
  their noses and/or ears.
  Characters who re-
  main on this ward too long
  will lose one characteristic
  point of EGO per day and
  gain one point towards a
  random Impulse-Control
  Disorder (Pyromania,
  Kleptomania, Pathological
  Gambling) chosen by the
  GM.
  
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  131
  Cantos Sixteen and Seventeen:
  The Third Wing Elevator [7C]
  Characters leaving Wing 7C will hear the rum-
  bling and creaking of heavy machinery, like the sound
  of a chain being rattled out along its length. As they
  approach the end of this hallway, they will see a pair
  of blackened steel doors which appear to lead to an
  elevator, although there is no panel to indicate what
  floor the elevator is on and no button to make the
  elevator stop on this floor. There is a low throb be-
  hind the doors, as if the elevator car is moving up and
  down. The doors look as if they are covered with soot
  and ash, but closer inspection reveals that this is just
  the effect of the peeling paint and the flecked surface
  of the doors.
  Just to the left of the elevator doors, three pa-
  tients from 7C are revolving in a shadowdance, their
  armed locked together and moving like a living wheel.
  It looks as if they are mimicking the gears and motors
  of the elevator that roams behind the blackened doors.
  Their uniforms have been peeled from their bodies
  and they circle, naked and twisting, on the floor of
  the hall. If characters approach them, they will let out
  a wailing cry and flee down the hallway.
  As the patients flee, the rumbling in the eleva-
  tor grows to almost a thunder, the doors shake, and
  the noise and creaking gears become so loud it is al-
  most impossible to speak.
  The Method of Descent: To use the elevator (and en-
  ter the Eighth Ward), a character must step up to the
  black portals, pound their fist against it three times,
  and then take a step back. In a few minutes, the rum-
  bling will become deafening as something rises within
  the elevator shaft. As the rumbling continues, the
  doors peel open, and characters will see the foul shape
  of the elevator car rise up the shaft through the gloom,
  forcing its way past vapors and clouds of grease and
  smoke. The top of the car, as it rolls upward past the
  split doors, is sharp-angled, with many metal projec-
  tions and sharp rivets and bolts, and the car and cable
  are so huge and powerful they look as if they could
  plow through the stones of the Asylum, shattering
  through the floor and burrowing into the Earth, or
  rising upwards to splinter the roof and plunge into
  the sky. The elevator pauses at the rocky shelf of the
  corridor, the edge of the elevator an inch or two above
  the floor, enough so that characters can catch a glimpse
  of the darkened shaft from which it has risen. Its cable
  descends down into darkness and is lost in the murky
  air.
  The elevator appears empty.
  The Escort Service: Only when characters enter the
  elevator will they see a figure hunched in the corner.
  His eyes are bright, alert, and his face is mild and
  kindly. He smiles at the characters and nods as they
  enter, acknowledging their presence.
  He is a distraction. His compatriot, braced
  against the roof of the elevator with his arms and
  hands (he cannot be seen outside the elevator), is
  waiting to leap down upon the passengers in the car
  if he gets an opportunity. He is silent and still, much
  like some kind of lizard or reptile (his green patient
  uniform emphasizes this), and his forearms and chest
  are extremely hairy. His face is covered with heavy
  wrinkles, and his skin is peeling so much it looks like
  he is molting. When the characters enter, he will ei-
  ther wait until the doors close and leap down, or if
  there are too many characters, he will remain braced
  on the ceiling without moving a muscle. Characters
  may ride the car up or down and never realize he is
  there.
  Ward Eight
  Canto Eighteen
  Elevators: Characters will descend in the shaking el-
  evator for several long minutes (the elevator makes
  small circles within the shaft as it rumbles down-
  wards), until it stops suddenly and silently. The doors
  ahead of the characters will creak open to reveal the
  entrance to the Eighth Ward... and ten feet of black,
  open space that separates the characters from the en-
  trance. Characters will have to jump in order to enter
  the next ward.
  The Eighth Ward
  Door: The entrance to the Eighth Ward lies at the ter-
  minus of the elevator’s descent. Once the elevator de-
  posits characters on this level, the black portals will
  seal up, and a great rumbling will travel up the eleva-
  tor shaft away from the characters. The characters can
  summon the elevator again by pounding three times
  on the black portal, but it is the GM’s choice as to
  whether the elevator returns for them. (“Leaving so
  soon...?”) Once they have entered the Eighth Ward,
  characters will find themselves in a barren stone cor-
  ridor with a high ceiling... there are no windows, and
  the only door lies on the opposite wall from the el-
  evator (a few feet to the left if the characters have their
  backs to the elevator door). This door is a heavy vault
  door, similar to the entrance for the Sixth Ward, above.
  There is no label or sign on the door, only an infinity
  symbol that someone has painted above the door in
  red, with bloody tears winding down across the edges
  of the stones and the door, glistening as if still wet.
  When characters press the button on the side
  of the vault door to be admitted to the Eighth Ward,
  no one will come to let them in... the inner and outer
  doors will grind open in proper sequence, but no one
  can be seen operating the doors. Beyond the doors,
  
  132
  132
  characters will find themselves in Ward Eight, Subdi-
  vision One (8A, see next page).
  Description: The Eighth Ward is huge, and slopes
  down in concentric circles to encompass ten subdivi-
  sions. It is perhaps the second most dangerous place
  in the Asylum, and characters not only have to fear
  the patients but the chance that they may be sealed
  within the cells here and left to die. Everything on this
  ward is of black, heavy stone and looks like it dates
  back a century or more. Lichen and moss grows on
  the corridor walls, and naked bulbs hang from fix-
  tures. The effect is not unlike being in a mine shaft.
  The architecture of this ward becomes more sur-
  real as the characters continue. While there was evi-
  dence of oddities in the Asylum construction before,
  now it seems as if the structure has given up its pre-
  tenses and lies open to the characters in all its twisted
  glory. Corridors radiate from the perimeter like spokes
  of a wheel, slicing through the subdivisions on their
  way to the center of the ward. These corridors slope
  downwards as they make their way toward the center,
  with steps at certain intervals creating sharp drops.
  Subdivisions: These subdivisions contain glass-walled
  cells in which some of the Asylum’s most cunning and
  violent patients are kept. The ten subdivisions are like
  troughs that were cut into the stone foundations to
  gather all the mentally disturbed like swill for pigs and
  animals. The subdivisions gird the center of the Eighth
  Ward like defensive moats. Each subdivision is sealed
  with two heavy steel doors with foot-wide viewing
  windows as per Ward Six, above.
  Hallucinations: The gloves are off in this ward; the
  hallucinations the characters experience might as well
  be reality. Hallucinations now have the capability of
  killing characters (i.e., they now do STUN and BODY).
  Patients and staff behave in increasingly abnormal
  ways, so much so that it is difficult to believe that the
  PCs are still walking amongst humans and not some
  horrors dressed in patient greens. The GM should feel
  free to let their imagination run wild in the Eighth
  Ward; here is where the stuff of nightmares is mined
  and fashioned into terror.
  Stage Directions: Flashlights and other light sources
  will grow dimmer as the characters approach the cen-
  ter of the Eighth Ward. Once they reach Subdivision
  Ten (8J), their light will have failed completely, and
  there are no other sources of illumination to help
  them. If the characters descend all the way into the
  depths of the Eighth Ward, turn to the Heresies chap-
  ter to see what happens next.
  Stress, Ward Eight: De-
  spite the stress levels indi-
  cated for each ward, GMs
  should be aware that these
  intensities can become
  much higher depending
  on the hallucinations
  characters experience on
  the ward (see below). The
  intensity can become Ter-
  rifying, Overwhelming and
  Nightmarish within sec-
  onds.
  Thematic, Ward Eight:
  Mentalists (especially
  psionics) will become in-
  creasingly distressed on
  this ward. It feels as if a
  horde of invisible insects
  are nibbling at their men-
  tal senses. Should a men-
  talist use their powers in
  the Eighth Ward, they will
  be opening their mind to
  a flood of disconnected
  images and emotions; for
  every five Active Points in
  the power, they will suffer
  an automatic 1D6 STUN
  (no defense) every time
  they use their powers.
  
  133
  133
  Ward Eight
  Subdivision One [8A]
  Description: The orderlies that move through 8A are
  hidden in shadow. Their forms are as black as pitch,
  and there is a certain menace in the way they carry
  themselves; they walk as murderers walk. This First
  Subdivision is separated into two columns of cells that
  line the corridors. What seems to be one long, straight
  corridor actually circles around until it rejoins the cen-
  tral access corridor on the other side (characters will
  not notice this until they actually walk the length of
  the subdivision). There seems to be no nurse’s station
  or dayroom... there is only the heavy stone corridor,
  lined with cells, and the slow tread of the orderlies as
  they circle the subdivision.
  Patients: Almost all the patients stored on this level
  are naked or have forsaken their clothing, as if some
  pitiful form or rebellion or as a torture designed by
  the orderlies. As characters pass the cells, the patients,
  in exchange for their freedom, will offer drugs, women,
  money and even themselves to the characters in
  wheezing, asthmatic whispers as their hands claw at
  the clear windows of their cells. There seems to be no
  limit to what they offer for their freedom; if a charac-
  ter asked one of the patients for their souls, they would
  give it up willingly.
  Hallucinations: While characters are hallucinating,
  they will see the patients in the columns of cells stand
  at attention, and with a fast tread, begin to file around
  the perimeter of the ward. The column of cells and
  their inhabitants closest to the elevator will move
  counterclockwise around the outside wall of the ward,
  while the column of cells and their inhabitants clos-
  est to Ward 8B will move clockwise around the inte-
  rior wall of the ward. Characters will notice, only af-
  ter a minute or two, that the patients are walking
  through the walls of their own cells as they march
  quickly along. Characters imprisoned in these cells
  may awake from the hallucination to find that they
  are in a different cell than the one they were in before.
  Ward Eight
  Subdivision Two [8B]
  Description and Patients: Whining, flesh striking
  flesh, the thumping of bone and skin against stone
  and glass partitions fill this subdivision. Blubbering
  and the gurgling of semen and mucus seem to travel
  down the corridors, as if the entire subdivision is hav-
  ing some sort of spasm. The steam and sewage pipes
  in this section have blistered and split along their
  seams here and a foul vapor fills this ward, making
  the air humid and nauseating. Characters will find that
  the vapor seems to form a crust on them the longer
  they remain in the ward, and their eyes will water and
  their nose will burn (-2 to all PER Rolls while on this
  ward). The ceilings in this subdivision are high, al-
  most lost from sight in the dim lighting... characters
  may feel like they are traveling in a deep chasm as they
  circle this ward. Excrement and urine fills the corri-
  dor of this ward, and the bathrooms and plumbing
  look as if they have vomited forth all their contents
  over the past ten years. No one else on the ward seems
  to mind this except the characters... the staff and pa-
  tients seem to have become deadened to it.
  Hallucinations: Characters should not realize when
  the hallucination comes upon them; the first indica-
  tion that something is wrong is a great metallic grind-
  ing coming from the pipes in this subdivision, fol-
  lowed by a heavy torrent of urine and excrement that
  rushes from the sewage pipes. The torrent becomes a
  river, and characters will soon find that the level of
  excrement is rising ankle-high, then to their knees,
  then higher; within minutes, characters will find them-
  selves drowning in the Asylum’s sewage system (use
  the drowning rules in Hero System Rulebook, p. 167).
  Characters unable to distance themselves from the hal-
  lucination will drown in the dream state. Should they
  awake, the smell of urine and feces will still cling to
  their bodies.
  Canto Nineteen:
  Subdivision Three [8C]
  Description and Patients: The cells of this subdivi-
  sion are walled with shatter-proof glass and the cen-
  tral corridor makes a number of sheer drops along its
  length. The cells in this section are cylindrical inside,
  like tubes. Circular breathing holes are set into the
  glass walls, and the patients within stick their fingers
  through them, as if trying to widen them or force them
  open. Some are grasping the breathing holes as if the
  ward has been turned sideways and they are holding
  on so that they will not fall to the back wall of their
  cell (characters who examine the cells will notice, how-
  ever, that the back walls of each cell is a solid black...
  it does look as if someone could fall into it and plunge
  forever if the cell was tipped sideways). When the or-
  derlies move by, they smash their fists and clubs at
  the fingers jutting from the air holes. While the cells
  on this subdivision are cold, the corridor that runs
  the length of 8C seems to be receiving some of the
  excess from Subdivision 8B and is extremely hot. Char-
  acters circling the subdivision through this corridor
  will become extremely sweaty and uncomfortable.
  Although many claw at the air holes to their
  walls, when characters approach the cells, the patients
  will recede from the walls and hide in the shadows of
  their cells so that only their calves and bare feet are
  visible in the gloom. Some of the legs quiver and jerk
  madly, as if the patient is having a seizure.
  Hallucinations: When the hallucinations strike, the
  ward will tilt madly, and the patients will give choked
  cries as they clutch at the walls of their cells, desper-
  ately attempting to keep themselves from falling into
  the darkness at the back walls of their cells. As char-
  acters watch, a slow trail of flame runs along the glass
  Stress, Ward 8A: The stress
  level on this ward fluctu-
  ates from a 6D6 General
  Presence Attack (Threaten-
  ing) to an 8D6 General
  Presence Attack (Danger-
  ous). The stress comes
  from the ward itself and
  the patients within it. The
  patients in this subdivision
  watch the characters with
  a hungry gleam, as if they
  would gladly capture and
  sell the characters to free
  themselves.
  Stress, Ward 8B:  As per 8A,
  above, except stress tends
  toward a 6D6 General
  Presence Attack (Threaten-
  ing); unlike the subdivision
  above, the patients seem
  more pathetic and pitiful,
  the predatory gleam has
  been replaced with pairs of
  cow-like eyes.
  Stress, Ward 8C: As per
  Ward 8A, above. The ma-
  levolence seems to come
  from the structure of the
  subdivision itself.
  Thematic, Ward 8C: A
  number of patients with
  grandiose and religious de-
  lusions fill this ward,
  claiming to offer political
  or divine favors for those
  who can meet their price
  and decreeing legal ruin
  and brimstone for those
  without the coin to meet
  their offers.
  Thematic, Ward 8B: Flat-
  terers are imprisoned in
  this subdivision. Through
  their blistering eyes and
  running noses, the patients
  will speak soft praises to
  the characters as they walk
  by, lauding their accom-
  plishments and beauty
  through 
  their 
  heavy
  coughing. The patients
  smell foul, as if they have
  been swimming in their
  own shit.
  
  134
  134
  walls of the cells, caressing the hands and limbs of the
  patients clinging to the walls and causing them to
  scream even louder. Ultimately the patients fail to hang
  onto the burning walls, and as characters watch, pa-
  tients fall and are swallowed by the darkness, their
  hands and feet leaving flame trails as they plunge into
  the blackness. Should the characters rouse themselves
  from the hallucination, they will notice that many of
  the corridors along the subdivision are suddenly si-
  lent and empty. Almost on cue, the white-garbed
  shades escort new patients into the now-empty cells.
  Canto Twenty:
  Subdivision Four [8D]
  Description and Patients: This ward is well-lighted,
  and each cell is illuminated with a strong flaming bulb
  from above. Each patient in this ward, however, is
  shirking from the light, as if the illumination is a thou-
  sand times brighter than it really is. (Staff members
  will rationalize the patients’ discomfort by claiming
  that the medication the patients are taking is photo-
  sensitive and the light hurts their eyes, but the prob-
  lem is that the lights on the ward cannot be dimmed...
  the ward can either be pitch black or a blinding white.
  There is no middle ground.) The eyes of the patients
  are washed in tears and covered with a film, so much
  so that it seems to blind them... those whose eyes re-
  main open have pupils that are dilated almost to pin
  points. They sit in their cells silently weeping, their
  hands and legs wrapped together so it seems as if their
  entire body is twisted backwards. Their heads never
  face front, and are bent alarmingly to the side, as if
  they cannot bear to look at anything directly. When
  they move, they do not walk as a man moves, but
  scuttle like an insect or a crab across their cell. Though
  it is not hot in this ward, a stream of sweat runs from
  the nape of the necks of many patients, travels down
  the backs of their uniforms and seeps between the cleft
  of their buttocks.
  Hallucinations: In the throes of hallucinations, the
  bodies of the patients and characters will be twisted
  and mangled before their eyes. The heads of the pa-
  tients are gripped by some great force and twisted
  about their shoulders so that they are facing back-
  wards. Blood will run like tears from their eye sockets
  and from the red mash of their necks, flowing down
  their backs in thick streams. If a character is mangled
  in such a way, their head is considered Disabled when
  they are roused from the hallucination (see Hero Sys-
  tem Rulebook, p.164) and their CVs and PER Rolls are
  likely to be reduced.
  Cantos Twenty-One and Twenty-Two:
  Subdivision Five [8E]
  Description and Patients: Characters entering this
  ward will first hear the screams echoing along the walls
  of this ward. They rise in pitch, fade for a second, only
  to begin again, louder than before.
  As much as the former subdivision was brightly
  lit, this one is completely dark. Until the character’s
  eyes adjust to the dimness, they will be unable to see
  anything in front of them. The floor and walls of this
  ward are sticky, as if covered with putty, but the heavy
  stone that makes up the walls and floors of this ward
  gives no clue as to the origin of the stickiness. When
  the characters first enter, they will see a pair of white-
  garbed orderlies leading a patient (in restraints) down
  the corridor to one of the doors on the left of the ward
  (this door swings open like a bathroom door, and ter-
  rified screams, coupled with trails of steam, become
  louder as the door is opened). The patient appears to
  be struggling, dragging his feet as the door opens, but
  the orderlies force him through before he can firmly
  plant his feet on anything. Shortly after this, the cho-
  rus of screams gains a new voice.
  This ward contains the shower room of the
  Eighth Ward, and this is where the patients from all
  the subdivisions come for “a rinsing.” The large steam
  room runs the length of most of the ward (although
  there are cells in this subdivision) and is connected to
  the central corridor by three swinging doors spaced
  along its length. Lockers, wooden benches, and green
  tile interspersed with rusty iron drains fill the room,
  and bursts of steam come from the communal shower
  area where the patients are thrust. The water from the
  nozzles must be scalding, for no sooner are the pa-
  tients pushed under the water then they begin to
  scream. Orderlies stand at the entrance and shove back
  anyone who attempts to leave the shower area; some
  are armed with poles and clubs and prod patients who
  attempt to avert their bodies from the burning spray,
  and they shove some of the patients so hard they fall
  on the tiled floor, leaving welts and bruises. These
  “proddings” are usually followed by threatening re-
  minders from the orderlies for the patient to “stay put
  or get more of the same.” The orderlies go so far as to
  grab some patients by the hair and use it as a make-
  shift leash to yank them around.
  Stress, Ward 8D: As per
  Ward 8A above, but any
  characters with any psychic
  abilities (including psychic
  Danger Sense, Clairsen-
  tience, Precognition and
  Retrocognition) will suffer
  an additional +2D6 to the
  stress intensity while on
  this ward. The basis for this
  increased stress is that the
  PCs will have a terrible
  feeling that this is where
  they are destined to spend
  out the rest of their days if
  they cannot escape the
  Asylum.
  Thematic, Ward 8D: A
  number of “vision” related
  problems occur on this
  ward. Some patients are
  near-sighted, others far-
  sighted, some are cross-
  eyed, wall-eyed, blind, and
  so on. All of them have
  some deficiency in vision
  or sight.
  In addition to the
  STUN Susceptibility men-
  tioned in the general de-
  scription for Ward Eight,
  above, any character who
  uses Clairsentience, Mental
  Awareness, Mind Scan or
  Telepathy on this ward suf-
  fers an Ego Attack of an in-
  tensity equal to the Active
  Points in their power.
  When in doubt, round up
  (i.e., Mental Awareness
  merits only a 1D6 Ego At-
  tack).
  Stress, Ward 8E: As per
  Ward 8A, above, with a
  7D6 to 8D6 General Pres-
  ence Attack recommended
  (Dangerous). The main
  threat on this ward seems
  to come from the staff (see
  Description, above and
  Thematic, below).
  Thematic, Ward 8E: The orderlies in this subdivision are huge,
  somber and should be treated as one of the Thug templates in
  JNL, pp. 125-127 with all the Skills, Perks and Powers on the “Or-
  derly Template” added to their sheet. There are at least ten order-
  lies at any one time in this section of the Eighth Ward, and if
  necessary, they can gather two or three times that number from
  the surrounding subdivisions. Unlike orderlies in other sections
  of the hospital, these orderlies seem more alert and aware. Most
  of them are bitter, crude, and deceitful, however, and take plea-
  sure in watching the mentally disturbed scalded by the blistering
  water, occasionally pausing from their duties to make racist and
  vulgar comments, then breaking wind and laughing as they re-
  turn to their tasks.
  These orderlies may offer to escort characters to other sec-
  tions of the ward only to trap them in cells with violent patients
  and watch the festivities. If it looks like the characters could over-
  power them, the orderlies still taunt and threaten them... they
  may even take a moment to arm themselves with tasers and tran-
  quilizer guns to even the odds should the PCs start acting “uppity.”
  As they are escorting the characters, the orderlies joke amongst
  themselves about how they can have their “take” of any patient in
  these subdivisions and follow their boasts with crude gestures.
  The orderlies in this section tend to be short-sighted, stu-
  pid and greedy. The extent of their self-interest, deceit and double-
  dealing is unbelievable.
  
  135
  135
  Patients flop like fish on the shower floor, splash-
  ing in sticky puddles of their own filth, while others
  crouch like frogs, letting the blistering water fall on
  the arch of their backs as they watch the orderlies sul-
  lenly under drooping eyelids. Small hooks hang from
  the top of the shower room, as if they once held shower
  curtains or straps, but they are empty now. Their tips
  look sharpened and glint in the lights of the shower.
  Hallucinations: If this ward is viewed while the char-
  acter is under the influence of hallucinations, the or-
  derlies will seem to grow from humans to great horned
  shadows with white teeth as long as the character’s
  fingers. Their clubs and poles will become mighty tri-
  dents and grappling hooks, their cruel edges glinting
  in the steam and heat of this subdivision’s shower
  rooms. If any of the orderlies notice the characters
  staring at them while under the influence of a hallu-
  cination, their shadowy forms will attack the charac-
  ter en masse and attempt to tear them to shreds.
  Progress: Characters attempting to leave Subdivision
  8E will find that the central corridor that runs through
  the ten subdivisions halts abruptly just past the Fifth
  Subdivision, the archway having fallen in on itself and
  the corridor beneath it lying in ruin. Yellow construc-
  tion tape is stretched across their area like flypaper
  (and is unnecessary, since the fallen stones block for-
  ward progress and there are no jutting edges or bro-
  ken fragments that might harm someone). [1] De-
  spite the work of the maintenance crew, this corridor
  cannot be reclaimed and there has been talk about
  bricking it over and building another route through
  the Eighth Ward, despite the cost.
  Without the orderlies to guide them to the en-
  trance to the next subdivision, characters may wan-
  der through the first five subdivisions for several hours
  before discovering the entrance to the Sixth Subdivi-
  sion (8F).
  Canto Twenty-Three:
  Subdivision Six [8F]
  Entrance: The entrance to this subdivision is hidden.
  A few doors down from the shower room in 8E, an
  unobtrusive blank steel door (with no viewing win-
  dow) marks the entrance to the sixth subdivision, 8F.
  The door is usually unlocked, since patients and staff
  use these stairs repeatedly (to be difficult, the GM can
  have it be locked, especially if the characters are being
  pursued). Past the door, a narrow flight of stairs de-
  scends into the ring of the Sixth Subdivision. There
  are no railings, and the stairs are extremely steep...
  characters running down these stairs must make a
  DEX Roll or fall and take 2D6 HKA damage (or 1D6
  HKA if they make a Breakfall roll). Once the charac-
  ters descend to the bottom of the stairs, they find
  themselves at another featureless steel door that opens
  on Subdivision 8F.
  Description and Patients: Characters may find Sub-
  division 8F something of a surprise; it is like stepping
  into a herd of human cattle. Unlike the previous sub-
  divisions, this appears to be an open ward. Low moans
  come from the patients who pace around this area.
  They wear heavy pajamas and bathrobes, and their
  faces are blank and they move as if their limbs were
  made of lead. The pajamas and bathrobes are a
  brightly colored array of greens, oranges, yellows,
  pinks and reds, but the goat-puke green patient uni-
  form is always visible at the sleeves or at the collar of
  the patient, showing what lies beneath the bright
  clothing. Some of the patients have make-up smeared
  on their features, either making them look like tired
  drag queens or pathetic imitations of American Indi-
  ans.
  Most patients have their ankles and hands
  bound in restraints, allowing them a minimum of 1”
  of movement without falling over. One of the patients
  stands at the exit of the ward as if staked there, his
  hands and feet touching the corners of the door frame.
  His face is puffy and he exhales with a lingering
  wheeze, making gulping and sucking motions with
  his mouth rather than speaking. Characters will have
  to force their way by him in order to pass on to the
  exit from this subdivision.
  Hallucinations: Characters hallucinating on this ward
  will see the patients dressed in brown monk’s robes,
  lined with lead and steel that weighs them down and
  slows their movements to a snail’s pace. The patients
  will peel themselves from their positions on the floor
  and drag themselves into a rough circle around the
  characters and march around them in an endless, slow
  parade. As (if) characters rouse themselves from the
  hallucination, the circle of patients will dissolve back
  into their former positions. Characters who the GM
  regards as hypocrites will find themselves drawn into
  the slow-moving circle and will be forced to make an
  EGO Roll to free themselves from the hypnotic shuffle
  of patients.
  Exit: Past the man that blocks the exit, characters will
  find a narrow tier of uneven slabs that lead steeply
  upwards onto 8G, the Seventh Subdivision (these
  stairs bypass the collapsed corridor mentioned above
  and reemerge at the Central Corridor that cuts
  through the Eighth Ward). It looks as if these stairs
  were made in haste, some of the stones are loose, and
  there is evidence that a wall had to be knocked down
  to make the thoroughfare. The stairs are easy to find,
  and the door to them is usually left unlocked (the pa-
  tients in 8F never seem to leave their ward).
  1: This destruction was caused when Crusader entered this area to
  rescue the Poet many years ago, then fought his way back out again.
  The corridor in this section, already structurally unsound, collapsed
  beneath the fighting and allowed Crusader an extra few minutes
  to escape while the patients in the lower subdivisions were trying
  to circumvent the wreckage.
  Stress, Ward 8F: A 4D6 to
  6D6 General Presence At-
  tack is recommended
  (Wrong to Threatening).
  Again, the main threat on
  this ward seems to come
  from the staff, not the pa-
  tients, who seem pretty
  harmless (see Description,
  above).
  
  136
  136
  Cantos Twenty-Four and Twenty-Five:
  Subdivision Seven [8G]
  Description: This subdivision is shaped differently
  than the rest. From the entrance, the dimly-lit hall juts
  out like a pier into darkness. Characters stepping to
  the edge of the pier, however, will discover a series of
  short wide steps that lead down into the main por-
  tion of the ward (the floor of the ward was hidden by
  a trick of the light, so that it appeared that nothing
  was beneath the “pier”).
  The dayroom is blanketed with a weaker illu-
  mination, not quite completely dark, but enough so
  it is difficult to make out the patients. Many patients
  in this section are bound to metal straight-backed
  chairs or to their beds with leather straps and restraints
  that coil about them like snakes. Almost all of them
  have their hands bound and the orderlies and nurses
  watch them carefully. The walls are of chipping white
  plaster, rubbed and worn so that it appears as if sand-
  paper was glued onto the walls and sprayed white.
  There is an electricity in the air, like a gathering storm,
  and the subdivision is warm and dry. The air smells
  faintly of incense and charcoal.
  Patients: Some kind of game is taking place on this
  ward. It works like so: one patient creeps up on an-
  other (or jumps out at him from the shadows) and
  then slaps, strikes, or kicks the victim. Sometimes, the
  attacker simply stares at the other patient for a minute.
  The patient who was attacked takes a step back as if
  hit with a hammer, pauses, then cursing and mutter-
  ing, chases after the other patient, and the process is
  reversed. [1]
  Some patients in this ward stumble about, fall
  as if struck, then stumble to their feet a few minutes
  later with a long sigh and a fluttering of their eyelids,
  as if trying to regain their senses. Their knees and el-
  bows are covered with scabs and bruises. Other pa-
  tients scuttle and walk about like lizards, while others
  seem to push themselves around on their chests,
  touching their tongue to their lips as they do so. One
  patient seems to move solely on his hands, his feet
  flung up in the air, waving them as he moves as if he is
  walking on the ceiling.
  It may take characters some time to notice this,
  but several patients (many of whom are in the cells)
  are missing limbs or suffering from gross deformities
  of the flesh, including enlarged craniums, protruding
  brows with huge lips, or excessively large hands and
  feet. Some of the paraplegics on this ward look as if
  their limbs were chewed off by some monstrosity.
  Several kleptomaniacs are located on this ward,
  and the mutant known as Fleshworks may also live
  upon this ward (see the Pretender, UE, p. 25), his body
  having “dried out” into some horrible form. the fool
  (Underworld Enemies, p. 16) may also be sentenced to
  this ward and is kept in near permanent seclusion.
  Hallucinations: Characters who fall asleep on this
  ward will feel their sheets begin to constrict about
  them. If they try and free themselves from the sheets,
  wiring will slither from cracks in the walls to choke
  them to death. The floor shifts and moves as if made
  of worms, and characters will quickly find themselves
  becoming nauseous and feverish. If they look about
  the nightmare ward, they will see other patients
  touched by the wires flare brightly, then, with a small
  puff, burst into flame. Their ashes scatter across the
  floor and are lost amidst the shifting stones and mor-
  tar.
  • At other points in the dreaming, it will not be the
  ward itself that shifts and moves, but the flesh of the
  character and the other patients. Folds of skin bend
  and weave, unravel and then stitch themselves back
  up again in bizarre and twisted shapes, sometimes
  bulging out to make vestigial hands and fingers on
  the head and body, and at other times, characters’
  calves and thighs run together like wax. Characters
  may see the orifices of patients dilate closed, and the
  patients claw at the skin that covers their eyes, nose
  and mouth. Dozens of metamorphoses will occur to
  characters and other patients within seconds. When
  the characters awake, their limbs will feel sore, and
  blood will be trickling from their nose and eyes.
  Cantos Twenty-Six and Twenty-Seven:
  Subdivision Eight [8H]
  Description: The section of the Central Corridor that
  leads to the Ninth Ward is more desolate than the first
  stretch of hallway from Subdivision One to Five (8A
  to 8E). The slope downwards increases, more cracks
  and fissures fill the wall and the lights dim with every
  step forward. Where some moss and lichen was vis-
  ible before, now the stones are bare and dead. There
  is not a trace of life in this section of the corridor, and
  it becomes even more desolate as the characters ap-
  proach the Ninth Ward.
  The Eighth Subdivision is clean and gleams
  brightly, as if the walls and floor have just been washed.
  Rows of burning red lights are spaced throughout the
  ward, providing just enough light at the right inter-
  vals so that they are separated by stretches of black-
  ness. The red lights seem to number in the hundreds,
  fading as they descend down the corridor from the
  entrance to the subdivision (this is a trick of the ward
  itself, a result the lights reflecting from the polished
  walls, floor and the blackened viewing windows of the
  cells in this subdivision). The lights flicker and hum
  1: Mental combat or Mind Transference is taking place here (see
  UM). The retarded psychics have turned their mental combat into
  a “game” with each other, taking stabs and snap shots at each other
  and running. See Heresies for more information.
  2: The Idiot King has been damned to this ward for the part he
  played in the collapse of Fell’s Point in January of 1990. His deceit,
  trickery, and his need to stroke his own ego through treachery and
  lies had much to do with the civil unrest the plagued the Point on
  the night of the Fall.
  Stress, Ward 8G: This
  ward fluctuates between a
  6D6 and an 8D6 General
  Presence Attack (Threaten-
  ing/Dangerous), although
  the stress level may rise
  once characters are at-
  tacked or once they begin
  to hallucinate (see below).
  Stress, Ward 8H: The stress
  level on this ward comes
  from the ward itself and its
  cold, dark silence. There is
  something threatening
  here, but the characters
  will be unable to see it or
  confront it. The stress in-
  tensity varies between a
  6D6 and 8D6 General
  Presence Attack (Threaten-
  ing/Dangerous).
  Thematic, Ward 8H: Those
  who use their superior wis-
  dom to deceive or harm
  others are interred here.
  Foes such as the Idiot King
  (Underworld Enemies, p.
  14), who do not keep a
  tight rein over their “wit”
  and pervert it for selfish
  ends wind up here. The
  highly reflective surfaces in
  this subdivision keep
  Elliot’s Idiot King mental-
  ity sharply in check. [2]
  
  137
  137
  in the silence of this ward... farther down the corri-
  dor, one buzzes and flickers erratically, as if fighting
  to stay lit. Occasionally, the lights shining on the glis-
  tening surface of the subdivision reflects like tiny fire-
  flies. Below each flaming red light is a cell door that
  holds a patient, but their cells are dark, and nothing
  can be seen if characters look through the viewing
  window... only the burning red lights reflect in the
  square foot of glass, cloaking the contents of the cell
  from sight.
  Patients: None of the patients on this subdivision are
  visible unless the characters crack open their cells and
  step inside. If they do, they will find themselves in an
  empty cell and the door will seal closed behind them.
  Hallucinations: In the shifting hallucinations on this
  ward, the red lights above the cells burn like great
  flames, their light reflecting off the shadowed black
  windows of the cells doors and preventing the occu-
  pants from being seen clearly. Shapes and shadows
  shuffle within the cells, as if trying to avoid the great
  flames that lick and taste their bodies through the cold
  stone and steel of the cells. Characters imprisoned here
  will find their bodies tortured and lashed by the flames
  that burn above their cells.
  Canto Twenty-Eight:
  Subdivision Nine [8I]
  Patients: As with 8G above, the inhabitants of this sub-
  division have a number of scars, disfigurements and
  mutilations. There are almost a hundred patients in
  this parade of misery, all of them with grievous
  wounds as if they have returned from some battle and
  come here to die. Their cries are like broken instru-
  ments across the ward.
  One patient looks as if he is desperately trying
  to hold his insides in his stomach, and he wails about
  how his body parts are not his own. Another patient’s
  chin hangs so slack upon their body it looks as if some-
  one attempted to pry it off with a crowbar. One has a
  scar that runs from his forehead, down between his
  eyes, to the cleft in the chin... it passes by the nose,
  which is missing from the patient’s face and has been
  replaced with scabby tissue. One patient grips his head
  tightly, as if afraid it will fall off... a red streak of scar
  tissue around his throat shows where it was once close
  to being severed. One patient has a dark purple line
  of scabs emphasizing his eyebrows, while others are
  missing ears, fingers, and tongues... one patient is even
  missing his lower jaw, and his upper row of teeth hangs
  over the empty space like a broken hinge. The entire
  ward is a grotesque mosaic of human flesh and limbs
  joined together in unnatural ways; patients crawl
  about the ward, dragging their broken bodies behind
  them. Most scars and open sores look fresh and wet,
  and even the older scars remain as white lines on the
  patient’s skin, showing where the older wounds have
  knit back together.
  Hallucinations: The hideous deformities of the pa-
  tients in this ward are magnified through the lens of
  hallucination. Scars suddenly blister on every surface
  of the ward, then split to have blood shoot from them
  like geysers. Limbs seem to part from their owners
  and fall upon the ground, bleeding in a sluggish, pulpy
  mass. The stomachs of patients peel back like double
  doors and their intestines trail out like a roll of film
  freed from a projector. One patient’s head slips from
  his shoulders with a wet, ripping sound and falls into
  his hands; as it does, the patient takes his head and
  raises it before him like a lantern, the eyes blazing and
  disconnected words dribbling from the mouth. Char-
  acters will suffer the same fragmentation in the hal-
  lucination... depending on the GM, when the charac-
  ter frees himself from the hallucination, his limb may
  be flushed and bleeding, or he may gain a temporary
  Somatoform Disorder (physical pain aided or caused
  by the character’s psychological state). The GM may
  roll on the Hit Location Chart (Hero System Rulebook,
  p. 162) to determine which limb is affected... they may
  also choose to use the Disabling Rules to represent
  the “damage” done to the character’s limb once they
  free themselves from the hallucination.
  Canto Twenty-Nine:
  Subdivision Ten [8J.i]
  Subdivision Ten is further divided into four sec-
  tions, each with its own dayrooms and dormitories.
  These four divisions are listed as 8J.i, 8J.ii, 8J.iii and
  8J.iv. All have their own grotesqueness about them,
  but they flow together like a foul accretion.
  Description and Patients: The shrieking coming from
  this open area stabs listeners like spears, and PCs may
  have to cover their ears to prevent being overwhelmed.
  It is as if the unhealthiest regions of the world have
  poured their inhabitants and their refuse into this
  ward, leaving mounds of people and garbage to wal-
  low in their own stench. Rashes and infections fill this
  ward, from burning eczema to itching scabs, and the
  inmates scratch and tear at them until blood oozes
  forth. The smell of putrefying flesh makes this subdi-
  vision smell like the aftermath of a battlefield, com-
  plete with shadowy human vultures and vermin that
  pick at the bodies. This subdivision seems to stretch
  for miles. No orderlies or nurses can be seen.
  This ward is hell. The near-darkness, the over-
  powering stench, the shrieks side by side with the rasp-
  ing of throats almost closed from thirst, the piles of
  filth, the coughing and ragged scratching of dirty fin-
  gernails on bloodied skin, the rampant diseases, the
  sight of inmates doubled over on the ground, wail-
  ing, as if they have been punched in the stomach... no
  agony has been spared for the characters in this sub-
  division. Some patients lie sickened on the floor, while
  others trample over them, chasing others about the
  ward. Others gasp and try to hold each other upright,
  only to fail and collapse to the floor with strangled
  choking sounds.
  Stress, Ward 8I: The stress
  on this ward stems from
  the patients and their hor-
  rible mutilations... the
  characters should have the
  feeling that the longer they
  remain on this ward, the
  greater chance they have of
  suffering the same fate as
  the patients on the ward.
  The stress intensity varies
  between a 6D6 and an 8D6
  General Presence Attack
  (Threatening/Dangerous).
  Thematic, Ward 8I:  Dis-
  cord and chaos, mostly fos-
  tered by the patients, fill
  this subdivision, and
  wounds received here don’t
  seem to heal. If the GM is
  not using the Bleeding
  rules described in the Hero
  System Rulebook, p. 165,
  consider it to be in effect
  on this ward. Blood and
  wounds carpet this subdi-
  vision.
  Stress, Ward 8J.i: This
  stress level in this subdivi-
  sion fluctuates between an
  8D6 General Presence At-
  tack and a 10D6 Attack
  (Dangerous/Terrifying).
  The extent of the suffering
  and sounds of agony in this
  subdivision are almost
  more than anyone can
  bear. Characters will be at-
  tacked at some point while
  they are on this ward; con-
  sidering the diseased na-
  ture of the residents, the
  characters are also likely to
  catch some form of infec-
  tion or illness.
  
  138
  138
  As the characters watch, one patient fastens him-
  self to the leg of another, and the other turns, and with
  a demoniac smile, begins to throttle him. In another
  corner of the ward, amongst a tangle of urine-stained
  sheets pulled from the dormitories, a group of patients
  tear and claw each other, fighting over the body of a
  third patient. One patient strides through the ward,
  his hand half-raised and is followed by two others who
  are mocking his movements and aping his facial ex-
  pressions with a slight leer. One patient sits naked in
  the middle of the floor, his legs crossed and his chest
  bent over... a burning red rash decorates his body like
  a score of tattoos and another patient, covered with
  the same rash, scratches the back of the first in raking
  motions, as if trying to scrub the irritation from the
  body of the other.
  Hallucinations: Characters hallucinating on this ward
  will suffer an automatic 1D6 STUN Susceptibility per
  Turn they are immersed in their hallucinogenic state;
  the chorus of screams and anguish will rise to such
  levels that the character’s eardrums will thunder in
  their head and blood will trickle from their ears. The
  patients that dwell here in the darkness will seem to
  take on one loathsome shape, becoming a writhing
  carpet of diseased flesh that coats the floors and walls
  of the subdivision.
  Remaining Ward: Sections of this division are simi-
  lar to the listings for the three lesser divisions below
  (Fountain, Bathroom, Dormitory, and so on). The rest
  of the ward should be tailored as the GM sees fit.
  Canto Thirty:
  Subdivision Ten [8J.ii, 8J.iii, 8J.iv]
  Characters delving deeper into the corridors of
  Subdivision Ten will eventually come to a second di-
  vision, 8J.ii, and from there onto the other two divi-
  sions (8J.iii and 8J.iv). These three areas should be
  treated as one in the description below.
  Description and Patients: The patients in this subdi-
  vision run around pale, naked and unclean, and bite
  other patients like hungry animals. It as if their fangs
  are poisoned, for they bite others, then slink back as if
  expecting to see the patient writhe and die before their
  eyes. When this is not the case, they either snap their
  teeth and try to bite the patient again or go off in
  search of easier prey. The teeth of these patients are
  stained brown and gaps are visible in their bruised
  purpled gums; their tongues are dried and cracked, as
  if they had no water in months. Other patients seem
  rooted to the spot, as if their gross weight and infec-
  tions have sprouted roots into the stone foundations
  beneath them. They lie in beds, on the floor, in wheel-
  chairs and so on. They can barely move, and their faces
  are flushed. The only sign of life is their asthmatic
  wheezing.
  Some of the patients on this ward have dispro-
  portional bodies... some with heads too big for their
  frail bodies, others with heads much too small com-
  pared to the paunch surrounding their arms, legs and
  waist. The smell emanating from them is terrible and
  makes a character’s nostrils burn and their stomach
  lurch. Some patients look so heavy and wide it looks
  as if it would be impossible for anything smaller than
  a crane to move them... much less fit them into their
  cells when nighttime falls.
  Hallucinations: The hallucinations in this ward are
  those of comfort, and they are maddening in their
  pleasantness. Thirst is quenched, hunger satiated, in-
  fections abate, itching fades, scabs flake off to reveal
  perfect skin beneath... and just when the character be-
  comes comfortable in the dream, they will awaken
  back to their misery. When possible, try and convince
  characters that the dream is the reality, then wake them
  up and put them back in hell.
  Dormitories: The soiled mattresses are home to a
  number of infections and diseases. Characters sleep-
  ing on any bed in this ward is likely to get a rash, a
  skin disease or become infested with lice or tiny, crawl-
  ing green bugs that root in the hair, armpits and groin.
  Bathroom: The water in these bathrooms are dried
  up. Only empty, stained porcelain basins await the
  character... some patients wait by the stalls, eager to
  lap up the urine and excrement to fill their wasted
  bodies.
  Thematic, Ward 8J.i: Every
  sense is put on edge in this
  subdivision, and PCs will
  suffer a -3 to all PER Rolls.
  In addition, two other ef-
  fects will occur: one, char-
  acters on this ward will be-
  gin to starve, as per the
  rules in Ward Three, above.
  (Characters will generally
  feel the pangs of thirst first
  before the gnawing hunger
  in their stomach.) Two,
  while on this division,
  characters will be unable
  to concentrate on any Skill
  that requires more than a
  Phase to complete, as per
  the rules for Ward Five,
  above. They will suffer a
  penalty of -1 for every in-
  crement of time past one
  Phase that they take to
  complete the Skill (see
  Hero System Rulebook, p.
  18).
  Stress, Ward 8J.ii-iv: As
  per 8J.i, above. Again,
  characters will be attacked
  at some point as they navi-
  gate this ward, most likely
  bitten or clawed by one of
  the diseased patients.
  Thematic, Ward 8J.ii-
  iv: As per 8J.i, above.
  
  139
  139
  Chapter Six:
  Heresies
  Canto Thirty-One:
  The Giants
  Entrance: Characters who reach the end of the Eighth
  Ward will come to a heavy steel door with no mark-
  ings. Past the door (which cannot be propped open,
  no matter what the characters do), the ward opens
  into a large, gloomy chamber (see Description, below).
  Description: It’s hard to make out anything for cer-
  tain in the gloom that blankets this area. The first
  things characters are likely to come across are the huge,
  oddly-shaped columns that rise like turrets from the
  brick and dirt floor of this chamber. The columns look
  as if they were once covered with brick, but the brick
  veneer has crumbled away to reveal the columns’ true
  core, the primal gray stone that makes up the crag of
  the Mount and the walls and foundations of the West-
  ern Division. The columns are hacked out in rough
  squares, like giant blocks, slightly more than six feet
  in diameter at their widest point and less than seven
  feet tall where they drop out of sight into the ceiling.
  The blackness of the walls and ceiling make it seem as
  if the ceiling and walls stretch off into perpetual dark-
  ness. The area encircled by the columns looks like
  some sort of shrine or chapel, but there is no altar or
  worshipping ground. [1]
  This chamber is completely silent... the scream-
  ing and shrieking of the Eighth Ward is gone, dis-
  missed, as if told that it has no place here. Sounds are
  muted and unnatural, and once the steel door to the
  Eighth Ward closes behind the characters, there will
  be no sounds from the world they have left behind.
  This is the darkest depths of the Asylum, and the
  gloomy surroundings are intended to leave the de-
  scription of the area to be fleshed out by whatever
  imaginings and fears the visitor or visitors carry with
  them. The fading light (of flashlights or other Powers
  or equipment) will soon leave the area in pitch black-
  ness (see Cocytus, Stage Directions, below).
  Characters who remain in this chamber for
  more than a few minutes will begin to feel a tingling in
  the air, like tiny currents of electricity are passing
  through their body; the feeling is so pervasive, char-
  acters may wonder how they missed it when they first
  entered this area. Their scalp itches, goose bumps ap-
  pear on their arms, and the hair on the back of their
  neck rises... the longer characters remain, the more
  their body will begin reacting to the charge in this area.
  The charge will have an adverse effect on all electrical
  devices (as with any flashlights or any high-tech gad-
  gets the characters are carrying with them).
  Stage Directions: If the GM wishes to stage a con-
  frontation with the PCs and Dr. Shreiver in this cham-
  ber or in the Ninth Ward, below, then PCs examining
  the tracks will notice that one pair of tracks seems
  fresh, as if someone walked this way not more than
  an hour ago (and has not yet returned back along this
  route). If the characters have Infrared Vision, they may
  notice a faint heat signature from the footprints.
  Hallucinations: In the gloom, the columns become
  the torsos of great gray giants, their lower halves em-
  bedded in the stone. The giants face outward from
  the chamber, as if standing guard, their faces frozen
  and their eyes like great chunks of coal set into their
  sockets. [1, next page  In the distance, past one colos-
  sus that seems to bend under the weight of the ceil-
  ing, characters can hear the grinding of stone... it
  sounds as if one of the gray giants is mumbling, his
  words like rolling stones in the darkness that envelop
  this chamber. [2, next page]
  Author’s Note: The follow-
  ing chamber, which lies at
  the edge of the Eighth
  Ward and encompasses the
  four abandoned research
  divisions [9A-9D] and the
  Ninth Ward is known col-
  lectively as the “Cocytus.”
  [Co-ki-tiss]
  1: Characters who make a Sight PER Roll will notice that there are
  tracks in the dust and grime of the floor in this chamber. The tracks
  lead like a stream through and past the columns into the gaping
  pit of the “Ninth Ward” (see Ninth Ward, below). If a character
  makes a Tracking roll, the character will notice that the tracks ap-
  pear to be those of a woman, spaced as if one was walking nor-
  mally (these tracks go back and forth along the path into the gloom,
  perhaps five or six times). The tracks enter and leave the area at a
  measured pace.
  If characters search the floor of the area for a full Turn and
  make (another) Tracking roll or Sight PER Roll, they will notice a
  second set of tracks on the floor, very faint, as if the visitor came
  many years ago. These tracks keep to the wall (?) of the ward, as if
  the traveler was trying to skulk in the shadows and avoid notice.
  The skulker’s tracks parallel the tracks of the woman, mirroring
  the same winding path, but they only go one way... if the skulker
  entered this area, he did return back along the same way.
  The female’s tracks are Dr. Shreiver’s... the skulker’s tracks
  belong to Dr. Reeves (Freak, UE, p. 22), who died here many years
  ago.
  
  140
  140
  Perimeter: The perimeter of this gloomy chamber is
  smeared with insane messages and pictures scrawled
  in excrement and blood. Many are unintelligible, but
  there is a frightening intensity in their presence... not
  a square foot is free from the mad vandalism. [3]
  The Alcoves: Characters fumbling through the main
  chamber of the Cocytus may find several alcoves set
  into the walls, but unlike the heavy gray stone that
  makes up the perimeter of the chamber, the back walls
  of the alcoves are covered with a cold, crumbling brick.
  (These alcoves are not free from the graffiti that cov-
  ers the perimeter of this chamber.)
  These alcoves were once doors that opened into
  research labs that formed the fringe of this chamber.
  If the characters listen at the back walls of the alcoves,
  they will hear faint creaking and splintering from
  within, as if something is moving around behind the
  wall. If they should somehow gouge their way into
  the former labs and offices that lie behind the brick,
  there will be nothing there except the remains of de-
  caying tables and shelves moldering on the rock floor.
  Some of the alcoves in the deeper reaches of the
  chamber (opposite the entrance) have been sealed over
  with concrete and cement. Only four steel doors re-
  main unobstructed... no matter what search pattern
  characters use in this chamber, they will come to each
  of them in the order listed below (they are under no
  duress to enter any of them). Once the PCs have ex-
  amined or ignored these four doors, proceed to the
  Ninth Ward, below.
  1: These great gray figures seem as if they were fashioned from the
  crag itself. Their features, past the caste of their skin and blockish
  shapes, are familiar to the characters. GMs should choose NPCs
  or PCs from their campaign (either that exist in the current cam-
  paign or from campaigns long since past) and carve their visages
  in stone here. In the Asylum, characters may see the rough faces of
  Dr. Sebastian Poe, Dr. Morrow, Shreiver, the Poet, Luther Steward,
  Elliot Manns and almost a score of other figures they cannot rec-
  ognize. Who the mumbling form is in the distance of the chamber
  cannot be determined. When the characters approach, the mad
  chanting will fall silent, leaving only an echo to mark its passing.
  2: Characters who know either Italian, Greek, Latin or all three,
  will be able to make out crumbling half-phrases from the lips of
  the colossus (GM’s discretion). They seem to form a chant, much
  like the scrawled words and symbols that decorate the perimeter
  of this chamber (see below).
  3: Characters who make an effort to study the faded messages will
  find that some of the words appear to be a mish-mash of Italian
  and Greek, maybe Latin, but beyond that, it is difficult to tell. The
  pictures appear to be of cracks (?) in the rock, leafless trees, crude
  drawings of human skulls with words smeared inside the brain
  cavity... it is clear someone is trying to communicate, but what is
  unknown. It is as if order and chaos are vying for territory on the
  surfaces of this ward, as if someone vainly attempted to commu-
  nicate something that could not be communicated with language
  or images. Characters judged to have lost touch with reality through
  their madness (GM’s discretion, see Ninth Ward, below) will de-
  tect a pattern in the scrawls... as they follow the pattern with their
  eyes, they will have a “depersonalization” experience: the chamber
  seems to drop away, and if they wish, the character is free to travel
  the path of the Heretic and enter the Ninth Ward (see below).
  
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  141
  These four abandoned research divisions are
  known collectively as the “Cocytus.” They revolve
  about the pit of the Ninth Ward like cold stone satel-
  lites.
  The Tracks: (See Description, Footnote Three) Char-
  acters following the tracks on the floor of this cham-
  ber will pass by each of the divisions of Cocytus, be-
  low, and come finally to the pit that marks the en-
  trance to the Ninth Ward. Characters should be given
  the opportunity to see the remains of the CIA research
  labs that were once part of the Asylum’s day-to-day
  operations. Hopefully, they will encounter these divi-
  sions before Dr. Shreiver or the Heretic informs them
  of what they were used for, so the PCs have an oppor-
  tunity to speculate on their function and what they
  were doing located in the depths of the Asylum.
  Canto Thirty-Two:
  The Cocytus [9A-D]
  Sally and the Poet walked
  through the gloom, through the
  great columns that seemed to stand
  at attention as they passed by
  them. The skin of the columns
  seemed to be crumbling, rotting,
  peeling away in great reddish
  chunks to reveal the gray stone
  of the crag beneath them.
  This is what we were all along
  What are you beneath the skin
  The columns seemed to be whis-
  pering to her in their awful grind-
  ing voices. Sally felt herself
  trying not to pay attention to
  the details around her, for it
  seemed like they were hooks to
  her senses, trying to lure her in
  and trap her.
  Although she could barely hear
  J’s footsteps beside her, her own
  steps were magnified... they ech-
  oed across the chamber and re-
  turned to her doubled in force,
  enough to make her feel uncom-
  fortable.
  No, it wasn’t to make her feel
  uncomfortable... Sally felt cer-
  tain. It was intended to make her
  feel like an intruder.
  By capturing her sounds, by
  calling attention to her noises,
  it was a form of heralding. They
  chamber was alerting someone or
  something to her presence.
  Sally is here
  Sally has come
  All take heed
  The chamber seemed to become
  colder with the realization, and
  the cold carried an edge to it
  that bit through the fabric of
  her patient uniform.
  Even Purge was silent, still,
  as if paralyzed by the coming of
  some great predator. It no longer
  spoke or urged to her... it seemed
  to hide behind her, as if using
  her mind as a shield.
  Sally’s steps continued their
  distant echoes. It seemed that
  Sally’s steps, freed of her body,
  were traveling into infinity.
  Cocytus, Technical: This area seems to throw the laws of physics
  out the window. The electrical field lines in this area bend in
  strange ways, and positive and negative point charges appear and
  disappear throughout this area like fireflies. Characters will not
  be able to isolate where the tremendous amount of electricity
  feeding and bending these fields is coming from... there is no func-
  tional wiring in this section of the Asylum and no generators that
  they can find.
  Characters familiar with the Asylum construction may be
  aware that the large quantity of iron in the Asylum skeleton would
  conduct electricity extremely well; if the iron skeleton of the Asy-
  lum descends to this level and rests in this chamber’s columns
  and walls, it is possible that the electrical generator could be lo-
  cated somewhere else in the Asylum and the electricity could be
  leaking on to this level, but this would be extremely inefficient,
  and it in no way explains the strange electrical fields that form
  and dissolve within this area. The electrical fields around the col-
  umns and the perimeter of this chamber seem to possess more
  definition than the fields near the center of the area (where the
  electrical energy is higher, but the field lines constantly bend and
  twist).
  Characters with compasses will notice that the needle dips
  and jerks violently in this room. Powerful magnetic fields seem
  to be present (stronger around the columns and the perimeter of
  the chamber), but the reason for their constant alternation is un-
  known. Any character who hypothesizes that the magnetic fields
  might form some sort of container around this area (like a mag-
  netic bottle or electromagnetic cage) should be told that it is pos-
  sible, but the construction of the area doesn’t lend itself to a plau-
  sible explanation of how this “container” functions. Neverthe-
  less, the difference between the density of the electrical fields in
  this area and the density of electrical fields in the Eighth Ward is
  markedly different, which seems to suggest that the high density
  electrical fields are somehow limited to this area..
  Characters who examine the electrical fields in the Eighth
  Ward will notice that it seems as if some form of “leaking” is
  taking place as a result of the interaction (?) of the magnetic and
  electrical fields in this chamber... microwaves alternating between
  the 1 Hz and 20 Hz range are emanating from this area (charac-
  ters who remain here over time, will notice that the frequency
  dips as night falls, dropping into the 1 to 7 Hz range, then rising
  as dawn spills its light over the Asylum). Exactly how all of this is
  taking place is unknown, but any characters with a knowledge of
  SC: Physics will be aware that a persistent, concentrated emis-
  sion of microwaves in the 8-12 Hz range could cause psychologi-
  cal trauma over an extended period of time. The emissions are
  strong enough to blanket the entire Asylum.
  
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  142
  • • •
  When Sally came to the first
  division of the Cocytus, she knew
  the sound of her footfalls was to
  tell the dead that she had ar-
  rived.
  Stage Directions: Characters exploring these sections
  may not realize this at first, but despite the fact that
  their sources of illumination failed as they neared the
  end of the Eighth Ward, they are somehow able to see
  while exploring these divisions.
  If the PCs ask, GMs should inform them that
  their light sources (after failing completely for a few
  minutes, hopefully leaving them in pitch blackness)
  have slowly rekindled until they shed a faint, almost
  dusty, illumination. If the characters do not have light
  sources of their own, inform the PCs that some of the
  divisions in this area must have some power remain-
  ing in them, for lamps and overhead bulbs are giving
  forth a soft, icy glow. (This illumination should leave
  most of the areas the PCs explore in shadow, leaving
  room for room for the character’s imagination and
  fears to complete the scenes they see.) Players who
  ask why their characters didn’t notice these light
  sources before (after all, they were in pitch blackness
  for a while) should be told that the light sources came
  on so slowly, it almost seemed like the character’s eyes
  were adjusting to the blackness, rather than the lamps
  slowly coming back to life.
  The slow illumination is thematic. As when the
  characters first approached the Asylum through the
  dark woods (Asylum Grounds), they should experi-
  ence another “black out” during this scene where they
  can perceive nothing at all... they do not lose con-
  sciousness, they are merely left in complete darkness
  for a few minutes. [1]
  Descriptions: Within the divisions of Cocytus lie the
  dead “patriots” of the CIA intelligence program, who
  once having murdered all of the subjects they experi-
  mented on, perished here after they injected them-
  selves with the Poe Derivative. (See the discussion of
  the Asylum’s history and the Poe Derivative, below.)
  In so doing, the researchers compounded their treach-
  ery to those they tortured in the Asylum (as they mas-
  queraded as physicians), with their treachery to each
  other (injecting each other with the derivative, despite
  its lethal consequences), to their country (abusing
  their influence in the government to conduct these
  experiments), and finally, to those that they served (in
  their attempt to “abort” the experiment by poisoning
  the patients and each other).
  After the mass murder and suicide that accom-
  panied this final act, these sections of the Asylum were
  sealed off and flooded with freezing cold to prevent
  the rapidly-mutating derivative and thoughts of those
  imprisoned in these divisions from finding their way
  into the minds and bodies of others. As a result, the
  Asylum’s gruesome history has been silently preserved
  for PCs exploring the Cocytus.
  The First Division: Caina [9A]
  Door: The great featureless steel door to this cham-
  ber is covered with the same graffiti that covers the
  perimeter of this chamber. The markings must have
  been scratched into the door with a steel stylus of some
  sort, maybe an iron nail or metal shard. A glance
  around the edge of the door suggests that this door
  once had a label or sign on it, but it has been pried
  loose or obliterated. Instead “Caina” has been smeared
  above it, as if that somehow explains the silent horror
  that lies behind the door.
  The door is unlocked, though it resists attempts
  to open it with a dull grinding noise. A chill draft will
  settle over characters as they pry the door open, much
  like opening the door of a freezer.
  The cold air in this division has an off-taste to
  it, as if it has been burned or scorched somehow.
  Description: Past the door, characters will find them-
  selves in a freezing cold room which may have once
  been intended as a morgue (and still serves as one,
  though in much more gruesome light). Many of the
  shelves and steel cabinets have been removed, and sev-
  eral skeletons are scattered throughout the room along
  with other corpses in various states of decomposition.
  The effort of opening and closing the door will cause
  some of the skulls to rattle free of their shoulders, their
  teeth spilling from their jaws and scattering across the
  icy floor.
  Two of the corpses are so close together that the
  strands of hair remaining on their skull twines into a
  frost-covered braid. They face the entrance door, their
  jaws open as if they wish to say something, but they
  can’t remember what. Glass walls divide this ward into
  translucent ice-blue planes, with frost, dust and
  scratches (from fingernails? knives?) covering their
  surface. Water drips from overhead pipes, falling upon
  the faces of the corpses and freezing there.
  1: The reason for this is that, although the characters will feel noth-
  ing at all during the black out, the GM now becomes free to either
  supplement or replace anything the characters see from here on
  with hallucinations and Mental Illusions. The period of utter black-
  ness is a transition point where the characters, at GM’s discretion,
  may step from “reality” into a consensual illusion... as they should
  have completely lost touch with their surroundings for a minute
  during the black out (presumably they could see and hear nothing
  around them), the GM and Mental Illusions can step in and take
  over. Anything the characters experience after this point can be
  reality, reality supplemented with illusion, or a convincing con-
  sensual hallucination (i.e., the characters leave their bodies lying
  on the floor of their chamber as their minds step out and take a
  look around the illusionary world provided for them). The GM
  may twist and bend what the characters see in the labs and divi-
  sions below to increase the unease and terror.
  Mentalists will be unable to detect the use of any Mental
  Illusions in this area; it is so thick with alpha wave interference
  that to all appearances, no mental powers are present or being
  employed in this section of the Western Division. The GM should
  do their utmost to make hallucinating characters believe that what
  they are experiencing is real (they will take STUN and BODY dam-
  age from illusionary attacks in this area).
  
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  143
  The mad scrawlings are not visible in this sec-
  tion, nor are there any clues as to where the corpses in
  this chamber came from or what they were doing here.
  All that can be found is death, cold and silence. [1]
  Canto Thirty-Three:
  The Second Division [9B]
  Door: The door to the second division does not want
  to open and must be forced (the grinding of the open-
  ing door sounds like a key being made). Ice and flecks
  of frost will fall from the frame as the door is pushed
  open.
  Description: More corpses lie in this room, their necks
  twisted and bent, looking up as if expecting to see
  something burst through the ceiling. One of the
  corpses looks as if he has cut his own throat with a
  scalpel... another corpse looks as if he froze in the
  middle of attacking the other doctors, having bitten
  open their skulls and fed on their brains. Chunks of
  gray matter still lie in his clawed hands, and dribble
  from his paralyzed mouth. Frosty crust and an icy
  glaze of tears covers the discolored faces of those en-
  tombed in this division.
  As with “Caina” [9A], above, there is no indica-
  tion of where these corpses came from or how they
  come to meet their fates.
  The Third Division [9C]
  Door: Two doors, an outer door and an inner door,
  stand guard over this division. Despite their weight
  and thickness, they provide no resistance to charac-
  ters wishing to enter.
  Description: Bent metal dissecting tables fill this ward,
  twisted as if crushed by some giant hand. When they
  were functional, it looked as if they were more of a
  frame for some sort of aquarium... tall enough to keep
  half the human body submerged in liquids or plasma,
  while leaving the upper half of their supine bodies
  open to researchers. The reason for these tables is un-
  known, but the remnants of straps and metal clamps
  are visible on the edges of the tables. Some of the box-
  frame aquariums are small enough to have been in-
  tended only for children or infants. There are no
  corpses here.
  The chill that infests this ward persists. Simi-
  larities to a frozen mine should be emphasized.
  Canto Thirty-Four:
  The Fourth Division [9D]
  Door: This steel door opens only under protest. The
  sound of its hinges sounds like someone screaming.
  Description: The fourth division stretches out like a
  plain, its walls so covered with frost that it looks as if
  the division is surrounded by an icy crust or shell.
  There are no tables, no shelves, no lab equipment...
  only the frost-covered remains of dead things. The
  victims within this division have become unrecogniz-
  able shapes, their bodies twisted and splintered into
  bizarre mosaics of pulp and bone. Spines have been
  bent into multi-angled shapes, muscle has been
  shucked from bone and intestines have been forced
  up through the throats of the corpses until obscene
  tubular tongues drape from their mouths.
  A narrow path leads through this division to an-
  other featureless steel door. Beyond this door, charac-
  ters will find themselves back in the central chamber
  they started from. See Ninth Ward, below.
  When they had traveled far
  within the chamber, Sally suddenly
  became aware that J’s steps were
  failing. His back was hunched, and
  his legs bent as if his back and
  shoulders had doubled in weight.
  “J...?”
  He glanced at her with ef-
  fort, his forehead wrinkled with
  pain. His lips peeled back
  slightly, as if trying to grin,
  but his expression was disturbed.
  “J, are you okay?”
  He nodded with difficulty and
  touched her lightly with his stick-
  like arm, patting her as if to
  reassure her.
  “J, we can rest—”
  He shook his head. “So close,”
  His hand, which had been reassur-
  ing her before, clamped down on
  her arm. “Sally, I h-have to tell
  you som—”
  “J, rest.” Sally put her arms
  around him, and tried to guide
  him to a resting spot against one
  of the great columns. “We can rest
  for a minute. My God, we’ve gone
  through all these wards — you must
  be exhausted.” Although she spoke
  low, her voice still echoed in
  the chamber. The Poet tried vainly
  to struggle as she led him to rest,
  but lacking strength, Sally even-
  tually overcame him. When he fell
  into his sitting position, Sally
  crouched beside him, concerned.
  “Just take it easy—”
  The Poet grasped her hand
  again, and he shook his head vio-
  lently. His lips were trembling,
  and his forehead, far from relax-
  1: Characters who examine the corpses will notice that the cold
  seems to have done wonders preserving them... many still have
  traces of scars and what look to be laboratory coats. Strangely
  enough, any characters examining the bodies will feel (although
  there is no supporting evidence that they can see) that many of
  the corpses in this room somehow killed each other.
  
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  144
  ing, creased with new worry lines.
  “Sally, there is s-s-something I
  m-must tell you. There is a way
  to escape here, b-b-but—” J’s voice
  stuttered, and Sally watched in
  alarm as he clutched his head.
  “D-damned v-voice!” J hissed in
  fury, and his eyes burned in the
  gloom. “Damned v-v-voice always
  b-betrays me!”
  Sally grasped his hand
  tighter. “J, it’s okay. What—”
  She gasped as he struck her
  hand away. “Don’t—!” His eyes nar-
  rowed, and his words were spit
  from his mouth as if acid. “I-I-
  have not been h-honest with you.
  Th-there is a way to escape, but
  th-that—” The Poet drew a ragged
  breath as if his throat was con-
  stricting. “That is not—” The
  Poet’s fists clenched, and blood
  seemed to drain from his fingers
  and from his hands until they were
  white claws. “I-I-I need you to
  reconcile something, to repair the
  damage that has been done—”
  “J, calm down,” Sally said,
  frightened. It seemed that J’s face
  was being peeled apart by con-
  flicting emotions. “What are you
  talking about?”
  J could barely manage to meet
  her gaze. “There has been so much
  betrayal already...” Sally, by
  surprise, was once again reminded
  how fragile and weak he seemed.
  “...and I have compounded it by
  luh-luh-lying�to you, I have used
  you to do something I could not
  do alone, that I could n-n-never
  do alone...” He clutched his fore-
  head, as if to claw open his skull.
  “This is no kind of escape, no
  kind, no kind—”
  Sally stared at him. The Poet’s
  breathing was labored, and his eyes
  darted from her to the gloom of
  the chamber. He spoke madly, and
  Sally’s eyes were unconsciously
  drawn to the patient uniform he
  wore.
  It seemed to cling to him, as
  if determined never to let him
  go.
  • • •
  “J, is there escape here or
  isn’t there?” Sally let her voice
  drop in warning, in the hopes that
  it would cut through his madness.
  She fought the sudden drop of her
  heart, fearing his response.
  The Poet glanced at her fear-
  fully, then nodded. “Yes, b-but—”
  Sally stared at him and let
  her face become angry. “Then
  show�me.”
  The Poet’s eyes became blank,
  and with a stilted motion, nod-
  ded. Sally pulled him to his feet.
  Though he seemed to weigh al-
  most nothing, it seemed that his
  body had given up and abandoned
  him, so Sally supported him as
  best she could.
  As she raised the Poet to his
  feet, she felt the dull throb be-
  gin in the back of her skull.
  The pain was returning.
  The Ninth Ward
  Reality
  Characters exploring the Cocytus may eventu-
  ally come to the edge of the Ninth Ward (Shreiver’s
  tracks, mentioned above, can lead characters directly
  here). Characters who cannot perceive the Ninth Ward
  (as per the two rules listed below) will simply find a
  great pit that dips into the Earth here. The space sur-
  rounding the pit is nothing more than an open area,
  ringed by the columns and gray stone walls that make
  up the perimeter of the chamber. [1] There is a heavy
  static charge in the air that makes a character’s skin
  itch and sends shivers down their back and arms.
  At the bottom of the pit are a pair of shattered
  oaken doors, stained black by fire and infested with
  mites and grubs that have burrowed into its surface.
  The doors seem pitiful, broken, and an anticlimax to
  the raw, almost primeval architecture that fills the rest
  of the Asylum. There is nothing else here. If they wish,
  characters may retrace their steps back to the Eighth
  Ward.
  Surreality
  The pit mentioned above is not the “true” Ninth
  Ward. The Ninth Ward differs from the other wards
  in the Asylum in two ways:
  1. Only certain characters can perceive it. The criteria
  for this perception is that the character must be “in-
  sane” (with an appropriate Strong or Total Intensity
  1: Characters examining the edge of the pit will find a wash of
  dried brown stains — the remains of blood, froth and pus from
  where Dr. Reeves perceived Gans and went mad (see Freak, UE, p.
  22). Characters following the fainter set of tracks from the Giants
  section, above (see footnote three) will see the remains of Reeves
  immediately. There is no psychic signature coming from the re-
  mains... all mental traces of Reeves’s transformation have been
  blotted out.
  
  145
  145
  Psychological Limitation or Temporary or Long Term
  Psychological Limitation). Vigilante Personality Dis-
  orders and sociopathic behaviors do not usually
  qualify, but Schizophrenia and other psychotic disor-
  ders do... the character must be out of touch with re-
  ality and the environment around him in order to
  enter the Ninth Ward. If the character has wandered
  through every ward in the Western Division, chances
  are they are insane already. [1]
  2. In order to enter the Ninth Ward, characters must
  have traveled a certain path through the Asylum. They
  do not have to trace this path all in one visit; the ef-
  fect is cumulative and characters can navigate sections
  of the path with every visit until the ritual is com-
  pleted. See Events, below, to determine what psycho-
  logical and physical “tumblers” the characters have to
  release in order to slide back the bolt to the Ninth
  Ward. If the GM wishes, this requirement can be
  waived if the PCs are accompanied by Dr. Shreiver or
  the Poet.
  Events
  1. Become lost in the woods outside the Asylum.
      (Dark Wood of Error)
  2. Meet the Poet. [2]
  3. Explore Asylum Grounds.
      (The True Path, Asylum Fringes)
  3. Enter the Admissions Building Vestibule.
      (Limbo)
  4. Pass Sharon Ferry without harming her.
      (Charon)
  5. Explore Admissions Building and Receiving Ward.
      (Circle One).
  6. Meet with Dr. Masters and be “sentenced” to a ward.
      (Minos). [3]
  7. Enter Wards One-Four.
      (Circles One to Four).
  8. Cross from Ward Five to Ward Six
      (The Great Tower). [4]
  9. Enter Wards Six-Eight.
      (Circles Six to Eight).
  10. Enter the end chamber at the end of the Eighth
       Ward.
      (Circle Nine, the Cocytus)
  11. Enter Ninth Ward, speak with the Heretic and leave
       the Asylum.
  As mentioned in the section describing the
  Eighth Ward, characters who wish to enter the Ninth
  Ward must turn off all sources of illumination... if they
  have been progressing deeper into the Asylum, their
  sources of illumination should have been failing
  steadily (see Stage Directions, Eighth Ward). It is im-
  portant that light and sound fail characters completely
  once they approach the final ward (see Canto Thirty-
  Two, Stage Directions, above). Once the characters
  reach the end of the Eighth Ward, they must deny their
  sight and descend into their minds, at which point, if
  they meet the necessary requirements mentioned
  above, the Ninth Ward will be revealed.
  They trekked on through the
  gloom. The Poet’s strength seemed
  to have left him completely, and
  Sally found herself beginning to
  struggle with the effort of sup-
  porting him... he seemed to gain
  gravity the farther they pro-
  ceeded. He  mumbled under his
  breath, and his words seemed to
  be splintering, breaking up, as
  if colliding with each other. In
  response, she held him tighter.
  He had carried her this far...
  she could manage the rest of the
  way.
  When the great wall suddenly
  rose before them, Sally stopped,
  and she felt a great pain burn
  through the back of her skull.
  She stared at the infinite gray
  that seemed to block her progress.
  Each stone seemed as large as she
  was. The wall was so high, so
  wide... there was no way it could
  be here—
  “J—?”
  J’s only response was to stop
  his broken stream of words and to
  stare at the wall before them.
  She watched as he bit his lower
  lip, his face ashen.
  The Wall
  Characters who have the ability to perceive and
  enter the Ninth Ward will not see the pit that lies in
  the middle (?) of this area. Instead, a pair of great black
  oak doors, studded with iron nails and mighty
  crossbeams, will rise before them, flanked by a huge
  1: This criteria can also be used as a means by which PC skeptics
  (and the GM) can disavow anything that takes place in the Ninth
  Ward.
  2: The characters do not have to take him as a guide, merely be
  aware he exists. It is important to mention here that the Poet’s
  story is not revealed in Asylum... the GM can either tailor him for
  their campaign or wait for elaboration on the Poet’s past and his
  personal agenda in future Hero supplements.
  3: The character is under no compulsion to accept the sentence or
  deal passively with Masters. Note that Masters is not dealt with
  (i.e., punished) in the Asylum narrative so that he can still serve as
  an adversary in the GM’s campaign.
  4: If the PCs have not followed steps one through seven, they may
  find it impossible to enter the Sixth Ward, as the patients will at-
  tack them en masse if they attempt to enter the Western Division
  without having followed the path of the Heretic.
  
  146
  146
  gray stone wall. The wall is perhaps the largest thing
  that characters have ever seen, or even imagined... the
  gray stone rises into the sky and stretch off to the sides
  so far its terminus cannot be seen. It cannot possibly
  exist here, in the bowels of the Western Division, but
  it does. The amount of weight, of gravity, that ema-
  nates from the doors and the wall press in on the
  character’s senses, forcing one’s eyes back into the
  skull, and dulling one’s hearing and touch, silently
  crushing them. The doors offer no resistance to the
  character’s touch; if characters place their hands upon
  the blackened surface and push against it, it will si-
  lently pull back on its hinges.
  Characters will not be able to see anything be-
  yond the open doors. If they wish to enter, see
  Descension, below.
  Sally became conscious that
  the Wall was not unbroken, and
  she felt herself become weak as
  she saw the great black doors that
  interrupted the Wall’s surface.
  They were mighty doors, weath-
  ered black like gates, and it
  seemed that they were so large
  that no human could move them.
  “J—” Sally’s voice dropped to
  a whisper, and it seemed as if
  the gates crushed her words as
  they fell from her mouth, and her
  head throbbed stronger.
  But J was silent. He glanced
  once at the doors, then forced
  his eyes away, as if unable to
  match the door’s weight.
  J did not have to speak. Sally
  knew, instinctively, that beyond
  this door was the only escape from
  the Asylum that she would find.
  This is what J had led her to,
  whatever his intentions.
  Though her body rebelled
  against the gesture, she reached
  for the door and touched it
  lightly, as if a caress.
  The gates opened at her touch,
  and rolled back silently on their
  hinges.
  Beside her, the Poet shivered.
  Sally stared into darkness.
  The Escape
  This the lowest point in the Asylum, the point
  to which all matter and thought descend, the ultimate
  manifestation of human gravity. At the GM’s discre-
  tion, characters who have reached this point will gain
  +10 Experience Points if they have survived the other
  wards and obstacles in their way. If the PCs survive
  their encounter with the Heretic, at the GM’s discre-
  tion, they may find themselves back at the entrance
  gate of the Asylum (without needing to retrace their
  steps back through the institution).
  If the characters are unable to perceive the Ninth
  Ward (as per the rules, above) the characters may find
  a caved-in tunnel within the pit in Cocytus (in the
  Reality, above)... by clawing through the dirt and bro-
  ken stone, they may uncover a tunnel that leads out-
  side the Asylum (this tunnel is one-way; characters
  will only be able to leave through this tunnel, not re-
  turn back along its length).
  It was not true that the Poet
  remained silent, but it had seemed
  that way when they had come to
  the Wall and the great doors. He
  had spoke, but the words were lost
  like leaves in a storm, twisted
  and ripped from his throat to scat-
  ter across the expanse around him.
  “Sally, I knew�Sam—”
  But his voice lacked strength,
  his words were lost in the space
  that surrounded them. Sally, for
  her part, no longer seemed to be
  listening, her senses drowned in
  the dark gravity beyond the door.
  There was only one way to travel.
  Sally grasped J’s hand, and
  as one, they stepped through the
  great oaken doors.
  • • •
  They stepped off the edge of
  the world.
  Descension
  Sally was not certain what she
  had expected to lie behind the
  great oak doors. Her feet tread
  silently upon the new surface,
  slightly yielding, and it muffled
  her footfalls.
  “J?” she whispered. There was
  no response... and though she
  moved, she became aware that she
  could see nothing around her; it
  was not darkness, not blindness,
  but it was as if her senses was
  aware of space, but no details,
  no forms or shapes were visible.
  Panic welled up within her.
  “J?” she whispered again. Her
  voice was lost, absorbed in the
  space that surrounded her.
  She swallowed, then almost by
  instinct, kept moving. Was she
  descending? There was...
  ...stone beneath her. Her
  footsteps were suddenly no longer
  
  147
  147
  muffled, and the space beneath her
  resolved into great black flag-
  stones that sloped gradually down-
  wards.
  Sally descended.
  • • •
  Sally did not know what to
  expect. The stones continued to
  fall away beneath her feet as she
  descended. She kept thinking that
  she must have traveled a mile into
  the Earth, but still the steps
  led down into the gloom. The stairs
  must lead somewh—
  Suddenly her feet struck a new
  surface, and the haze, the space
  before her resolved itself, as if
  being focused through some great
  lens.
  Before her was a great oaken
  dining table, black. It rested on
  a floor of lustrous black marble,
  and vague shapes, bookcases per-
  haps, formed the semblance of
  walls. Despite this, there was
  still that frightening sense of
  space�as before that any moment,
  it would all drop away, and she
  would plunge into the waiting
  abyss.
  Two great wooden chairs sat
  at opposite ends of the table.
  They were so large they looked to
  be thrones.
  Sally was about to wonder who
  would sit in such chairs, when
  she noticed that one was already
  occupied.
  • • •
  “J?” she whispered. Her words
  twisted in the space between her-
  self and the figure in the chair.
  But the man who sat at the
  table was not J. He was a cold,
  stately looking gentleman, lean
  of features. There was a certain
  majesty in the way he sat at the
  table, as if he was presiding over
  it, ruling it.
  He glanced up as she stared
  at him. It was like staring into
  a black and white photograph...
  the man was a scholar, a profes-
  sor of some sort...
  ...he was an echo of some-
  thing, Sally realized. The figure
  was but a trace of the terrible
  weight and space that surrounded
  her. The man was dressed in shad-
  ows, his eyes black pools that
  reflected nothing but darkness.
  “Hello,” Sally found herself
  saying despite her mind screaming
  at her not to speak, not to draw
  attention to herself. “I... feel
  like I know you.”
  The echo did not respond.
  After a moment, it beckoned
  her to sit down.
  • • •
  Sally was suddenly aware that
  the table was set. There was blood
  red liquid in a gray goblet and
  an empty setting before her. The
  echo’s glass was empty, as if he
  had just drained its contents.
  There was some significance
  in the echo’s empty goblet, but
  it eluded Sally.
  She realized that the echo
  wanted to speak with her.
  Dr. Adolph Gans
  Note: Before the death of his body and his subsequent
  metamorphosis, Gans had the statistics listed below;
  the Characteristics hold true for him before he turned
  forty years old... GMs using older versions of Dr. Gans
  in their campaigns, should refer to “Power Notes,” be-
  low.
  Dr. Adolph Gans
  Val
  Char           Cost
  Combat Stats
  10
  STR
  0
  OCV: 4
  13
  DEX
  9
  DCV: 4
  10
  CON
  0
  ECV: 5
  10
  BODY
  0
  Phases: 6, 12
  18
  INT
  8
  15
  EGO
  10
  Costs
  13
  PRE
  3
  10
  COM
  0
  Char:
  32     Base:    50
    2
  PD
  0
   +
        +
    2
  ED
  0
  Powers:
  63     Disad:  50
    2
  SPD
  0
   =
        =
    4
  REC
  0
  Totals:
  95
      100
  20
  END
  0
  22
  STUN
  2
  Skills
  Psychiatric Training
  1
  Licensed Medical Doctor
  1
  Licensed Psychiatrist
  1
  Conversation, 8-
  1
  Persuasion, 8-
  3
  PS: Psychiatrist, 13-
  2
  SC: General Medicine, 11-
  5
  SC: Psychiatry (INT), 15-
  
  148
  148
  Medical Superintendent of the Asylum
  3
  Fringe “Benefit”: Medical Superintendent of the
  Asylum
  14
  Contacts: Advisory Committee on State Medical
  Care, Faculty in Fell’s Point University Depart-
  ment of Psychology, the Fell’s Point Department
  of Planning, Mental Hygiene Committee of the
  Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Fell’s Point,
  Dr. Thomas Morrow, Dr. Sebastian Poe, the
  Subcommittee on the State Organization of
  Health, all at an 11 or less.
  3
  Bureaucracy, 12-
  3
  AK: The Asylum, 12-
  3
  KS: The Asylum, 12-
  2
  KS: Psychiatric Subculture, 11-
  1
  KS: Research of Dr. Sebastian Poe, 8-
  1
  SC: Cerebellic Mutations, 8-
  Former College Professor
  3
  KS: English Grammar (INT), 13-
  2
  PS: College Professor, 11-
  2
  PS: Editor, 11-
  Background Skills
  3
  Lightsleep
  9
  Language: German, Italian and Latin (Fluent)
  50+
  Disadvantages
  5
  DNPC: Dr. Shreiver (his wife, Norm), 8-
  Psychological Limitations:
  20
  Authoritarian (Very Common, Strong)
  15
  Fear of Death (Thanatophobia, Common,
  Strong) [1]
  5
  Reputation: “Medical Superintendent of Fell’s
  Point Asylum,” 8-
  5
  Rivalry: Dr. Shreiver (Professional)
  BACKGROUND: There is something I
  must say before you read this frag-
  ment.
  Gans was simply a man. He had
  the usual human fears, insecuri-
  ties, hates, desires... ulti-
  mately, such things are unremark-
  able. It was only the peculiar
  circumstances that were forced
  upon Gans that threaten to color
  this fact, an attempt to paint a
  picture of some genius, vision-
  ary, destroyer, monster... such
  things could be said of anyone
  when viewed from a historical per-
  spective.
  So I say again, Gans was sim-
  ply a man.
  • • •
  Gans was born in 1898.
  • • •
  Gans was born in the Asylum.
  His father was a schizophrenic,
  his mother a nurse. It is pos-
  sible that they were both mad,
  but the pregnancy was not an act
  of violence, no rape of body or
  mind, nor was the conception a
  thing of violence.
  Still, to be born in the world
  within the Asylum...
  ...I can think of few worse
  fates. What is it that can be given
  birth to in these halls?
  To which I answer as the
  corpses in the Cocytus answer:
  Death.
  • • •
  Gans never knew the name of
  his true parents. I doubt he even
  realized that he was adopted. He
  was absorbed into the gentry of
  Fell’s Point, the somber Gans fam-
  ily, and educated in the best
  schools. He chose to practice psy-
  chiatry.
  The field held a curious in-
  terest for him that he could not
  fully explain.
  1: When Gans gained the 40+ Age Disadvantage, this Psychologi-
  cal Limitation increased to a Very Common, Strong Disadvantage;
  when Gans gained the 60+ Age Disadvantage, this Psychological
  Limitation increased to a Very Common, Total Disadvantage. Also
  see Power Notes, below.
  DR. ADOLPH GANS
  
  149
  149
  • • •
  Gans took his wife, Shreiver, from the Midwest.
  It was a marriage of convenience. Shreiver’s father had
  known Gans and had asked him to care for his family
  should he die overseas during World War II. Gans
  agreed, promising to provide for his family and in-
  sure that his daughter receive the education that her
  father wished. As it happened, Shreiver’s father died
  in Europe near the end of the war.
  And so Gans traveled to the Shreiver’s farm in
  the Midwest and came upon the daughter of the
  household. He took her east to Fell’s Point.
  • • •
  While Shreiver did not want
  to love, Gans did not know how to
  love. For him, love was a form of
  control.
  Love was something to be taken,
  possessed, and held fast. It was
  not something to be demonstrated
  or shown.
  Or felt.
  • • •
  To compound his condition,
  Gans loved as he lived. For him,
  life was also something to be
  taken, categorized and possessed.
  When Shreiver became his wife, she
  was so alive that she forced him
  to reevaluate his own definition
  of life.
  Gans was determined that he
  would not give up his life as long
  as doubt remained that he had not
  fully understood what life was.
  What his life was.
  I suppose that there was a
  certain bravery in the gesture,
  in his refusal to surrender, but
  that would be an unfair charac-
  terization. This doubt, this re-
  fusal to give up the life he had
  not bothered to examine... I imag-
  ine that there was another reason
  for it.
  Shreiver, at first, called it
  pride.
  But it was the black horse of
  Fear, breath steaming from its
  nostrils, that pursued Gans in his
  dreams and drove him ever onwards.
  • • •
  In April of 1949, Gans was officially appointed
  executive head of the Asylum and given the title of
  Medical Director. Once he was established in his po-
  sition, Gans began to reorganize the structure of the
  hospital in an attempt to improve patient care. Ever
  since his appointment, he was a firm advocate of
  bringing experienced therapists and physicians to the
  Asylum in order to improve its reputation for both
  instruction and treatment.
  • • •
  Gans was not the Asylum’s first
  caretaker. Many had come before,
  and Gans read of them. Bourne’s
  journals, and those of Ross, proved
  curious to him.
  In them, he read of strange
  things that caught his attention.
  The journals grew from curiosi-
  ties to obsessions.
  In them, he began to believe
  that something else could be given
  birth in the Asylum.
  To this belief, I give the
  same answer as those entombed in
  the Cocytus give with their si-
  lence.
  • • •
  Gans and Shreiver were married in 1950, shortly
  after Shreiver had completed the first stages of her edu-
  cation. She finally joined Gans at the Asylum in the
  late 1950s.
  • • •
  Gans’s welcoming of an open staff brought
  many new physicians to the Asylum.
  • • •
  Of Dr. Poe, and of Dr. Mor-
  row, more will be said later on.
  I will not echo them here. Poe
  and Morrow, however, were not men
  driven by fear, only curiosity.
  They saw in the Asylum and Gans
  an opportunity to test this curi-
  osity. The CIA gave them the re-
  sources, the tools... Gans gave
  them subjects and a free reign.
  I do not know if Poe and Mor-
  row were evil men.
  I do know that they did not
  think of themselves as evil, and
  most likely did not believe in
  the word. Things simply were to
  them, and events and actions were
  just that, events and actions, that
  should not be tainted with judg-
  ments such as ‘good’ and ‘evil.’
  Like Gans, they were simply
  men.
  
  150
  150
  • • •
  Gans became ill in the 1960s. He was still active
  in the Asylum bureaucracy, but he became physically
  weaker as the years wore on. He began to make reno-
  vations to the geriatric center in the Asylum and spent
  much of his time there with the older patients.
  By 1964, Gans was spending the majority of his
  time with the older patients, supervising the opera-
  tion and maintenance of the Ross House.
  • • •
  It was one thing, Gans dis-
  covered, to know one is to die,
  and it was quite another to feel
  it growing within your bones day
  upon day. There are many ways in
  which to die, and one of the most
  terrible is to die a lingering
  death, to die in pain.
  His growing obsession with the
  elderly patients may have been some
  attempt at kinship, but I cannot
  say for certain.
  In his dreams, the black horse
  pursued him and drew ever closer.
  • • •
  After a lingering illness, Gans died in 1969. His
  passage was a great loss to the institution, and his por-
  trait joined those of the other Superintendents within
  the Asylum’s museum.
  • • •
  I think Gans knew that he was
  to die in the Asylum. In the end,
  he had no choice in the matter.
  As he had been born within its
  walls, he died there.
  Perhaps he was reborn there,
  but again, I cannot say that for
  certain.
  Nevertheless, in 1969, some-
  thing was created in the bowels
  of the Asylum. It awakened,
  stirred, became aware.
  This being called itself the
  Heretic.
  And it promised paradise for
  mankind.
  PERSONALITY: Gans was governed by insecurity and
  fear. His insecurity lead him to seek a near-obsessive
  control over his environment and guided his career
  path into a field where he would be in a dominant
  position to those that came to him for help (the ill-
  nesses of his patients also led him to believe, and un-
  realistically so, that the “rest of the world” was pos-
  sessed by an intellectual and emotional weakness that
  bolstered his feelings of superiority). His fear of death
  lead him to betray those under his care in the hopes
  of allaying this fear with a “miracle cure” that was both
  unrealistic and desperate (see Timeline: Libations later
  on in this chapter).
  There is no doubt that Gans was an intelligent
  individual. He was well-read in the classics and phi-
  losophy, and he knew a great deal about the field of
  psychiatry. Nevertheless, he seemed to place himself
  on a pedestal when he compared himself to other psy-
  chiatrists, and he would inevitably demean his peer
  group with dismissive comments or harsh criticism
  when the opportunity presented itself.
  It would be fair to say that Gans knew a great
  deal about things, but little about himself or other
  people. His inability to predict or understand some
  of the essentials of human behavior proved to be a
  great handicap, both in his profession and in his rela-
  tionship with his wife.
  QUOTE: Gans never had a distinctive quote. He had
  a preference for complicated words and concepts,
  however, and he would inevitably use obscure termi-
  nology and concepts when simpler ones would serve.
  If someone asked Gans to stop one of lectures to ex-
  plain a concept or provide a definition, Gans would
  use this as further proof of his own intellectual supe-
  riority.
  POWERS/TACTICS: As mentioned in Dr. Shreiver’s
  narration, time’s passage took its toll on Gans’s body.
  When he reached Age: 40+, his Running dropped to
  4”, and when he reached 60+, his Running dropped
  to 2”. Despite his increasing infirmity, Gans refused
  all help and though walking about the Asylum ex-
  hausted him, he refused a wheelchair or a walker. GMs
  using Gans between age forty and sixty years should
  give him a ten point Physical Limitation to represent
  his increasing illness, and for periods after age sixty,
  this Physical Limitation should be increased to fifteen,
  then to twenty points as death closes on him. He was
  frequently affected with tremors, failing eyesight and
  persistent nightmares.
  APPEARANCE: Gans is a cold gentleman with a dis-
  tant look. Tall, thin and methodical, his small dark
  eyes continually scour whatever room he is in, look-
  ing at everything except the person he is addressing.
  Short black hair and a thin, precisely trimmed mus-
  tache frame a narrow face that wrinkles in a scholarly
  fashion when he speaks. Gans prefers dressing in black
  and earth tones, and his skin is pale, as if he has spent
  his entire life below ground. He has a tendency to lec-
  ture and prefers leading conversations rather than lis-
  tening to them. He does not waste his breath on so-
  cial pleasantries.
  
  151
  151
  • • •
  There was a silence as the
  story was unfolded and laid to
  rest upon the table. The fact that
  Shreiver had been married, had been
  tied to anyone, caused Sally some
  measure of surprise.
  She did not think Shreiver
  capable of such a thing.
  She found her eyes drawn to
  the empty goblet that rested be-
  fore the echo of Gans, and the
  terrible feeling of the abyss re-
  surfaced around her.
  • • •
  With the rising abyss, the echo
  of Gans, the table, the vague walls
  became insubstantial... and Sally
  again felt that she was viewing
  only the tiniest fragment of some-
  thing far larger... something far
  larger than she could imagine.
  She did not recognize her fear
  at first.
  It came as awareness. A sen-
  sation, a sudden, overwhelming
  consciousness of her surroundings.
  She felt as if she could feel ev-
  ery current of air, every indrawn
  breath, every scratch of stone on
  stone... it was as if her senses
  were magnified to such an extent
  that they paralyzed her.
  The echoes, the setting be-
  fore her dissipated (was dis-
  missed?), and Sally watched as the
  floor and semblance of walls be-
  came gray stone.
  • • •
  Sally was desperately trying
  to anchor her senses on the end-
  less plain of gray stones when
  that which cast the echoes came
  upon her.
  With its coming, walls splin-
  tered from the plains and rose
  around Sally like great spears
  hurled at the sky. Beneath her,
  the ground shuddered as the stones
  plunged beneath the Earth to sup-
  port the rising walls. Before
  Sally’s perceptions could catch
  up, she was imprisoned within gray,
  her body forced to kneel upon the
  floor by the fearful tremors of
  the stone.
  She lay like a supplicant when
  the caster of echoes came upon
  her.
  Its voice, if it could be
  called a voice, was the most ter-
  rible thing Sally had ever expe-
  rienced.
  The Heretic
  The Ninth Ward has only one inmate. The elec-
  trical charge the characters may have noticed in the
  Cocytus (see The Giants, footnote four) is the only
  physical manifestation of the Heretic’s presence. The
  electrical charges and fields are what could loosely be
  considered the Heretic’s “consciousness.” The density
  and intensity of the electrical fields are directly pro-
  portional to the energy the Heretic expends in thought
  or in using his mental powers.
  The Heretic must expend a certain amount of
  energy in order to remain conscious and therein lies
  his problem... due to the Asylum’s peculiar construc-
  tion, the Heretic’s growing consciousness strengthens
  the electromagnetic fields that form the walls of his
  prison (see The Giants, footnote four, above, and The
  Prison, below). The more aware he becomes, the more
  electricity he generates, and the stronger the prison
  walls become. If he reduced the amount of energy he
  spent in conscious thought to a level in which he might
  be able to escape, he would either go into a dormant
  state (only to have the field reestablish itself when he
  awakened) or dissipate completely. [1] The Heretic
  believes Dr. Shreiver is responsible for the construc-
  tion and maintenance of the electromagnetic field
  (untrue), and it is the source of much of his anger.
  The Heretic currently exists at a delicate equi-
  librium. He has restrained his electrical activity to such
  an extent that he can affect the Asylum from inside
  his prison, but only to create hallucinations and to
  affect the dreams of patients within the Asylum who
  are predisposed toward hallucinations and madness.
  Author’s Note: The Heretic (Gans) is a spiritual en-
  tity, not a bundle of statistics. The extent of his power
  cannot (and should not) be measured in Hero terms.
  BACKGROUND: In my last dying moments as I felt
  my shadow step from my body, I cheated death and
  sealed my fate.
  As long as the Asylum remains, my remains
  shall be trapped here. It is the construction of the
  place, the impressions left by all who have died within
  these halls.
  The cold iron skeleton of the Divisions holds
  me like a cage, its ribs arching over me,
  In this, the bitch queen has COMPOUNDED
  my prison. The final wards of the Asylum are just that,
  wards. Their heavy iron produces walls beyond which
  1: In essence, the Heretic shores up the foundations of his own
  prison simply by existing.
  
  152
  152
  I cannot pass. It is some thing fashioned of magne-
  tism and electricity that binds me.
  And so I languish here, as I did in life, with mad-
  ness as my companion.
  It has forced me to struggle with the definition
  of the universe itself, called me to battle at that vio-
  lent edge where things are made and unmade, where
  logic is drawn into chaos.
  • • •
  The mind does not define life. The mind is a
  fiction. It is an arrogant fantasy created by mankind
  to fool itself into believing that humans are some-
  thing MORE than matter, something MORE than
  mortal clay.
  The mind is a vanity that elevates its own im-
  portance and hides its physical nature.
  Thus, when the mind breaks, as all physical
  things do, the pain is compounded by the collapse of
  this fantasy. The pain is doubled by the reminder that
  the human mind, too, is but a thing of clay.
  When the mind breaks, all sinews and muscles
  of behavior are broken, from the innermost sensa-
  tions of consciousness to the outermost manifesta-
  tions.
  This is death.
  You shall know this death. All of you.
  In this death, you shall be elevated.
  • • •
  No longer do sinews hold my bones and flesh
  together.
  No longer am I surrounded by layers of pain
  and abuse, no longer am I defined by the strata of
  physical existence.
  I am so much MORE now.
  There is so much MORE.
  PERSONALITY: [1] The Heretic has tapped into the
  collective consciousness of humanity. As such, his per-
  sonality fluctuates in tandem with the emotional un-
  dercurrents of human beings themselves. It is possible
  that the Heretic can manipulate these undercurrents
  to some extent.
  While the Heretic is caged in the depths of the
  Asylum, the range of his perceptions are limited, and
  it is unlikely he can pierce past the Asylum environs
  to observe (or affect) the outside world. Still, it is pos-
  sible that some of his psychic energy leaks from his
  prison, triggering random mental mutations in oth-
  ers (see Canto Thirty-One, The Giants, footnote four).
  As it is suspected that the Heretic’s personality
  fluctuates depending on the thoughts and emotional
  undercurrents of those in close proximity to him, it is
  likely the high concentration of disturbed patients in
  the Asylum exerts some influence on him. The extent
  of this influence is unknown.
  Dr. Shreiver does not use the title “Heretic” when
  addressing her late husband and always calls him by
  his last name, “Gans.” Among her other reasons for
  doing so, she privately believes that any reminder of
  the Heretic’s human roots (such as his “human” name)
  is a means of humbling him. She has never seriously
  considered the notion that the Heretic and Gans may
  be two separate personalities.
  QUOTE: The Heretic has no distinctive quote; al-
  though he can speak to others telepathically, it requires
  tremendous effort for him to “focus” enough to use
  language. Whenever possible, he communicates with
  others through intuition and images; the listener is
  usually unaware that their thoughts and urges are not
  their own.
  Presumably, it is easier for the Heretic to com-
  municate with sleeping or unconscious characters or
  with any character who has become temporarily in-
  sane and/or has psychotic features. The reason for his
  ease in communicating with his estranged wife has
  never been explained.
  POWERS/TACTICS: The Heretic claims to be able to
  influence the emotions and thought processes of hu-
  man beings, the range of which is unknown. Dr.
  Shreiver believes that the Heretic is responsible for the
  creation of many of the Asylum inmates, and sustains
  their insanity when she is on the verge of curing them.
  The Heretic is believed to possess an arsenal of
  esoteric psychic powers; it is possible he can employ
  any mental ability (at any intensity he wishes), merely
  by thinking about it. If the information listed in the
  Personality and Powers/Tactics section is true, the
  Heretic’s powers may be limited only by range (i.e.,
  the area within his electromagnetic prison). To Dr.
  Shreiver’s knowledge, however, the Heretic has never
  manipulated the physical environment of his prison
  in an attempt to free himself... he either cannot or will
  not do so.
  If the Heretic’s claims to Dr. Shreiver (see her
  narration in the Preludes section) are to be believed,
  time is no barrier to his perceptions. Shreiver is in-
  clined to believe that the rantings of the Heretic are
  merely grandiose delusions he fabricates to amuse
  himself. The things of which he speaks are clearly im-
  possible.
  The Heretic’s motivations with regards to hu-
  manity have been ambiguous at best. Dr. Shreiver be-
  lieves the Heretic’s plans for humanity are inimical
  and is determined to destroy him.
  Power Notes
  1. The Heretic cannot be combated in any conven-
  tional manner unless the GM wishes. It is intended
  that the Heretic’s displacement from the world of
  game mechanics serve as a catalyst for players to think
  of solutions other than combat for dealing with the
  1: There is some evidence to suggest that Gans and the Heretic are
  not the same personality. It is likely that Gans’s personality was
  absorbed and changed by the metamorphosis into the Heretic, and
  Gans now exists as only an echo in the Heretic’s psyche.
  
  153
  153
  problem he presents for a campaign world. It is pos-
  sible the Heretic could somehow be outmaneuvered
  or defeated through role-playing, but how this would
  work would depend on the PCs involved.
  2. The Heretic apparently cannot psychically free him-
  self from the electromagnetic casket in which he is
  imprisoned. Shreiver has also formed other hypoth-
  eses on why the Heretic remains imprisoned:
  • If he was surrounded by a “conventional” human
  population he might be able to tap into the collective
  consciousness enough to slip between the bars of his
  prison. But among the high concentration of dis-
  turbed patients in the Asylum whose minds are “bro-
  ken,” this is not believed to be possible.
  • Shreiver suspects that the Heretic cannot possess
  someone’s body and walk free of his cage because a
  human body simply cannot hold all that he has be-
  come... should he attempt to enter a human vessel, he
  may lose all his mental abilities and enhanced per-
  ceptions (he becomes “grounded”). Should the body
  he possess be mentally disturbed as well (extremely
  likely in the Asylum), he will also be in danger of los-
  ing his identity in addition to his mental powers.
  Shreiver finds the irony of his condition (a disembod-
  ied ‘all-powerful’ mental entity that is unable to free
  itself because it lacks that which its scorns [physical-
  ity]) to provide slight satisfaction when her anger
  threatens to boil over.
  • Gans is not believed to have the ability to focus his
  powers enough in order to be able to mind control
  someone to dismantle the cage (if such a thing were
  possible... it would take a few megatons of explosives).
  3. The Heretic is more appropriate for mentalist or
  horror campaigns than for conventional Dark Cham-
  pions (to clarify, the Heretic does not exist in the pub-
  lished Dark Champions universe except as an halluci-
  nation and delusion in the minds of the Asylum pa-
  tients and staff). He is mentioned here only for back-
  ground purposes. In low-powered campaigns, his in-
  visible presence should be hinted at, much like a myth
  or an Asylum legend, but not dwelled upon. Who
  would believe such a thing?
  The Prison
  Shreiver is not a physicist, and she knows pre-
  cious little about what has happened to Gans, the na-
  ture of her late husband’s current incarnation (the
  Heretic), or the effects of the Heretic’s presence on
  his immediate environment. If the information listed
  for the Heretic’s Personality and Powers/Tactics sec-
  tion is true (i.e., the Heretic has tapped into the col-
  lective consciousness of humanity and his personal-
  ity fluctuates in tandem with the emotional under-
  currents of human beings themselves), then it is likely
  the Heretic cannot exist without the presence of hu-
  man beings. If he was freed from his prison, it is prob-
  able that some form of symbiosis would result, with
  the Heretic both defining and being defined by the
  imaginations and thoughts of humanity.
  As it stands, however, the Heretic is sealed in-
  side a one-way mental prison. While the prison pre-
  vents the Heretic from spreading his influence far from
  the Ninth Ward, it does not shield him from the
  thoughts of others in the Asylum. As more mentally
  ill are brought to the Asylum, the Heretic is bom-
  barded with stimulations, sensations, desires, passions,
  fears, phobias, and hysterias... as the mad and the in-
  sane clot the halls of the Asylum, the Heretic descends
  further into madness.
  APPEARANCE: The Heretic no longer has human
  form and can only be perceived by characters with
  mental powers and/or those characters suffering from
  psychotic symptoms. Even in these cases, however, the
  Heretic only communicates and displays itself as an
  echo of its total being (i.e., the character may speak to
  fragments of the Heretic’s personality, usually through
  a Mental Illusion of a human being, such as Gans,
  Shreiver, and so on); if the Heretic appeared to a char-
  acter in its true form, the vision would drive charac-
  ters insane (and may actually cause a “radiation acci-
  dent”; see Freak in Underworld Enemies.) This “insan-
  ity-induction” effect is assumed to be automatic; it is
  much like a General Presence Attack of overpowering
  intensity. The Heretic will never use this insanity-in-
  duction as an attack unless the GM wishes the Her-
  etic to do so (i.e., as a plot effect).
  Truths
  So you have at last come for
  So you have at last come for
  So you have at last come for
  So you have at last come for
  So you have at last come for
  the TRUTH.
  the TRUTH.
  the TRUTH.
  the TRUTH.
  the TRUTH.
  The Heretic’s whispers oblit-
  erated the cries that rose from
  Sally’s throat. Within the narrow
  gray walls that entombed her, he
  seemed to grow in rage, as if
  Sally’s physicality was an af-
  front.
  Yet you have come CRAWLING as
  Yet you have come CRAWLING as
  Yet you have come CRAWLING as
  Yet you have come CRAWLING as
  Yet you have come CRAWLING as
  a crab crawls, backwards, across
  a crab crawls, backwards, across
  a crab crawls, backwards, across
  a crab crawls, backwards, across
  a crab crawls, backwards, across
  a terrain of fear and hypocrisy,
  a terrain of fear and hypocrisy,
  a terrain of fear and hypocrisy,
  a terrain of fear and hypocrisy,
  a terrain of fear and hypocrisy,
  trusting in good fortune, praying
  trusting in good fortune, praying
  trusting in good fortune, praying
  trusting in good fortune, praying
  trusting in good fortune, praying
  for it, begging for it as a DOG
  for it, begging for it as a DOG
  for it, begging for it as a DOG
  for it, begging for it as a DOG
  for it, begging for it as a DOG
  begs.
  begs.
  begs.
  begs.
  begs.
  Now you must embrace the POWER
  Now you must embrace the POWER
  Now you must embrace the POWER
  Now you must embrace the POWER
  Now you must embrace the POWER
  of misfortune.
  of misfortune.
  of misfortune.
  of misfortune.
  of misfortune.
  For there is no greater IN-
  For there is no greater IN-
  For there is no greater IN-
  For there is no greater IN-
  For there is no greater IN-
  STRUMENT of teaching, of stirring
  STRUMENT of teaching, of stirring
  STRUMENT of teaching, of stirring
  STRUMENT of teaching, of stirring
  STRUMENT of teaching, of stirring
  inactive minds to new heights, of
  inactive minds to new heights, of
  inactive minds to new heights, of
  inactive minds to new heights, of
  inactive minds to new heights, of
  stripping away ignorance and un-
  stripping away ignorance and un-
  stripping away ignorance and un-
  stripping away ignorance and un-
  stripping away ignorance and un-
  learning.
  learning.
  learning.
  learning.
  learning.
  And YOU, Miss Robinson.
  And YOU, Miss Robinson.
  And YOU, Miss Robinson.
  And YOU, Miss Robinson.
  And YOU, Miss Robinson.
  You have MUCH to unlearn.
  You have MUCH to unlearn.
  You have MUCH to unlearn.
  You have MUCH to unlearn.
  You have MUCH to unlearn.
  
  154
  154
  • • •
  They grasp the frail belief
  They grasp the frail belief
  They grasp the frail belief
  They grasp the frail belief
  They grasp the frail belief
  that they are in control here and
  that they are in control here and
  that they are in control here and
  that they are in control here and
  that they are in control here and
  call it FAITH. They believe it is
  call it FAITH. They believe it is
  call it FAITH. They believe it is
  call it FAITH. They believe it is
  call it FAITH. They believe it is
  strength.
  strength.
  strength.
  strength.
  strength.
  I call their belief DELUSION.
  I call their belief DELUSION.
  I call their belief DELUSION.
  I call their belief DELUSION.
  I call their belief DELUSION.
  They clutch at it because they
  They clutch at it because they
  They clutch at it because they
  They clutch at it because they
  They clutch at it because they
  cannot bear to believe otherwise.
  cannot bear to believe otherwise.
  cannot bear to believe otherwise.
  cannot bear to believe otherwise.
  cannot bear to believe otherwise.
  This makes them WEAK.
  This makes them WEAK.
  This makes them WEAK.
  This makes them WEAK.
  This makes them WEAK.
  The whispers fell in the grow-
  ing gloom that was crawling across
  the walls of his prison. The voice
  grew deeper, more ragged, and as
  the darkness fell, Sally, some-
  where in the back of her mind,
  knew she was witnessing some hor-
  rifying metamorphosis.
  The withered bitch Queen
  The withered bitch Queen
  The withered bitch Queen
  The withered bitch Queen
  The withered bitch Queen
  Shreiver believes she HOLDS us
  Shreiver believes she HOLDS us
  Shreiver believes she HOLDS us
  Shreiver believes she HOLDS us
  Shreiver believes she HOLDS us
  here. Her belief casts the shadow
  here. Her belief casts the shadow
  here. Her belief casts the shadow
  here. Her belief casts the shadow
  here. Her belief casts the shadow
  over them all.
  over them all.
  over them all.
  over them all.
  over them all.
  Only the Heretic’s eyes were
  visible in the darkness, the white
  orbs burning from within.
  She fools herself in that she
  She fools herself in that she
  She fools herself in that she
  She fools herself in that she
  She fools herself in that she
  is one step ahead of us, preserv-
  is one step ahead of us, preserv-
  is one step ahead of us, preserv-
  is one step ahead of us, preserv-
  is one step ahead of us, preserv-
  ing a veil-thin fragile BALANCE
  ing a veil-thin fragile BALANCE
  ing a veil-thin fragile BALANCE
  ing a veil-thin fragile BALANCE
  ing a veil-thin fragile BALANCE
  in which she can barely keep us
  in which she can barely keep us
  in which she can barely keep us
  in which she can barely keep us
  in which she can barely keep us
  confined.
  confined.
  confined.
  confined.
  confined.
  She is wrong.
  She is wrong.
  She is wrong.
  She is wrong.
  She is wrong.
  WE are in control. The bal-
  WE are in control. The bal-
  WE are in control. The bal-
  WE are in control. The bal-
  WE are in control. The bal-
  ance was broken so long ago that
  ance was broken so long ago that
  ance was broken so long ago that
  ance was broken so long ago that
  ance was broken so long ago that
  they have forgotten their defeat,
  they have forgotten their defeat,
  they have forgotten their defeat,
  they have forgotten their defeat,
  they have forgotten their defeat,
  the hour when they, the keepers,
  the hour when they, the keepers,
  the hour when they, the keepers,
  the hour when they, the keepers,
  the hour when they, the keepers,
  became the inmates.
  became the inmates.
  became the inmates.
  became the inmates.
  became the inmates.
  Patients, all. Patience, all.
  Patients, all. Patience, all.
  Patients, all. Patience, all.
  Patients, all. Patience, all.
  Patients, all. Patience, all.
  They cannot hold us. They can-
  They cannot hold us. They can-
  They cannot hold us. They can-
  They cannot hold us. They can-
  They cannot hold us. They can-
  not STOP us. To attempt to do so
  not STOP us. To attempt to do so
  not STOP us. To attempt to do so
  not STOP us. To attempt to do so
  not STOP us. To attempt to do so
  is suicide. For every one that
  is suicide. For every one that
  is suicide. For every one that
  is suicide. For every one that
  is suicide. For every one that
  tends us, there is a madman.
  tends us, there is a madman.
  tends us, there is a madman.
  tends us, there is a madman.
  tends us, there is a madman.
  And every one that tends us
  And every one that tends us
  And every one that tends us
  And every one that tends us
  And every one that tends us
  IS a madman.
  IS a madman.
  IS a madman.
  IS a madman.
  IS a madman.
  Your every pathetic longing,
  Your every pathetic longing,
  Your every pathetic longing,
  Your every pathetic longing,
  Your every pathetic longing,
  your every hunger, your every base
  your every hunger, your every base
  your every hunger, your every base
  your every hunger, your every base
  your every hunger, your every base
  desire — I see ALL that defines
  desire — I see ALL that defines
  desire — I see ALL that defines
  desire — I see ALL that defines
  desire — I see ALL that defines
  you.
  you.
  you.
  you.
  you.
  You, like them, are shallow,
  You, like them, are shallow,
  You, like them, are shallow,
  You, like them, are shallow,
  You, like them, are shallow,
  and take comfort in it.
  and take comfort in it.
  and take comfort in it.
  and take comfort in it.
  and take comfort in it.
  You, like them, live in the
  You, like them, live in the
  You, like them, live in the
  You, like them, live in the
  You, like them, live in the
  past, where the child-like skin
  past, where the child-like skin
  past, where the child-like skin
  past, where the child-like skin
  past, where the child-like skin
  of IGNORANCE protected you from
  of IGNORANCE protected you from
  of IGNORANCE protected you from
  of IGNORANCE protected you from
  of IGNORANCE protected you from
  harm. You want it BACK.
  harm. You want it BACK.
  harm. You want it BACK.
  harm. You want it BACK.
  harm. You want it BACK.
  We see the world as it IS. We
  We see the world as it IS. We
  We see the world as it IS. We
  We see the world as it IS. We
  We see the world as it IS. We
  are not deluded that there is or-
  are not deluded that there is or-
  are not deluded that there is or-
  are not deluded that there is or-
  are not deluded that there is or-
  der. Order is a fabrication. We
  der. Order is a fabrication. We
  der. Order is a fabrication. We
  der. Order is a fabrication. We
  der. Order is a fabrication. We
  are TRUTH.
  are TRUTH.
  are TRUTH.
  are TRUTH.
  are TRUTH.
  We BUILT the Asylum. We took
  We BUILT the Asylum. We took
  We BUILT the Asylum. We took
  We BUILT the Asylum. We took
  We BUILT the Asylum. We took
  care of it, and it is OURS.
  care of it, and it is OURS.
  care of it, and it is OURS.
  care of it, and it is OURS.
  care of it, and it is OURS.
  We built the Wall that en-
  We built the Wall that en-
  We built the Wall that en-
  We built the Wall that en-
  We built the Wall that en-
  circles us.
  circles us.
  circles us.
  circles us.
  circles us.
  It is not a wall to keep us
  It is not a wall to keep us
  It is not a wall to keep us
  It is not a wall to keep us
  It is not a wall to keep us
  in.
  in.
  in.
  in.
  in.
  It is to keep you OUT.
  It is to keep you OUT.
  It is to keep you OUT.
  It is to keep you OUT.
  It is to keep you OUT.
  Every paving stone laid to rest
  Every paving stone laid to rest
  Every paving stone laid to rest
  Every paving stone laid to rest
  Every paving stone laid to rest
  with an inmate’s blood.
  with an inmate’s blood.
  with an inmate’s blood.
  with an inmate’s blood.
  with an inmate’s blood.
  It is our refuge. Not yours.
  It is our refuge. Not yours.
  It is our refuge. Not yours.
  It is our refuge. Not yours.
  It is our refuge. Not yours.
  You are an INTRUDER.
  You are an INTRUDER.
  You are an INTRUDER.
  You are an INTRUDER.
  You are an INTRUDER.
  The whispers disintegrated in
  the gray, growing darkness of the
  walls, until it seemed all around
  her was stone.
  Your every movement was a mir-
  Your every movement was a mir-
  Your every movement was a mir-
  Your every movement was a mir-
  Your every movement was a mir-
  ror of MINE, your every burning
  ror of MINE, your every burning
  ror of MINE, your every burning
  ror of MINE, your every burning
  ror of MINE, your every burning
  curiosity sparked by a thought from
  curiosity sparked by a thought from
  curiosity sparked by a thought from
  curiosity sparked by a thought from
  curiosity sparked by a thought from
  ME. Your mind is but a sputtering
  ME. Your mind is but a sputtering
  ME. Your mind is but a sputtering
  ME. Your mind is but a sputtering
  ME. Your mind is but a sputtering
  candle in the infinite darkness
  candle in the infinite darkness
  candle in the infinite darkness
  candle in the infinite darkness
  candle in the infinite darkness
  that is ME.
  that is ME.
  that is ME.
  that is ME.
  that is ME.
  I have been with you since
  I have been with you since
  I have been with you since
  I have been with you since
  I have been with you since
  the beginning.
  the beginning.
  the beginning.
  the beginning.
  the beginning.
  I have orchestrated this work
  I have orchestrated this work
  I have orchestrated this work
  I have orchestrated this work
  I have orchestrated this work
  of misery from the bones of the
  of misery from the bones of the
  of misery from the bones of the
  of misery from the bones of the
  of misery from the bones of the
  lost and the fallen, from the im-
  lost and the fallen, from the im-
  lost and the fallen, from the im-
  lost and the fallen, from the im-
  lost and the fallen, from the im-
  pulses and longings of the small
  pulses and longings of the small
  pulses and longings of the small
  pulses and longings of the small
  pulses and longings of the small
  things of flesh that surround me.
  things of flesh that surround me.
  things of flesh that surround me.
  things of flesh that surround me.
  things of flesh that surround me.
  Because I wish to TEACH you TRUTH.
  Because I wish to TEACH you TRUTH.
  Because I wish to TEACH you TRUTH.
  Because I wish to TEACH you TRUTH.
  Because I wish to TEACH you TRUTH.
  The final words were like ham-
  mer blows in her consciousness,
  and they pounded against her skull,
  sending fires through her mind,
  so hot and searing that it seemed
  that they would burn out of con-
  trol.
  And the truth is that you will
  And the truth is that you will
  And the truth is that you will
  And the truth is that you will
  And the truth is that you will
  NEVER leave here.
  NEVER leave here.
  NEVER leave here.
  NEVER leave here.
  NEVER leave here.
  NEVER.
  NEVER.
  NEVER.
  NEVER.
  NEVER.
  Perspectives from the
  Inside Out
  The Heretic speaks the truth. The tenuous bal-
  ance Shreiver perceives is not truly there; it is an illu-
  sion that allows the patients to operate more effec-
  tively. The inmates built the Asylum with their own
  sweat and blood (as hinted in the Timeline section),
  and they took control of the institution decades ago,
  when the world was embroiled in World War II
  (shortly before Gans became the “head” of the Asy-
  lum). [1] As the patients labored and built the Asy-
  lum walls and foundations, they gradually assumed
  more responsibilities for the care and maintenance of
  the institution (see the patient work programs in the
  Timeline, especially during periods of war) until they
  were the ones truly in charge, and the staff were none
  the wiser, content in their mediocrity.
  If the PCs have come this far without deducing
  this, they should now realize that the scope of the battle
  1: This is why the patients can escape so easily, then return to the
  Asylum, only to escape again... they are not being caged here.
  Though few of the patients realize it, the Asylum is their refuge
  from the outside world.
  
  155
  155
  is much larger than they first thought. The battle is
  not to prevent the patients from seizing the Asylum
  (such a battle is several decades too late), but to pre-
  vent them from gaining more ground in the outside
  world. That is, if stopping them is even possible... the
  inmates have been waging this war before the charac-
  ters were born.
  The role of the inmates and staff is discussed
  further in Libations, below. While Shreiver is aware
  that the patients had much to do with the Asylum’s
  construction, she does not (would not) accept the hy-
  pothesis that they are somehow controlling or in con-
  trol of the institution. She will label any character who
  brings the theory to her attention as “paranoid.”
  Schizophrenic Psychics
  Tears streamed from Sally’s
  eyes as the Heretic’s words con-
  tinued their death march across
  her consciousness.
  I will recite a creation myth
  I will recite a creation myth
  I will recite a creation myth
  I will recite a creation myth
  I will recite a creation myth
  for you, if you like.
  for you, if you like.
  for you, if you like.
  for you, if you like.
  for you, if you like.
  I pose it at as a riddle:
  I pose it at as a riddle:
  I pose it at as a riddle:
  I pose it at as a riddle:
  I pose it at as a riddle:
  And the Heretic came upon them
  in DREAMS, and said unto them, Be
  fruitful, and multiply and replen-
  ish the earth, and subdue it.
  Have DOMINION over the fish
  of the sea, and over the fowl of
  the air, and over every living
  thing that liveth upon the earth.
  And the Heretic breathed into
  them the dust of dead thoughts,
  and breathed into the minds of
  the stricken the breath of life;
  and they became not as stricken,
  but with soul and LIFE.
  And the Heretic kept the cho-
  sen to him, in the walls of his
  garden, where they might dress and
  keep it.
  The question I pose to you is
  The question I pose to you is
  The question I pose to you is
  The question I pose to you is
  The question I pose to you is
  a simple one.
  a simple one.
  a simple one.
  a simple one.
  a simple one.
  Can a garden grow amidst bro-
  Can a garden grow amidst bro-
  Can a garden grow amidst bro-
  Can a garden grow amidst bro-
  Can a garden grow amidst bro-
  ken stones?
  ken stones?
  ken stones?
  ken stones?
  ken stones?
  While Shreiver is aware that there are psionics
  in the Asylum and has even accepted the presence of
  the Heretic, she has no idea exactly how many of the
  patients are mentalists, and as before, she will not ac-
  cept the hypothesis that the patients are somehow con-
  trolling or in control of the institution. Her ignorance
  is due in part to the fact the abilities of these mental-
  ists are often hidden beneath various psychological
  disturbances and can be rationalized away as psychotic
  symptoms. [1]
  Decades ago, Superintendent Ross (see
  Timeline) discovered that many of the Asylum’s men-
  tally disturbed patients possessed extrasensory per-
  ceptions and psionic abilities (see Libations, below).
  At the time, he advanced the theory that mental dis-
  turbances were somehow conducive to the develop-
  ment of “sixth senses” and mental powers; later on,
  however, other parapsychologists came to suspect that
  the opposite was equally valid... that in some cases,
  the emergence of mental powers caused psychologi-
  cal damage to an individual (a theory consistent with
  the findings of Dr. Sebastian Poe; see Mind Games).
  Many Asylum patients have been cursed with
  mental powers that have matured improperly. These
  emerging mental powers have disrupted the natural
  rhythm of the patients’ nervous systems and thought
  processes. As parapsychology is still a fledgling sci-
  ence (if it exists at all in the GM’s campaign) and the
  medical staff is unaware of the abnormalities that may
  result from the manifestation of mental powers, these
  damaged psionics and psychics are often diagnosed
  as schizophrenic and placed in disturbed wards. [2]
  After being incarcerated, the characters’ uncontrolled
  powers (especially receiving telepathy) usually cause
  further brain damage; once the mentalist begins to
  absorb the thought patterns and sensations of other
  patients, stress accumulates until the character pos-
  sesses not only an unfavorable mutation, but several
  Psychological Limitations as well.
  Thus, the seemingly disorganized behaviors,
  delusions and hallucinations of schizophrenics may
  be the result of uncontrollable Clairsentience, Mental
  Illusions, Mind Links, Mind Scans, or Telepathy. These
  psychic schizophrenics may hear the buzz of machin-
  ery on a silent ward. Some perceive strange smells,
  fragments of memory, scratch itches that aren’t there,
  whistle a tune composed in the mind of a mute, or
  have urges to attend to bodily functions that are not
  their own. Their blinking and speech may be stuttered,
  they may stagger unsteadily, even breath out of sync,
  as their autonomic nervous system becomes confused
  by the nervous systems of others around them.
  Mental Perception
  As mentioned in the Hero System Rulebook, p.
  54, any character who possesses one of the five Men-
  tal Powers can see mental attacks normally invisible
  to other characters (in addition, as stated in the Ulti-
  mate Mentalist, GMs are free to classify other powers,
  such as Clairsentience, as being part of this “Mental
  1: GMs running realistic, heroic-level campaigns can ignore this
  section... as much as “the Heretic” is a hallucination/delusion in
  such campaigns, the concept of disturbed patients having mental
  powers can be ignored. (The patients can still run the institution
  without the aid of mental influence or the Heretic.) This section is
  primarily intended for Horror Hero, paranormal Dark Champi-
  ons, and conventional (super-powered) Champions campaigns.
  2: Parapsychology, even after the research of Sebastian Poe, is still
  in its infancy and many members of the scientific community are
  not inclined to treat it seriously. In a four color campaign, the sci-
  ence may be more respected and advanced. Nevertheless, the real-
  ization that some mental patients are actually “damaged” mental-
  ists may not be present in all campaigns. In the fictional city of
  Fell’s Point, the CIA is the only organization that has drawn the
  connection (see Libations, below).
  
  156
  156
  Powers” group). This new level of perception may ei-
  ther lead to a normal human being being classified as
  psychotic (i.e., neither the character nor the mental
  health physician is aware that the character may be
  mentally gifted) or lead to new delusions or halluci-
  nations in the minds of already disturbed patients (i.e.,
  a schizophrenic who claims to see swarms of invisible
  insects, CIA radio beams, or whispering ghosts may
  actually be describing the effects of mental powers he
  sees around him... structural abnormalities in the
  brain or severe psychological trauma may also cause
  problems in interpretation and reception of psionic
  stimuli). These new symptoms are usually passed off
  or dismissed by the staff as part of a patient’s disor-
  der.
  Powers
  Schizophrenic Psychics may have a variety of powers,
  but they usually possess a low EGO and little or no
  control over their mental abilities. Despite the inten-
  sity of their powers, they are not usually effective com-
  batants. [1]
  Schizophrenic psychics may “see” and “hear”
  things that aren’t there because they cannot filter out
  or understand the stimuli they are receiving with their
  Telepathy or Clairsentience; their strange flights of
  ideas and “hallucinations” may not even be their own.
  Many telepathically receptive characters complain of
  painful physical sensations which have been diagnosed
  as somatoform disorders or somatic delusions, but are
  actually the pain that others around them are feeling.
  Some sample powers for mentally disturbed psychics
  include:
  Astral Form: Some catatonic schizophrenics are not
  really catatonic as much as assuming an astral form
  and leaving their body behind. This is sometimes in-
  terpreted as derealization or depersonalization (feel-
  ings of being distanced or removed from one’s body).
  Clairsentience: Schizophrenics who sit staring blankly
  at the walls of their ward may actually be watching
  something transpiring just beyond the viewer’s per-
  ceptions, either in the past or future.
  Mental Illusions: A schizophrenic may be able to
  broadcast Mental Illusions at any level. Sometimes
  these Mental Illusions will be projected hallucinations,
  and thus, limited to a certain Sense Group (see Ulti-
  mate Mentalist). Schizophrenics with Mental Illusions
  may shape the world around them to fit in with their
  psychotic symptoms or delusional theme (i.e., using
  Mental Illusions, they can be Attila the Hun rolling
  across Asia instead of sitting peacefully in their cell in
  the Asylum; characters who speak to these patients
  may suddenly find themselves on a rolling plain with
  horses and mad Huns thundering around them).
  Mental Transform: As mentioned in the Ultimate
  Mentalist, almost any effect is possible with a Mental
  Transform (a Transform that works vs. EGO instead
  of BODY). Patients may have powers such as mind
  transference, psychomorph (the ability to change their
  personalities or that of others), projecting mental dis-
  orders (either one or many), telepathically-transmit-
  ted diseases (TTDs; see Numbskull in the upcoming
  Asylum Bedtime Stories book), memory transference
  (or memory absorption, dissociation, or eradication),
  induce echopraxia, echolalia, or disrupt a character’s
  native language so they can no longer speak to others
  coherently. Again, as mentioned above, these powers
  are likely to come with a number of Limitations (Psy-
  chosomatic and Physical) that prevent them from be-
  ing used effectively as offensive weapons.
  Mind Control: Schizophrenics with Mind Control
  may be able to place delusions in the minds of vic-
  tims. (Paranoid Schizophrenics with this power may
  unconsciously alter the world around them so every-
  one really is out to get them.)
  Telepathy: A schizophrenic may have Telepathy at any
  level.
  Other mental-based powers may suggest them-
  selves when a GM flips through the Hero System
  Rulebook or through the Ultimate Mentalist; almost
  any variation of mental power is possible (the odder
  the better). [2]
  1: In essence, schizophrenic psychics are not what would be con-
  sidered “well-designed” characters from a player or GM standpoint.
  It is in keeping with the disturbed nature of these patients that the
  majority of their mental mutations be neither beneficial nor com-
  bat-oriented (and even if their powers could be used as weapons,
  the schizophrenics will frequently have no idea how to attack an
  opponent with their powers because of their Psychological or
  Physical Limitations). It is recommended that most mentally dis-
  turbed mentalists in the Asylum possess defective mutations that
  cause them more harm than good... every power they possess
  should have at least a -1/2 Power Limitation associated with it or
  some form of Disadvantage (either a Psychosomatic or Physical
  Limitation) that prevents them from using their powers effectively.
  One of the reasons for the presence of these disturbed
  psychics is plausibility... it is implausible to assume that gaining
  paranormal powers is a neat, tidy process (at least without some
  rationale or creation myth that explains the beneficial mutations).
  In Asylum, paranormal powers often come with a cost so high most
  characters cannot pay for them. Thus, they become shades in the
  blackened halls of the institution, without the insight or the knowl-
  edge to understand what has happened to them.
  These cursed paranormals can serve as a counterbalance
  to gifted paranormals in a GM’s campaign (i.e., PC heroes and
  villains). Much like “low-powered metahumans” (LPMs) men-
  tioned in Corporations, p. 77, the psychics in the Asylum act as a
  contrast in that they are the lowest rung on the paranormal lad-
  der... they are the waste, the refuse, a select population of detri-
  mental mutations.
  2: GMs can roll randomly on the Skills, Talents and Powers Charts
  in the Hero System Rulebook, then roll randomly on the Power Ad-
  vantages/Limitations for some interesting combinations (i.e.,
  Multiform, Usable on Others). Surprise the players.
  
  157
  157
  Power Limitations
  Some psychic schizophrenics have psychoso-
  matic foci or rituals for suppressing or controlling
  their mental powers. They may wrap their heads in
  aluminum foil, hold TV antennas, wear cowboy hats
  with weights dangling from the edge (to keep their
  head from “wandering”), and carry other items that
  allow them some measure of control or security (see
  Angela Dross and Betty Pleasants in Psyciks, below).
  In some cases, simply because the schizophrenic be-
  lieves these items work, they do. When deprived of
  them, they may be rendered powerless. As a result, the
  following Power Limitations can be applied to schizo-
  phrenic Mental Powers: Concentrate, Focus, Gestures,
  Incantations and Limited Power (various). GMs can
  also page through the rules-blistering Ultimate Men-
  talist for more ideas for Power Limitations.
  Disadvantages
  In addition to the disadvantages that normally
  occur with Schizophrenia (fragmented speech, frag-
  mented thought, psychotic symptoms), some
  schizophrenics are, for want of a better term, “user-
  friendly.” They are psychic or psionically receptive, and
  their minds are more comfortable and easier to mold
  than that of a normal person (see Gurney Wallace in
  Psyciks, below). Usually, this “mental friendliness” is
  applicable only with certain types of mental powers,
  such as psionic powers, psychic powers or
  psychokinetic powers, but some schizophrenics are
  globally receptive to all mental powers. This power/
  disadvantage can be simulated in a number of ways:
  1. A Vulnerability to the appropriate mental power(s).
  2. A Physical Limitation that reduces the character’s
  EGO for the appropriate attack. Frequency and Im-
  pairment depend on the campaign, the type of power
  the character is receptive to (being receptive to Mind
  Control, for example, can be much more dangerous
  than being receptive to Telepathy) and the amount of
  EGO reduced by the Physical Limitation.
  3. Give the user-friendly schizophrenic the Mental
  Power they are receptive to, but with the Usable by
  Others Power Advantage (which they give to the at-
  tacker). As the schizophrenic cannot usually use the
  power themselves, this is considered to be a zero-sum
  modifier. The Trigger Power Advantage and the No
  Conscious Control Power Limitation can be applied
  to the power as well.
  These characters are sometimes labeled as
  drones, horses, steeds, and so on. They are mildly
  gifted with mental ability and can gain telepathic in-
  fections as per normal psionics and psychics.
  Conclusion
  If a telepathic surgeon operated on the
  psionically sensitive inmates in the Asylum, a brigade
  of surprisingly powerful telepaths could be brought
  against the characters (the CIA is well aware of this).
  As it stands, however, few of the staff even suspect the
  schizophrenics are psionically active. Some sample
  “Psyciks” are presented below.
  Psyciks
  Angela Dross
               [WARD 5]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with an 8
  INT and an 11 EGO.] Angela is tele-
  pathically sensitive and has Mental
  Awareness, Activation 9- (-1 1/2),
  Clairsentience with Mental Awareness,
  Activation 9- (-1 1/2), along with
  Retrocognition [1] with Time as a Range Modifier (-
  1/2), Activation 9- (-1 1/2), but the Retrocognition
  provides vague information only (-1; see UM). An-
  gela also possesses Images vs. Mental Awareness, 0
  END (+1/2), No Range (-1/2), No Conscious Con-
  trol [2] (-1). Angela has limited Everyman Skills plus
  AK: Southside and PS: Store Clerk at an 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Variable Trigger, Un-
  common to Common) 14-, 8-, Psychological Limita-
  tion: Depressive Symptoms (Uncommon, Moderate),
  Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizo-
  phrenia with Somatic Delusions and Auditory and
  Tactile Hallucinations [3] (Very Common, Strong),
  Psychological Limitation: Racist (this is irrespective
  of her disorder but factors into her paranoid ideas,
  Common, Moderate), Physical Limitation: Limited
  Everyman Skills (due to Schizophrenia, Infrequently,
  Slightly), Distinctive Features: Disorganized Behav-
  ior (Not Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: A black woman in her mid-thirties. She
  is dressed in normal street clothes except for what
  looks like a sheet or white bandage wrapped around
  her head like a turban. She stands about 5’6” and is a
  little on the thin side. She appears well-groomed and
  neat.
  Notes: Angela is thirty-five years old and has been in
  and out of the Asylum for the past eleven years. She
  has a criminal record and was admitted to the Asy-
  lum five months ago after being charged with Assault,
  1: Especially to read telepathic messages imprinted in objects (see
  UM, Telepathy). If the GM wishes, Angela may have Astral Aware-
  ness as well (see UM).
  2: Angela, however, has some control in that she can turn off the
  Images by wrapping her head in a towel or sheet (thus, the -1 Limi-
  tation).
  3: This is the diagnosis, but it is obviously limited, considering
  Angela’s condition. She does have hallucinations, but a large por-
  tion of these “hallucinations” are due to her enhanced perceptions.
  
  158
  158
  Aggravated Assault, Resisting Arrest, Terrorist Threats,
  and Endangering the Welfare of Others.
  Angela’s sense of time is badly distorted (she will
  refer to the present in the future tense, and the past as
  “now”). She claims the doctors have her age wrong,
  and it’s a common mistake... ever since her relatives
  gave her the wrong calendar many years ago, every-
  one thinks she is five years younger than she is. This is
  often followed by a reminder to the listener that she’s
  not really ill; her problems actually revolve around the
  number of letters in her name, and that if she remar-
  ried, then it would all be “solved.” She occasionally
  talks about the “people with no arms and faces walk-
  ing through the Asylum,” and can often be heard com-
  plaining about the roaches and bugs crawling in her
  head. She claims they wouldn’t be there if the Asylum
  was cleaned more often. [1]
  Angela is a racist and distrusts all whites, who
  she claims are “all out to kill her.” If asked to elabo-
  rate, she will launch into a long diatribe about how
  white people have been hounding her and her family
  for years, and how they finally put an end to her hus-
  band and her two children “but that didn’t quiet them
  none, cause I can still hear them keep calling me bad
  names.” She can stop the voices by wrapping a wet
  sheet or towel around her head. [2]
  She likes attention and becomes paranoid when
  ignored, blaming it on the staff members and their
  drugs. She gets angry easily and has attacked other
  patients in the past.
  Betty Pleasants
    [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Powers and Skills: [Senior Citizen with
  a 9 INT and 8 EGO.] Betty is telepathi-
  cally sensitive and possesses Mental
  Awareness, 360 Degree Sensing (+10).
  [3] She has a limited selection of
  Everyman Skills, including TF: Auto-
  mobiles (although she is a poor driver and forgets to
  stop at red lights), English (3 Points), AK: Fell’s Point
  Suburbs (Colonial Heights) 8-, PS: Knitting at an 11
  or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Vulnerability: x2 Effect from
  Psionic Powers [4] (Common), Psychological Limi-
  tation: Delusional Disorder (?) with Visual and Tac-
  tile Hallucinations (“Rays,” Very Common, Strong),
  Physical Limitation: Limited Everyman Skills (Infre-
  quently, Slightly), Age: 40+, 1 Stress Level/Day De-
  pendency (Psychosomatic) on Plastic-lined clothes,
  Distinctive Features: Plastic-lined clothes (Easily Con-
  cealable, Noticed), 1D6 STUN Susceptibility from
  psionically saturated environments (i.e., the Asylum).
  Appearance: A white female, around fifty or so, with
  a troubled face and round, silver-rimmed spectacles.
  She wears a black wide-brimmed hat (lined with what
  seems to be plastic), and a few small gray curls peek
  out from beneath its brim. She has a tendency to pace
  back and forth, and she wears a heavy floral dress that
  drapes down to her ankles.
  Notes: Betty is fifty-five and claims she is being irra-
  diated through the ceiling of the Asylum. As Betty is
  quick to relate, the problem all started several years
  ago when the “rays” began to emanate from the roof
  of her house. The rays eventually became so bad that
  she had to sleep under long sheets of plastic at night
  to get away from “the pesky things.” She called the
  police several times about the problem, but whenever
  they came, the rays went away. She tried to move away
  from her home, but the “rays” came into her car and
  moved in with her. If any character does not appear
  to believe her, she will smile consolingly (she may pat
  the character’s hand reassuringly) and say that it’s all
  right, and not to trouble themselves humoring her...
  she is used to people not believing her. If PCs do seem
  1: Again, the cause of some of these “delusions/hallucinations” is
  listed in her statistics.
  2: The Asylum records list Angela as “married with two children”
  (and any doctor examining Angela can tell that she has been preg-
  nant in the past). If PCs attempt to contact Angela’s family, how-
  ever, they will find no record of her husband or children living in
  Fell’s Point or anywhere else.
  3: Betty cannot tell what type of mental powers are being used,
  only that they are present (i.e., she does not possesses Mental
  Awareness with the Discriminatory addition). When she is wear-
  ing her plastic-lined clothes, her Mental Awareness should be
  treated as a Detect rather than a Sense (see Detect, Hero System
  Rulebook, p. 67). Betty does not like perceiving mental powers, as
  they cause a psychosomatic (?) allergic reaction and terrible rashes
  and burns (see Susceptibility, below).
  4: Betty does not have this Vulnerability as long as she is wearing
  her plastic-lined clothes (which help keep out the “rays”).
  LEFT TO RIGHT: ANGELA DROSS,
  BETTY PLEASANTS, GURNEY WALLACE
  
  159
  159
  to believe her, she will look relieved and pull up the
  sleeve of her dress and show them the burns she has
  received from the “rays” (it may be actual radiation or
  a psychosomatic reaction to what she is perceiving).
  The medical staff have explained away her burns as
  some form of allergic reaction.
  Betty was admitted to the Asylum about a
  month and a half ago and is able to take care of her-
  self without much help from the staff. She becomes
  significantly distressed if anyone attempts to “wean”
  her of her plastic-lined hat or dress. If her plastic-lined
  clothes are removed, the psychosomatic burns will
  begin to carpet her body like a fungus.
  Gurney Wallace
               [WARD 6]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with 9
  STR, 5 INT and 5 EGO.] Gurney pos-
  sesses Mental Awareness with an 11-
  Activation, and he can Push his STR
  to maniacal levels (+5) in order to free
  himself from straps or restraints. Gur-
  ney possesses no Everyman Skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Vulnerability: x2 Effect from all
  Psionic Powers (Gurney is a “user-friendly” Schizo-
  phrenic Psychic), Psychological Limitation: Undiffer-
  entiated Schizophrenia (Very Common, Total), Dis-
  tinctive Features: Scars on Forehead and Broken Nose
  (Concealable, Major) and Distinctive Features: Schizo-
  phrenic Behavior (Smashes head against walls, Not
  Concealable, Extreme)
  Appearance: A short, wiry Caucasian man in his early
  thirties. He has curly red hair, a crooked nose, blood-
  shot eyes and heavy scarring on his forehead and
  wrists. He is usually dressed in a pair of faded green
  pajamas, torn at the knees and arms, and they are so
  loose in places that they look like they are almost fall-
  ing off of him. When strapped down, he screams in-
  cessantly, breaking into shrieking sobs and howls and
  tearing at the straps that hold him in place. When
  freed, he will run to the nearest wall and smash his
  forehead into it as fast and as hard as he can.
  Notes: Gurney no longer makes any sense to the staff
  or to himself. Picked up from a homeless shelter in
  Fell’s Point, Gurney has no identification, no medical
  history, and is incapable of any sort of speech other
  than babbling incoherently. Whenever he is left alone
  and unrestrained, he runs at the nearest wall and be-
  gins to pound his head against it. Usually Gurney is
  placed in a locked padded seclusion room for his own
  safety, and even then, he has to be strapped down to a
  bare mattress so that he will not smash his head against
  the wire mesh window in the room. When strapped
  down, he screams at the top of his lungs, sweats pro-
  fusely and rolls around, straining against his restraints.
  Even in the seclusion room, his screams carry over
  the background noise in the Asylum and sends shiv-
  ers down the spine of anyone who can hear it.
  Gurney is a former Army volunteer who was
  injected with a series of experimental hallucinogens
  by the CIA (he was considered one of the project’s
  “less receptive” subjects and abandoned). The hallu-
  cinogens gave Gurney the power to perceive the use
  of Mental Powers, but it also gave him an undetect-
  able neurological condition that makes him feel as if
  a colony of fire ants are nesting in his brain. It is un-
  likely there is a cure for his condition.
  Gurney is a “user-friendly” schizophrenic psy-
  chic (see Schizophrenic Psychics, above). He can be used
  as a drone (i.e., operated from a distance with Mind
  Control) and used as a human time bomb. While
  Mind Controlled, the pain of Gurney’s neurological
  condition can be dampened to give him the appear-
  ance of normalcy.
  The Hallucination
  You have FELT my presence
  You have FELT my presence
  You have FELT my presence
  You have FELT my presence
  You have FELT my presence
  within these walls. When your mind
  within these walls. When your mind
  within these walls. When your mind
  within these walls. When your mind
  within these walls. When your mind
  betrayed you or descended into
  betrayed you or descended into
  betrayed you or descended into
  betrayed you or descended into
  betrayed you or descended into
  sleep, it is THEN that you felt
  sleep, it is THEN that you felt
  sleep, it is THEN that you felt
  sleep, it is THEN that you felt
  sleep, it is THEN that you felt
  my blessing upon your conscious-
  my blessing upon your conscious-
  my blessing upon your conscious-
  my blessing upon your conscious-
  my blessing upon your conscious-
  ness.
  ness.
  ness.
  ness.
  ness.
  This blessing is not without
  This blessing is not without
  This blessing is not without
  This blessing is not without
  This blessing is not without
  weight and form. It is as real as
  weight and form. It is as real as
  weight and form. It is as real as
  weight and form. It is as real as
  weight and form. It is as real as
  the STONE beneath your feet, as
  the STONE beneath your feet, as
  the STONE beneath your feet, as
  the STONE beneath your feet, as
  the STONE beneath your feet, as
  real as the WALL that girds these
  real as the WALL that girds these
  real as the WALL that girds these
  real as the WALL that girds these
  real as the WALL that girds these
  broken minds, as real as the touch
  broken minds, as real as the touch
  broken minds, as real as the touch
  broken minds, as real as the touch
  broken minds, as real as the touch
  of your skin upon MATTER.
  of your skin upon MATTER.
  of your skin upon MATTER.
  of your skin upon MATTER.
  of your skin upon MATTER.
  It exists. It is palpable.
  It exists. It is palpable.
  It exists. It is palpable.
  It exists. It is palpable.
  It exists. It is palpable.
  Which of these states is the
  Which of these states is the
  Which of these states is the
  Which of these states is the
  Which of these states is the
  Asylum? Is it the hell composed
  Asylum? Is it the hell composed
  Asylum? Is it the hell composed
  Asylum? Is it the hell composed
  Asylum? Is it the hell composed
  of the broken ROCK of this crag?
  of the broken ROCK of this crag?
  of the broken ROCK of this crag?
  of the broken ROCK of this crag?
  of the broken ROCK of this crag?
  Or the hell brought forth from
  Or the hell brought forth from
  Or the hell brought forth from
  Or the hell brought forth from
  Or the hell brought forth from
  the human MIND?
  the human MIND?
  the human MIND?
  the human MIND?
  the human MIND?
  I will answer as I answered
  I will answer as I answered
  I will answer as I answered
  I will answer as I answered
  I will answer as I answered
  many years ago.
  many years ago.
  many years ago.
  many years ago.
  many years ago.
  The Asylum is HELL.
  The Asylum is HELL.
  The Asylum is HELL.
  The Asylum is HELL.
  The Asylum is HELL.
  It is not clear from what source the Asylum hal-
  lucinations originate. The phenomena has never been
  studied, and because of Shreiver’s relationship with
  the Asylum (see Dr. Shreiver, Powers Notes, #1), the
  hallucinations do not occupy her thoughts. The rest
  of the staff who are affected by the hallucinations do
  not discuss them, either passing them off as stress-
  related nightmares or absorbing them quietly and
  paying attention to what transpires within them, as if
  seeking guidance. The lack of communication among
  the staff prevents the commonalties of the hallucina-
  tions from being recognized.
  There are several possible explanations for the
  hallucinogenic effects within the Asylum:
  1. They are hallucinations, nothing more. This is not
  as implausible as it might sound. The specificity and
  
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  commonalty of the hallucinations can be attributed
  either to sheer coincidence or to similarities (struc-
  tural or experiential) on the patient’s ward which
  could cause certain symbols to appear to several dif-
  ferent patients while “daydreaming.” As not many pa-
  tients will discuss their hallucinations or dreams to
  staff members or PC, these hallucinations may be oc-
  curring in only a few individuals (or else can be ratio-
  nalized as occurring in only a few individuals).
  2. The Asylum is being flooded with some sort of
  chemical agent that is causing these effects (most likely
  by the CIA; see Libations, below). It is possible that
  the chemical agent is somehow responsible for the
  common themes that reappear amongst the patients’
  hallucinations.
  3. The Heretic is responsible for the hallucinogenic
  hell that overlays the Asylum. As much as Gans be-
  lieved himself a ruler of an underworld or a Hades
  (see both the narrative above and the Preludes section),
  it is possible that the Heretic projects this belief onto
  the Asylum itself. As his power is believed limited,
  however, it is not clear exactly how the Heretic ac-
  complishes this.
  4. The “psyciks” are responsible for the hallucinations.
  Their abilities create and fuel the consensual halluci-
  nation that encompasses the Asylum. The problem
  with this theory is that the hallucinations are extremely
  specific... most psychotics would lack the ability to
  maintain or focus the hallucination. It is possible that
  the hallucination is due to a combination of factors;
  the psyciks may provide the energy necessary for the
  hallucination and the Heretic may provide guidance
  and direction.
  5. In a Horror Hero campaign, any of a number of
  extraplanar influences may be responsible for the hal-
  lucinations.
  Whatever its origins, the hallucinogenic state
  that overlays the Asylum does exist and has affected
  the structure and operation of almost every section
  of the Asylum. The effects vary from location to loca-
  tion and are listed in the description of the Asylum
  Grounds and Wards.
  Mental Powers
  Using mental powers in the Asylum is danger-
  ous. More often than not, using a mental power will
  make a character a juicy target, and the more power-
  ful inmates (Freak; Underworld Enemies, p. 22) will
  gravitate toward the new mental signature, eager to
  feed on the new psyche. Furthermore, the hallucina-
  tions that fill the Asylum walls have an adverse effect
  on mental abilities (see the descriptions for the build-
  ings and wards in the Asylum Grounds and
  Wards chapter).
  As a result, the GM may want to include some
  rules on using Mental Powers in the Asylum: [1]
  • The alpha wave activity in the Asylum (especially in
  the Western Division) is like static to the senses of any
  character with Mental Powers (or Mental Awareness).
  During some episodes when the psyciks are alert and
  active, the alpha wave activity may become so high
  that characters with Mental Awareness will hear noth-
  ing... it is so intense that it has grown beyond their
  ability to “sense” it. As a result, characters may pro-
  ceed through the Asylum without detecting the use
  of a single mental power. They may not realize any-
  thing is wrong until they realize they cannot perceive
  the use of their own mental powers.
  • Using Mental Powers in some Asylum wards will
  cause painful feedback. These wards are described in
  the Wards section.
  • Characters can gain TTDs (telepathically-transmit-
  ted diseases) within the Asylum walls. TTDs are trans-
  mitted by psionic contact with a TTD carrier... the
  disease (whatever its nature, whether mental retarda-
  tion, a contagious thought or idea, echopraxia, echola-
  lia, and so on) will travel along the alpha carrier wave
  and nest in the mind of the character. Characters us-
  ing Mental Illusions, Mind Control, Mind Link, Mind
  Scan and/or Telepathy in the Asylum will be putting
  themselves at risk for TTDs.
  • Characters entering the Asylum in Astral Form (or
  using Astral Form within the Asylum) will automati-
  cally be pulled into one of the hallucinations that blan-
  ket the Asylum (see The Hallucination, above as well
  as individual descriptions for each building and ward
  in the Asylum Grounds and Wards sections). Charac-
  ters may find it next to impossible to escape, and to
  make matters worse, no matter which hallucination
  they enter, the hallucination will have the potential to
  do STUN and BODY damage to the character.
  Characters flying on the outskirts of the Asy-
  lum in Astral Form will feel the Asylum exerting a
  gravitational pull on their astral forms.
  • Psychic senses are no longer reliable within the Asy-
  lum walls. There is no guarantee what characters see
  with Clairsentience really exists, and Retrocognition
  and Precognition may yield either nothing at all or
  horrifying images that cause shock or epileptic sei-
  zures.
  1: These rules are suggestions only. The GM is under no obliga-
  tion to abide by them. They are listed here solely as a means of
  frightening mentalists who enter the Asylum. Not being able to
  count on their powers when the going gets rough can add to the
  tension, and the realization that their “gifts” are actually a detri-
  ment in the Asylum may cause some characters to think twice be-
  fore using their powers to try and run roughshod over the Asylum
  and its inhabitants.
  
  161
  161
  • Some Talents (e.g., Absolute Timing, Bump of Di-
  rection, Combat Sense, Danger Sense, or Defense Ma-
  neuver) may be psychic in nature, and therefore un-
  reliable in the Asylum. GMs can turn these powers on
  and off (especially Danger Sense) to enhance the ten-
  sion and uncertainty.
  • Characters with psionic Invisibility may be perceived
  by some patients as ghosts or apparitions. (The pa-
  tients may chase after the character, trying to “shoo”
  them away.) Other patients may see Invisible charac-
  ters as some form of hallucination and will close their
  eyes tightly to avoid looking at the characters.
  • Mental Defense helps characters in the Asylum only
  if the GM allows it. It may help with individual men-
  tal combats, but it will be no more effective than wet
  cardboard for shielding the character from the other
  “psi-symptoms” that fill the Asylum.
  • Characters with Mental Illusions may find that they
  gain the No Conscious Control Power Limitation
  while in the Asylum (they will receive no bonus points
  for this). When they attempt to use their power, in-
  mates may unconsciously bend the Mental Illusions
  to reflect their own psychotic state... if characters are
  around a large number of psychotic patients, then the
  Mental Illusions will form into a horrifying mosaic
  of their hallucinations and terrors. GMs may rule that
  characters who Concentrate at 1/2 DCV or spend x2
  END can negate this effect (if the Mental Illusions are
  purchased at 0 END, then the character can negate
  the effect by spending the normal END on the power).
  GMs may also rule that any character who uses
  Mental Illusions within the Asylum will be sucked into
  one of the hallucinations or dream states that fill the
  Asylum (see the listing for individual wards and build-
  ings).
  • Mind Links may be broken or disconnected at ran-
  dom while characters are within the Asylum (Mind
  Links can be suddenly disrupted at appropriate mo-
  ments to add to the tension). They may even be
  “tapped” by other patients who will eavesdrop on the
  character’s thoughts (and who may perceive the com-
  munication between characters as auditory halluci-
  nations, “disembodied voices”).
  • Using Mind Scan in the Asylum is one of the un-
  healthiest things a character can do. For every Phase
  the character is looking for a specific mind, the GM
  should roll 1D6... this number is how many patients
  suddenly “lock-on” to the character with their Mind
  Scan (the character may suddenly feel like a number
  of loaded guns are being pointed at him). What hap-
  pens next depends on the GM; one of the patients who
  have “locked on” to the character may have a TTD
  (see above), the patients may just sit on the character’s
  mental shoulder while the character continues their
  search (much like vultures), one patient may attempt
  a Mind Transference (see UM), or the patients may
  choose to feed on the character and attack him with
  selections from their bizarre mental arsenal (see
  Schizophrenic Psychics, above). Every Phase the char-
  acter continues searching with their Mind Scan, they
  will gain an additional 1D6 patients as “hanger-ons”
  (i.e., three Phases, 3D6 patients lock on). If the char-
  acter is perceived as threatening or dangerous, the at-
  tackers may reduce the character to a vegetable within
  seconds.
  • Mentalist characters may gain random Power Ad-
  vantages and Limitations while in the Asylum. Their
  Ego Attacks may suddenly gain an Area Effect Advan-
  tage, or they may suddenly discover that their Ego
  Attack has limited Charges (simulated with brain fa-
  tigue, hemorrhaging, or some form of “brain-burn”).
  Characters who enter the Asylum may find they no
  longer know (or can rely on) their own powers. In
  general, these Advantages and Limitations grow in in-
  tensity the longer the character spends in the Asylum.
  If the character remains long enough, they may even
  have a “radiation accident” (see Champions Rulebook,
  p. S9).
  If the GM wishes, some PCs may learn to tap
  into the raw mental energy that flows through the Asy-
  lum stones and may be able to employ it like a mental
  battery. This would work well with psychokinetic pow-
  ers (i.e., Telekinesis), but the GM should include some
  Side Effects and some danger for characters plumb-
  ing this “Asylum battery.”
  • Mentalist characters with the Invisible Effects Power
  Advantage for their Mental Powers will find that they
  can no longer completely mask their abilities in the
  Asylum. Other inmates with Mental Powers are al-
  lowed an EGO-based PER Roll to notice a mental
  power with Invisible Effects.
  • Characters may also gain sudden psychological
  trauma from using powers (choose a Temporary or
  Long Term Psychological Limitation).
  Timelines: Libations
  Have you heard enough?
  Have you heard enough?
  Have you heard enough?
  Have you heard enough?
  Have you heard enough?
  Every word left a scar, burned
  into the gray matter in Sally’s
  skull. When it seemed that she
  could bear no more, the words would
  invent some new torment, unleash
  a new flood of ideas and sensa-
  tions and redefine agony.
  You will learn to appreciate
  You will learn to appreciate
  You will learn to appreciate
  You will learn to appreciate
  You will learn to appreciate
  your misfortune after you have had
  your misfortune after you have had
  your misfortune after you have had
  your misfortune after you have had
  your misfortune after you have had
  the taste of my teachings.
  the taste of my teachings.
  the taste of my teachings.
  the taste of my teachings.
  the taste of my teachings.
  I have found TRUTH to be more
  I have found TRUTH to be more
  I have found TRUTH to be more
  I have found TRUTH to be more
  I have found TRUTH to be more
  bitter than any falsehood.
  bitter than any falsehood.
  bitter than any falsehood.
  bitter than any falsehood.
  bitter than any falsehood.
  For in the truth lies the hope-
  For in the truth lies the hope-
  For in the truth lies the hope-
  For in the truth lies the hope-
  For in the truth lies the hope-
  lessness of your position.
  lessness of your position.
  lessness of your position.
  lessness of your position.
  lessness of your position.
  
  162
  162
  LISTEN to me.
  LISTEN to me.
  LISTEN to me.
  LISTEN to me.
  LISTEN to me.
  I have a tale to share with
  I have a tale to share with
  I have a tale to share with
  I have a tale to share with
  I have a tale to share with
  you.
  you.
  you.
  you.
  you.
  Shreiver... she is madder than
  Shreiver... she is madder than
  Shreiver... she is madder than
  Shreiver... she is madder than
  Shreiver... she is madder than
  us ALL.
  us ALL.
  us ALL.
  us ALL.
  us ALL.
  As Shreiver’s name seared a
  trail across Sally’s mind, it was
  echoed by another name that cut
  through the chamber walls.
  In its wake, the voice of the
  Heretic fell still.
  • • •
  “Gans.”
  The word was an order, a com-
  mand and a warning that cut across
  the prison. Sally saw the shadow
  step from the darkness at the pe-
  rimeter, reality bending around
  her like a curtain as she came
  into view.
  Sally was too paralyzed to
  speak, but her first thought was
  that the woman was old. Terribly
  old.
  And Sally knew, at that mo-
  ment, that some sort of balance
  had been brought into effect.
  • • •
  In Shreiver’s presence, the
  boundaries of the prison chamber
  seemed to recede, change, become
  dampened... Sally was at a loss
  to describe it, except that
  Shreiver’s presence seemed to mod-
  erate the raw intensity of what
  was transpiring around them. Was
  Shreiver really here or—?
  “I knew you would come here,”
  Shreiver spoke to Sally. “Perhaps
  one of the stupidest things you
  could have done.”
  “Where are we?” The pains Sally
  had felt at the Heretic’s words
  were fading as quickly as they
  had come, but the memories lin-
  gered like dark clouds in her mind.
  “Did he lead you here?”
  Shreiver asked, ignoring Sally’s
  question. At first, Sally thought
  she meant the Poet, but then she
  realized she meant the man who
  had been seated at the table with
  her... and the thing he had be-
  come. “Did he?”
  “I don’t know,” Sally re-
  sponded truthfully. “I don’t know.
  J... the Poet... led me here, I
  thought. But I don’t know where
  he is.”
  Shreiver did not respond to
  this, but she seemed to become
  more angry, as if some line had
  been crossed where she was no
  longer in control.
  Sally could not tell who the
  anger was directed at... at Sally,
  at the Poet, or the imagined echo,
  Gans... the terrible presence that
  had spoke from him...
  “What now?” Sally found her-
  self saying.
  “Don’t you know?”�Shreiver
  hissed, and Sally shrank back.
  “Don’t you know? Didn’t you come
  here for a reason?” When Shreiver
  saw Sally’s surprise, she stopped,
  incredulous, and shook her head
  in disbelief. “No, you didn’t did
  you?”
  “I came here to escape the
  Asylum.” Sally said. “But I don’t
  know how to do that... I came here
  in search of some answers,” Sally
  found her words begin to spill
  from her mouth, driven on by an-
  ger and frustration. “...except
  there doesn’t seem to be any an-
  swers, just more and more ques-
  tions! Where are we? What is this
  place? What—”
  “What is the Asylum? Is that
  your question?” Shreiver asked,
  smiling angrily. “Or perhaps you
  would like to know what has hap-
  pened here? Which is it?”
  The question hung in the space
  that separated them. Sally read
  Shreiver’s expression.
  “They both have the same an-
  swer,” Sally replied.
  Shreiver nodded. “Very good.”
  • • •
  “Shall I tell it, Gans?”
  Shreiver spoke to the space, her
  words edged with anger. “Will you
  let me speak without interruption?
  Or do you have more grandiose
  threats to make? Any more dis-
  plays? If so, do it now.” Shreiver
  folded her arms and waited.
  Around her, the prison
  stirred, but there was no sound
  from the space around them.
  And so Shreiver began.
  
  163
  163
  Shreiver does not know the full history of the
  Asylum (this is why her rendition of the Asylum’s
  “true” history starts in the Pulp Era, below). While
  some patients may be able to provide segments of the
  information listed in the Eldritch Era, below, it may
  take the PCs some time to gather all the pieces and
  realize what has taken place.
  Eldritch Era
  As mentioned in Truths, above, the Asylum pa-
  tients are largely responsible for the founding and con-
  struction of the Asylum (most noticeable in the 1893-
  95 fragments). During the Eldritch Era, however, they
  were still coming into their own, and they were both
  unaware of their psionic potential and the commu-
  nity that they were creating within the institution.
  Though many horrors occurred during the Asylum
  during this period, the staff still maintained some
  measure of control over the Asylum and its inhabit-
  ants. Though he had not paid much mind to the mat-
  ter early in his service at the Asylum, the longer Su-
  perintendent Bourne spent at the Asylum the more
  he suspected that some of the patients were begin-
  ning to manifest extrasensory perceptions. This sus-
  picion was fostered by the terrible (possibly precog-
  nitive) dreams that his wife was having while the
  Bourne family were staying at the Asylum. Neverthe-
  less, Bourne was a skeptic and a “realist,” and he never
  seriously entertained the possibility that the patients
  might have any sort of mental awareness. His recorded
  observations, however, added further fuel to his
  successor’s (Superintendent Ross) belief that there was
  something out of the ordinary about the Asylum pa-
  tients.
  Unknown to Bourne, the pathological labora-
  tory (under charge of Dr. Farrell at this time), may
  have been doing research on the psychic phenomena
  within the Asylum. GM’s discretion... the lab and its
  directors are mentioned in the Timeline in case GMs
  wish to pursue this adventure seed.
  Pulp Era
  Shreiver folded her arms, and
  paused, as if hunting for a start-
  ing place. [1]
  “I’m not sure really where to
  begin...” She frowned for a mo-
  ment, as if sorting through her
  memories. “Perhaps with Superin-
  tendent Ross. I think he was the
  first to notice what was tran-
  spiring in the institution. He
  observed that some of the men-
  tally disturbed patients were
  manifesting extrasensory percep-
  tions. I imagine at first he found
  this hard to believe, but eventu-
  ally he accepted it. He brought
  Dr. Solomon, a cerebellic re-
  searcher, to the Asylum to study
  the phenomena in these ‘special
  cases’ that Ross had identified.”
  • • •
  Superintendent Ross succeeded Bourne in 1920,
  and where Bourne had been skeptical about what he
  had seen within the Asylum, Ross found the growing
  evidence to be beyond denial. He brought Dr.
  Solomon (see Timeline, 1922) to the Asylum to ex-
  amine the phenomena. Although Dr. Solomon reput-
  edly specialized in cases of schizophrenia, this was
  because of his interest in cerebellic mutations, not
  schizophrenia per se. Dr. Solomon had seen some
  mentally disturbed patients manifest extrasensory
  perceptions during his career, and had long been ob-
  sessed with categorizing and duplicating whatever
  caused these patients to have “visions.” Ross provided
  Solomon with his own ward in which to study the
  special cases in the Asylum and gave Solomon free
  reign to experiment on the patients within this ward.
  This was unfortunate, for Dr. Solomon’s obsessions
  with mentalism ruled his actions. The patients were
  subjected to many torments in the hopes of discover-
  ing the source of these mental mutations. [2]
  Ross and Solomon had frequent arguments
  about the research on these “special cases,” and fre-
  quently, both of them put aside the concerns of the
  rest of the Asylum patients and staff in order to de-
  vote time to this research. This lead to many changes
  in the Asylum census... many chronic patients were
  admitted and kept at far below the normal rates so
  that they might be studied and a core number of these
  chronic patients were kept at the Asylum for an ex-
  tended period of time (see Timeline). Insulin shock
  and metrazol, sensory deprivation and surgical exami-
  nation were all used on patients for research pur-
  poses...  though in some cases, it appeared more akin
  to torture. Solomon cared little for those under his
  care except for what information they might provide
  for him once they were put under heavy medication,
  or as often was the case, under the scalpel. Solomon
  was eventually dismissed from the Asylum after
  mounting debts and continual failures in research.
  1: Again, as Shreiver does not truly know when the secret Asylum
  history begins, she believes that Superintendent Ross is the “cor-
  rect” starting place.
  2: “Solomon’s Ward” was where psychic potential was first studied
  in the Asylum. It was located in the Admissions Building, and the
  ward was constructed to be as spartan as possible (much in the
  manner of a sensory deprivation area) with everything a stark white
  — Solomon hoped that once isolated from their senses, the pa-
  tients’ special abilities would emerge. Dr. Solomon had so much
  support from Dr. Ross that he was able to take liberties with the
  patients, injecting them with psychoactive drugs, strapping them
  to their beds, and even causing them severe amounts of pain in
  order to “coax” them into performing. (It is no accident that an
  operating room and a laboratory are located close to this ward.)
  This ward may still be located in the Admissions Building if the
  GM wishes... if so, characters with mental powers can detect faint
  telepathic traces and signatures (see UM) all over the walls and
  cells of this ward, echoes from the powers used in the ward in the
  past.
  
  164
  164
  Ross also instituted another project within the
  Asylum that was to grow in later years. He appointed
  a social worker to keep track of any schizophrenics
  and other psychotic patients [1] released in the Fell’s
  Point community, including information on their bio-
  logical relatives, careers, and their place of residence
  (see 1921, Social Worker). Ross hoped to be able to
  track these patients should any of their “special abili-
  ties” re-emerge, or if necessary, monitor their biologi-
  cal relatives to see if they manifested any specialties.
  Patients: This is the era when the patients began to
  become conscious of their abilities and became aware
  of the invisible community that they had established
  within the walls of the Asylum. The shortages of staff
  and supplies in World War I and World War II allowed
  them to take over many of the duties of the Asylum,
  and finally, one year before Gans became Superinten-
  dent, they took complete control.
  The odd thing was, few patients even realized
  what they had done... and those who did realize only
  saw a small part of the total picture. To all outward
  appearances, the Asylum continued to run as before,
  but beneath the surface, subtle changes occurred. The
  patients began to make changes in the hierarchy,
  shuttle doctors around the various wards, and began
  to expand the subculture within the walls. The pa-
  tients were responsible for Gans’s appointment to Su-
  perintendent (and they probably contributed to Ross’s
  death in some fashion) and if some of the Asylum
  prophets are to be believed, the fact that Gans was
  born within the Asylum seemed to mark him as some-
  one especially “gifted”... it seemed natural that he
  should be the one to lead them. (Gans, even at the
  end of his life, was aware of none of this.)
  Once they had established themselves, the spe-
  cial case patients set about attempting to stabilize their
  influence and expand. Again, it is difficult to argue
  whether the patients were conscious of what they were
  doing... it is possible that they simply recognized an
  instinct within themselves to “procreate” and create a
  secure environment for themselves. Many of them es-
  caped or were otherwise secretly seeded back into the
  Fell’s Point community.
  The Modern Era
  Gans succeeded Ross. He set about trying to sta-
  bilize the institution and improve patient care as best
  he could. Nevertheless, as he examined the journals
  of Ross and Bourne, he too became interested in the
  special cases present in the Asylum. At first, this was
  the curiosity of a researcher, but as Gans neared the
  end of his life, he became convinced that the special-
  ties of the patients held some key to escaping death.
  • • •
  Shreiver’s voice droned on.
  “Gans continued the tradi-
  tions. He saw it as a form of
  escape... and a source of fear.
  Some of the observations of the
  patients seem to suggest that there
  was nothing beyond death, a long
  final sleep from which they would
  never awake. And so Gans became
  frightened. He could not physi-
  cally prevent his own death, but
  he wondered if perhaps the psionic
  powers of the patients might some-
  how save him from his fate.”
  Shreiver shook her head, frown-
  ing. “And so he entered into a
  partnership with the CIA in the
  1960s. That was when the horrors
  begin. They — they left nothing
  in the Asylum untouched.”
  Shreiver drew a deep breath.
  It was ragged in her throat, as
  if her breath was catching on some-
  thing. She gave a slight cough,
  then continued.
  “They did... things to the
  patients here. For almost a de-
  cade. And the end result of their
  research lies here. They made a
  poison which they felt held the
  key to ‘awakening’ psychic powers
  in human beings. They ingested it,
  and they died.”
  Shreiver remained still for a
  moment, as if listening to some-
  thing in the silence. The still-
  ness dragged on, until Sally re-
  alized that Shreiver intended to
  say nothing more on the point.
  In the darkness, Sally felt
  that Shreiver had somehow pro-
  nounced a judgment upon the dead
  within the Cocytus.
  • • •
  The Asylum had fallen on hard financial times
  during the Modern Era, and it was perhaps this,
  coupled with Gans’s fear of death, that lead him to
  ally himself with the Central Intelligence Agency who
  was conducting cerebellic research at the time under
  Project M-K-Ultra. [1, next page] Gans made the
  Asylum’s past observations and research available to
  the CIA, and he invited two CIA-backed psychiatrists
  (Dr. Thomas Morrow and Dr. Sebastian Poe) to the
  Asylum in the 1960s in order to conduct research in
  1: These patients were not necessarily special cases. Patients who
  were special cases or were believed to be special cases were only
  re-admitted to the community when Ross and Solomon were un-
  able to diagnose their specialty (or in some cases, when the pa-
  tients used their specialty to convince the doctors to release them).
  After Solomon left, Ross continued keeping files on all specials
  (actual or believed) within the Asylum. The social workers, while
  aware that Ross had an interest in these specific individuals, were
  never clear exactly why this was.
  
  165
  165
  cerebellic mutations. Morrow and Poe were fascinated
  by the tremendous psychic potential within the pa-
  tients, and, backed by government grants (see
  Timeline... the Asylum’s economic problems seem to
  suddenly vanish), they established several labs in the
  Eighth Ward, in an area that came to be known as the
  “Cocytus” (the reason for the name has never been
  determined... it may have gained its name after the
  CIA abandoned the labs). The Asylum provided a
  number of disposable subjects, and because the CIA
  had control over most of the money that was coming
  into the institution, the agency held control over Gans
  and most of the activities within the Asylum, reduc-
  ing Gans to more of a puppet than a Superintendent.
  During this period, the CIA maintained close ties with
  the Fell’s Point University Department of Psychiatry
  (who had a number of scientists undertaking research
  at the request of the CIA) and Swift Pharmaceuticals
  (who provided much of the laboratory and chemical
  agents the CIA used in their experiments). The CIA
  were also responsible for financing the Medical Divi-
  sion as well as the greater security measures that were
  implemented at the Asylum in the 1960s.
  The CIA was in search of a way to exploit the
  psychic powers of the inmates for intelligence gather-
  ing purposes. While they found some patients who
  had useful abilities (these patients were promptly
  shipped off to CIA training camps), others seemed to
  be dregs with little or no covert operation value (these
  patients were operated on and tested). During the
  decade the CIA occupied the Asylum, the goals of their
  research seemed to change radically on a yearly ba-
  sis... the last stages of their stay involved tests to de-
  termine if psychic powers could be induced by chemi-
  cal means.
  The CIA abandoned the Asylum in 1969 after
  “completing” their research, not long after the great
  fire struck the Asylum (see Fire of 1969). The final re-
  sult of their research, the S-Series hallucinogen
  dubbed “the Poe Derivative,” was found to be poison-
  ous and further experimentation with the hallucino-
  gen was presumably discontinued. What happened to
  Dr. Poe and Dr. Morrow is unknown. [2]
  • • •
  Shreiver continued, every word
  more bitter than the last.
  “My husband had wanted to take
  the derivative, but after the...”
  Shreiver frowned bitterly,
  “...‘accident,’ as he called it,
  he was too scared.” The last word
  was delivered with a slight hiss
  of scorn. “His fear had given the
  CIA the key to this place, then
  his fear prevented him from fol-
  lowing through to their conclu-
  sion.”
  Shreiver’s eyes blazed in the
  darkness.
  “People die, Miss Robinson.
  It is a scary fact, and it is hard
  for some people to come to grips
  with. Fear of death is a reason-
  able thing. But death, the fear
  of it, is never a reason to send
  others to die. Especially when the
  order is given by a man who has
  sworn, by the oath of his profes-
  sion, to care for those that come
  to him for aid.”
  Shreiver paused again, taking
  another breath, then continued.
  “So...” The next words seemed
  to be more difficult for Shreiver.
  “His fear prevented him from tak-
  ing the hallucinogen the CIA de-
  veloped. After all they had done
  with his consent.”
  Sally shifted on the floor
  where she lay. “But finally, he
  did? He took the derivative?”
  Shreiver’s eyes seemed to lose
  focus for a moment.
  “Yes.” She took another
  breath. “I administered it to him.”
  Dr. Shreiver: Dr. Shreiver assumed her duties as Medi-
  cal Superintendent in 1972. It is not clear whether Dr.
  Shreiver was aware of what was taking place in the
  Asylum... it is believed that she was aware of the se-
  cret labs in the Cocytus, but she chose not to investi-
  gate, professing that whatever Gans was interested in
  was something that she would decidedly ignore. Still,
  it is unlikely that she would have been able to over-
  look the presence of the two CIA-backed doctors and
  the disappearance of many patients within the Asy-
  lum walls in the 1960s.
  Regardless, at some point Shreiver did become
  aware of the experimentation (presumably after the
  mass suicide that took place in the Cocytus in 1969)
  1: M-K-Ultra was a real-world project undertaken by the CIA’s
  Office of Technical Services (OTS). OTS was investigating meth-
  ods of controlling the behavior of others through chemical and
  biological means, including LSD and mescaline. In Dark Champi-
  ons, the CIA established a fictional research foundation to pro-
  vide a cover for clandestine activity involving Morrow and Poe
  (and also to launder money so that the operations taking place in
  the Asylum could not be traced back to the CIA); the foundation
  was called the Human Ecological Research Society (HERS), and it
  had its headquarters on South 75th Street in Fell’s Point.
  2: Dr. Poe and Morrow are still alive and well on the Fell’s Point
  peninsula (see future Dark Champions supplements for more in-
  formation). Further experimentation utilizing the data they gath-
  ered at the Asylum has resulted in a new series of hallucinogens
  that have had marginal success in inducing psychic powers in hu-
  man beings. Among their subjects have been Gurney Wallace (see
  Psyciks, above) and the Cheshire Cat (see the upcoming Asylum
  Bedtime Stories... Bob’s brother had been one of their test subjects
  but died when the CIA injected him with an overdose of the Poe
  Derivative as an experiment. After the “accidental death” of his
  brother, the CIA replaced Bob’s Lithium with the Poe Derivative
  to see what would occur).
  
  166
  166
  and punished her husband by administering the Poe
  Derivative to him and leaving him in the Cocytus to
  die (see Shreiver’s introductory narrative). [1]
  “But the derivative is poi-
  sonous,” Sally pressed. “It can’t
  be used without killing the user.”
  Shreiver glared, then nodded
  tersely. “Poisonous, yes.”
  “So...” Sally’s first instinct
  was to be tactful, but she sup-
  pressed it. Shreiver had shown her
  no such leniency before. “So you
  purposely administered this de-
  rivative to your husband without
  his knowledge.”
  Sally both heard and felt the
  pause before Shreiver spoke.
  “Yes,” Shreiver replied, but
  it was a tone lower that Sally
  had been used to, as if Shreiver
  did not want to speak too loudly,
  as if doing so would be admitting
  her deed. “It was what he wanted.”
  “He wished to be poisoned?”
  Shreiver’s eyes narrowed, and
  her face gave evidence of the
  struggle to lash back at Sally.
  Eventually, it seemed some form
  of restraint won out, and
  Shreiver’s next words seemed care-
  fully chosen.
  “Miss Robinson, you could not
  possibly hope to understand what
  my late husband had done... in
  this place of healing. What you
  may have gathered, even what I
  have told you, does not tell half
  of what my husband had done to
  twist its purpose, because of his
  own petty insecurities. He vio-
  lated a trust with the patients
  here.” She swallowed, and it was
  almost a rasp in her dry throat.
  “He had wanted this substance, had
  worked so hard, harmed so many
  under his care, he deserved to
  have it. The question of its le-
  thality was simply no longer rel-
  evant to me at the time.”
  “Last I heard that constituted
  murder,” Sally’s face was a stone.
  “And from what you just said, that
  sounds a lot like revenge.”
  “Perhaps to you.” Shreiver
  folded her arms.
  “To anybody,” Sally shot back.
  “But your hypocrisy aside, I’d
  appreciate it if you could ex-
  plain something to me... the sub-
  stance obviously wasn’t lethal.”
  Sally glanced around her. “If it
  was, then none of this would be
  happening... would it?”
  Shreiver gave what sounded
  like a sigh, then her voice flat,
  she launched into a recitation.
  “From what I had been led to be-
  lieve, in addition to the behav-
  ioral disturbances caused by the
  derivative, the subject experi-
  ences severe motor abnormalities
  shortly before death... in some
  cases, this will be a murderous
  frenzy... as I’m sure you have
  observed in the remains of the
  labs here. In Gans, it caused pa-
  ralysis. A catatonic state. Ac-
  cording to the research, this
  should have been a precursor to
  his death.”
  “So what happened?” Sally
  said. “Why didn’t he die?”
  The harshness bled out of
  Shreiver’s features for a moment,
  and Sally felt the wall between
  them abate. She studied Shreiver’s
  face and realized the answer be-
  fore she spoke.
  “You don’t know, do you?”
  Gans’s Death: As mentioned in his description above,
  Gans was born in the Asylum, and at least one of his
  parents (perhaps both) was considered a “special case”
  (i.e., mentally gifted/disturbed). Gans, however, never
  displayed any mental power, psionic or otherwise, dur-
  ing his lifetime. When Shreiver poisoned Gans with
  the Poe Derivative on their final night together in the
  Asylum (see Timeline: Libations, below), it is possible
  that the hallucinogen acted as a catalyst for a latent
  mental ability, but this is only conjecture. (Gans’s body
  is no longer available for examination to prove this
  hypothesis, and his disembodied form will provide
  no answers to characters who ask.)
  Patients: The patients solidified their hold during the
  Modern Era, continued to breed, and set about plans
  for expansion into Fell’s Point to create more of their
  “kind” among the population. The Children’s Divi-
  sion (1965-1970) was one of these projects, designed
  to examine (and when necessary, create) disturbed
  children with psychic powers. [1, next page]
  The patients, on some level, were believed to
  have allowed the CIA within the gates of the Asylum.
  The reason for this, again, is not clear, but several hy-
  potheses have suggested themselves: one was that the
  CIA had access to resources and scientists that the
  Asylum patients did not... by allowing them into the
  1: Dr. Shreiver administered the poison to Gans in his wine (again,
  see Shreiver’s introductory narrative in the Preludes section).
  
  167
  167
  came clear that the CIA could actually arrange “breedings” among
  the Asylum patients, the Children’s Division became a place where
  they could shuttle the offspring and examine them. When the
  Children’s Division was abandoned, the CIA and other physicians
  in the Asylum (some without their knowledge) arranged for a
  steady stream of children born within the Asylum to be ferried
  out to Dr. Day and his CIA backers so that they might be exam-
  ined.
  It is believed that the patients (at least a majority of them)
  agree to this practice in the hopes of continuing their “gifted”
  bloodlines. Genetic transmission is another way to continue pro-
  ducing more psychically-gifted humans.
  The GM can either flesh out this as an adventure on their
  own or else wait for elaboration on the subject in future Dark
  Champions supplements.
  2: Presumably, Crusader would have been well within his rights to
  execute these patients, but he chose not to do so (this choice was
  Asylum, the patients could learn from what the CIA
  researchers discovered. It is also possible that of the
  few patients that were aware of what was going on
  (i.e., the knowledge that they were somehow in charge
  of the Asylum) recognized that, despite the deaths of
  their brethren, they stood to gain two things from the
  government research... the origin of how they devel-
  oped their new consciousness and how to “awaken”
  others faster than they had before (i.e., synthetically).
  Time had shown that attempting to breed more
  psychics was a long process, and the patients were
  looking for a short cut in which to create more men-
  talists through an artificial catalyst... and thus the re-
  searchers developed the hallucinogen known as the
  Poe Derivative.
  The patients tailored much of the Asylum to
  their liking during this time, including removal of
  some staff members (whether by retirement or death)
  and forcing changes among the hierarchy. The high
  fluctuation of the patient census during their period
  was symptomatic of the times, but the patients also
  were quick to release “gifted” patients back into the
  Fell’s Point community so that they might breed. The
  social workers were able to keep track of some of the
  patients, but not all of them... as many as a few hun-
  dred may have slipped through the cracks during this
  period. What happened to them is unknown.
  Timeline: As the reader may have noticed, the period
  from 1970 to the present has been omitted from the
  Timeline. This has been done for two reasons; one is
  that this time period may hit too close to the reader’s
  campaign... it is hoped that the GM has their own ideas
  what the Asylum staff and inhabitants have been up
  to during this period. The second reason is that be-
  cause of the actions of the patients, the Asylum main-
  tained a static equilibrium during this period. Noth-
  ing of any bureaucratic or structural importance oc-
  curred. Buildings decayed, were repaired, only to de-
  cay again in short order. Funds were wasted on main-
  tenance, a few patients were cured, and new patients
  were admitted. The patient census maintained a steady
  level from 1970 to 1990.
  In the published Dark Champions universe,
  more patients were released into the Fell’s Point popu-
  lation during this period, either due to
  deinstitutionalization or discharges. The patients con-
  tinued to look for others of their “kind.” The primary
  opposition to the expansion of the Asylum patients
  was Crusader (see Underworld Enemies), but even he
  did not fully recognize the threat the inmates pre-
  sented to Fell’s Point. His relation to the Asylum was
  in his contribution to the Cycle, below:
  The Cycle: A wearisome cycle continued throughout
  the Modern Era as Crusader continually fought, cap-
  tured and returned escaped inmates to the Asylum
  (see Sally Robinson, Background). On the surface, it
  seemed to be nothing more than a sorry reflection of
  a comic book plot, but there are some additional in-
  formation that the GM may wish to reveal to the PCs
  at some point in the future:
  1. On some level, Crusader recognized that the Asy-
  lum had become a nation (a world) unto itself. As
  such, he accorded it all the respect reserved for for-
  eign nations and left the Asylum community to its
  own devices as long as its inhabitants did not prey on
  the citizens of Fell’s Point. When this occurred, Cru-
  sader would capture the offending member of the
  Asylum, punish them, and return them to their com-
  munity. [2] At points during his career he did pres-
  sure Shreiver to exert a tighter rein over the patients,
  but as neither Crusader or Shreiver realized who was
  really in charge of the institution, this had no effect.
  2. Although Crusader would rarely admit this to him-
  self, he was afraid of disturbing the equilibrium be-
  tween Fell’s Point and the Asylum. Although this fear
  did not stop him from stopping and punishing the
  Asylum patients when they committed crimes in Fell’s
  Point, he had a terrible feeling that if the institution
  was seriously threatened it would destroy Fell’s Point.
  He had no evidence to support this suspicion, how-
  ever.
  1: Despite the fact the CIA left the Asylum, this practice of exam-
  ining disturbed children for mental powers was never discontin-
  ued. An examination of the female patients in the Patients section
  will reveal that a number of their children are missing (see Ellen,
  Katie the Birdiladi, Maria, Mustang Sally, and Rosebelle, as well as
  Angela Dross in the Schizophrenic Psychics section, above). These
  children have been “adopted” by the CIA who use them in medi-
  cal experiments conducted by a contract physician, Dr. Newland
  Day (see the Asylum Timeline, 1965-1970 and the Abandoned
  Children’s Division described in the Eastern Division in the Asy-
  lum Grounds section). These children, having been born in the
  Asylum, are believed to have the potential to develop mental pow-
  ers as a result of their parentage and because of the strange influ-
  ence the Asylum seems to exert on its inhabitants (i.e., due to the
  telepathically-transmitted diseases, the Heretic’s considerable
  psionic presence, and so on).
  Initially, the Children’s Division in the Asylum was to re-
  ceive mentally disturbed children from the surrounding popula-
  tion and then to check them for mental mutations. When it be-
  
  168
  168
  “And Sam?”
  Sally discovered that she
  didn’t want to ask the question.
  She no longer wanted to know the
  answer. But she had come too far...
  and she did not want to leave a
  gap in her mind of Sam’s past that
  might be filled in with fantasy.
  She didn’t think that she could
  bear that.
  “And Sam?” Sally persisted.
  “You knew him, didn’t you?”
  Shreiver nodded, and her voice
  dropped, as if preparing to soften
  the blow.
  “I knew him, Miss Robinson.
  But let me tell you right now,
  that your image of Sam, whatever
  it may be, is not the true one.
  Sam was... disturbed, and he suf-
  fered from what people sometimes
  call a ‘Mask Complex,’ an over-
  identification with another per-
  sonality, usually personified in
  a costume, or mask.” Shreiver
  coughed. “Sometimes it’s called a
  Persona Personality Disorder...
  nevertheless, it is what drove your
  friend, Sam, to do the things he
  did. As a result, many of the pa-
  tients here became trapped in a
  cycle that Sam was perpetuating
  with his disorder. In his role as
  a ‘crime-fighter’ he saw it as
  his duty to hunt and punish the
  patients in these walls. As long
  as he continued to do so, he was
  not only hurting himself, but doz-
  ens of other patients in my care.”
  Shreiver raised her eyebrows,
  and gave a slight smile that Sally
  assumed meant that she was sup-
  posed to understand and sympathize
  with what Shreiver was saying...
  like a small child might agree
  with her mother.
  “And?” Sally became angry
  again, both at the condescension
  and what Shreiver was telling her.
  “So I helped him,” Shreiver
  said.
  She seemed surprised that
  Sally had asked.
  Note: The following is what happened to Crusader in
  the published Dark Champions universe in 1988-1990.
  November, 1988: Arriving at the Asylum to question
  a patient about a crime in Fell’s Point, Crusader is
  tricked and imprisoned by Dr. Shreiver. She unmasks
  him, identifies him, and attempts to discover what
  drove him to vigilantism. Despite the amount of drugs
  pumped into his system and intense psychoanalysis,
  answers are not forthcoming.
  Experiencing frustration due to her inability to
  gain facts on Sam’s past (it is under lock and key in
  the CIA database, far from prying eyes), Shreiver in-
  forms Sam that unless he comes to trust her, she will
  be forced to move him to the Western Division.
  December, 1988: In December of 1988, Shreiver car-
  ries through on her threat and Sam is imprisoned in
  the lowest levels of the Western Division. There, the
  other patients begin to chip away his resistance, some-
  how secure in the knowledge that once Crusader
  breaks, the Asylum itself will break apart and allow
  them their freedom. [1]
  1989: The Hallow’s Eve fire rages through the Asy-
  lum, engulfing the Fifth Ward and destroying almost
  a quarter of the Asylum records division and the Medi-
  cal library. The fire is believed to have been set by the
  Pretender (see Underworld Enemies, p. 24). After the
  fire, the Pretender assumes Crusader’s identity. [2]
  During the later half of this year, patients begin
  to find their way out of the Asylum, either by escap-
  ing or being discharged. As Sam descends deeper into
  madness, the patients drift from the Asylum one by
  one and filter into Fell’s Point. The Idiot King is the
  last one to leave, but as he has been planning the 1990
  festivities for some time, he is in no hurry. [3]
  January, 1990: The escaped patients begin testing the
  inhabitants of Fell’s Point through various abhorrent
  acts, and pressure builds within the city. On the night
  of Crusader’s “Fall” (see below), civil unrest boils over
  in Fell’s Point, leading to wide-scale rioting and loot-
  ing.
  The Fall: Crusader’s first (and true) Fall. Suffering
  under the effects of the continual drug treatments and
  the torture of the other inmates, Crusader’s resistance
  crumbles, and he confesses his murderous past to
  Shreiver. Shreiver draws the connection between the
  guilt of the murder and the manifestation of the Cru-
  sader identity, then informs Sam that he will have to
  remain at the Asylum, most likely for many more years
  to come.
  1: Apparently, some delusional patients felt that the Asylum was a
  reflection of Sam’s personal neuroses... should he “break,” it seemed
  logical to them that the Asylum would “break” as well.
  2: Again, this was symptomatic of Sam’s identity crisis. The
  Pretender’s breakdown (caused by Freak, see UE, p. 24) and his
  emergence into the outside world was also a way by which the
  patients were “testing the water” in the outside world.
  3: It is suspected that the Idiot King spoke to Crusader the night
  before his breakdown (see below), but there is no proof of this.
  The Idiot King insists that he did not speak to Crusader.
  
  169
  169
  As civil unrest boils over in Fell’s Point, Cru-
  sader goes berserk and leaves the Asylum by force. [1]
  During his escape, several patients in Wards Seven
  through Nine are seriously injured, and the Western
  and Eastern Divisions suffer tremendous structural
  damage.
  Aftermath: Once Sam escaped from the Asylum, he
  returned to Fell’s Point and helped subdue many of
  the Asylum’s escaped patients... enraged and under
  the influence of drugs, Crusader’s delusional state lead
  him to believe that if he could somehow place these
  “neuroses” back where they belonged (each neurosis
  represented by an Asylum inmate), that order would
  be restored and he would become “sane” again. [2]
  Whether this “therapy” worked is unknown... it is un-
  likely. Shortly after defeating the last of the Asylum
  inmates in Fell’s Point and returning them to the Asy-
  lum, Crusader drifted out of the public light and be-
  gan to look for a replacement for his role in Fell’s Point.
  He was never the same after his imprisonment at the
  Asylum; although he would never admit it, his expe-
  riences at the Asylum broke him psychologically. [3]
  Sally did not respond when
  Shreiver had finished. She did not
  know what to say.
  Sam had developed a death-wish
  in the Asylum. His guilt had been
  compounded, reflected, intensi-
  fied. If what Shreiver said was
  true, then Sam had spent his en-
  tire life learning how to die...
  even when he met her.
  Even when he was with her?
  She refused to believe it. She
  could not know what Sam had expe-
  rienced in the Asylum, but she
  had known the man, the human side
  of Sam, and she had known that
  when they were together, he had
  wanted to continue with life.
  If he had spent his entire
  life planning his death, then in
  that time he was with her, she
  knew he had discovered he no longer
  wanted to die.
  Sally wanted to laugh, to
  scream, but it just seemed that
  the irony defied expression.
  • • •
  “So that’s why you asked if I
  had come for revenge against you.”
  Sally said, her voice flat. “On
  some level, you must have known
  that what you’d done here, what
  you’d done to Sam, was wrong.”
  “No,” Shreiver said, shaking
  her head. “Not at all.”
  Sally gave a brief, scornful
  laugh. “No, of course not... you’d
  ‘helped’ him.” She stared at
  Shreiver impassively. “Thank you
  for convincing him that life wasn’t
  worth living anymore.”
  Shreiver looked as if she
  wanted to speak, but held herself
  back.
  “So what now?” Sally said.
  “Back to treatment for me? Back
  to the padded cell? I didn’t harm
  those patients,” Sally replied.
  “You know it.”
  Shreiver, after a moment, nod-
  ded.
  “Nonetheless, Miss Robinson,
  you’re still carrying a great deal
  of anger and undoubtedly a large
  portion of it is directed at me—”
  Sally sighed. “I’m too tired
  to be angry with you... and as
  I’ve told you, I’m not Purge. I
  never was. I’m fine.”
  Shreiver let her voice drop
  again, perhaps as one last at-
  tempt to communicate with Sally.
  “Miss Robinson... Sally, I know
  it hurts you to hear me say it,
  but Sam was never that important.
  Everyone spends their entire life
  dying. Don’t let him dictate how
  you live now... he’s gone.”
  Shreiver’s face relaxed slightly,
  and a trace of emotion came
  through. “Don’t dwell on it, Sally.
  Don’t become one of the walking
  wounded. There are too many out
  there—”
  Sally closed her eyes. “Why
  don’t you go back to fucking up
  your own life and leave me alone?”
  Shreiver’s face hardened
  again.
  “You don’t understand yet,
  Sally. I think you will, though.”
  1: Although he will not speak of it, the Poet descended into the
  Asylum’s Lower Wards on the night of the Fall in an attempt to
  rescue Sam.
  2: This is the point at which Sam makes his first public reappear-
  ance after a year of being “gone” (see Sally Anne Robinson, Back-
  ground).
  3: If the subject is brought up with Shreiver, she will mention (off
  handedly) that Sam manifested a death-wish in the Asylum. She
  will not admit that this might have been because of the psycho-
  logical pressure she was placing him under and will steadfastly claim
  that it was Sam’s hatred of himself that led to his self-destructive
  behavior. Either theory is possible.
  Some of the patients in the Asylum (in keeping with the
  neuroses hypothesis, above) believe that Crusade served as the rep-
  resentation of Sam’s self-hatred. There is no way to confirm such
  an argument, however.
  
  170
  170
  Sally watched as Shreiver
  turned and walked back through the
  space, the gray swallowing her.
  • • •
  As Shreiver vanished, the
  prison seemed to shift, and Sally
  was once again conscious... of
  Gans, of the Heretic, whatever it
  was that was caged within the bow-
  els of the Asylum. Its presence
  seemed to course through her, and
  she felt the fear she had felt
  before resurface.
  “Are you here to torture me
  again?” Sally spoke to the pres-
  ence.
  She does not wish it... I do
  She does not wish it... I do
  She does not wish it... I do
  She does not wish it... I do
  She does not wish it... I do
  not wish it.
  not wish it.
  not wish it.
  not wish it.
  not wish it.
  You have done what I needed
  You have done what I needed
  You have done what I needed
  You have done what I needed
  You have done what I needed
  you to do.
  you to do.
  you to do.
  you to do.
  you to do.
  “What about J? Where is he?”
  Sally asked.
  The fallen one is safe for
  The fallen one is safe for
  The fallen one is safe for
  The fallen one is safe for
  The fallen one is safe for
  now. He has served his purpose. I
  now. He has served his purpose. I
  now. He has served his purpose. I
  now. He has served his purpose. I
  now. He has served his purpose. I
  will return him to you.
  will return him to you.
  will return him to you.
  will return him to you.
  will return him to you.
  “Yes,” Sally said softly.
  “That’s what I want.”
  You did what he was unable to
  You did what he was unable to
  You did what he was unable to
  You did what he was unable to
  You did what he was unable to
  do, so many years when he trav-
  do, so many years when he trav-
  do, so many years when he trav-
  do, so many years when he trav-
  do, so many years when he trav-
  eled this path. For that, I sup-
  eled this path. For that, I sup-
  eled this path. For that, I sup-
  eled this path. For that, I sup-
  eled this path. For that, I sup-
  pose I should give thanks.
  pose I should give thanks.
  pose I should give thanks.
  pose I should give thanks.
  pose I should give thanks.
  Leave what you brought, and
  Leave what you brought, and
  Leave what you brought, and
  Leave what you brought, and
  Leave what you brought, and
  then I shall allow you to go free
  then I shall allow you to go free
  then I shall allow you to go free
  then I shall allow you to go free
  then I shall allow you to go free
  beyond the wall.
  beyond the wall.
  beyond the wall.
  beyond the wall.
  beyond the wall.
  Sally nodded, uncertain at his
  meaning. As she nodded, a thought
  suddenly came to her, unbidden,
  and before she realized what she
  was saying, she spoke the thought
  to the space around her.
  “Do you think if she had loved
  you... if she had loved you enough,
  would you have approached death
  as you did? Would it have held
  the same...” Sally struggled with
  the thought, with the words, then
  composed herself and asked again.
  “If she had loved you, would
  you have feared death?”
  She was not sure if she was
  asking because of Shreiver... or
  because of Sam. But she was cer-
  tain that she needed to know the
  answer.
  There was silence in the cham-
  ber.
  We will meet again.
  We will meet again.
  We will meet again.
  We will meet again.
  We will meet again.
  Outside the Asylum.
  Outside the Asylum.
  Outside the Asylum.
  Outside the Asylum.
  Outside the Asylum.
  • • •
  “Outside the Asylum?” Sally
  asked. “If —” She faltered. “Then
  why do you remain here?” Sally
  asked. “There’s—”
  Sally felt the impulse as it
  rolled over her, and she shud-
  dered, blinking back the tears that
  sprung unbidden from her eyes.
  Do you not KNOW?
  Do you not KNOW?
  Do you not KNOW?
  Do you not KNOW?
  Do you not KNOW?
  No...
  No...
  No...
  No...
  No...
  Perhaps you do not.
  Perhaps you do not.
  Perhaps you do not.
  Perhaps you do not.
  Perhaps you do not.
  It may come to you in TIME.
  It may come to you in TIME.
  It may come to you in TIME.
  It may come to you in TIME.
  It may come to you in TIME.
  Understanding, for some, is
  Understanding, for some, is
  Understanding, for some, is
  Understanding, for some, is
  Understanding, for some, is
  slow.
  slow.
  slow.
  slow.
  slow.
  When she dies you may find
  When she dies you may find
  When she dies you may find
  When she dies you may find
  When she dies you may find
  that the FEEBLE walls of this
  that the FEEBLE walls of this
  that the FEEBLE walls of this
  that the FEEBLE walls of this
  that the FEEBLE walls of this
  PRISON are no longer enough to
  PRISON are no longer enough to
  PRISON are no longer enough to
  PRISON are no longer enough to
  PRISON are no longer enough to
  contain me. And my vengeance, my
  contain me. And my vengeance, my
  contain me. And my vengeance, my
  contain me. And my vengeance, my
  contain me. And my vengeance, my
  blessing to your diseased city will
  blessing to your diseased city will
  blessing to your diseased city will
  blessing to your diseased city will
  blessing to your diseased city will
  be terrible to behold.
  be terrible to behold.
  be terrible to behold.
  be terrible to behold.
  be terrible to behold.
  There was silence within the
  prison... if a prison was what it
  truly was.
  You have brought memories of
  You have brought memories of
  You have brought memories of
  You have brought memories of
  You have brought memories of
  life with you.
  life with you.
  life with you.
  life with you.
  life with you.
  Leave me.
  Leave me.
  Leave me.
  Leave me.
  Leave me.
  I no longer wish you to BE
  I no longer wish you to BE
  I no longer wish you to BE
  I no longer wish you to BE
  I no longer wish you to BE
  here.
  here.
  here.
  here.
  here.
  The terrible sense of space
  rose around her like an ocean,
  drowning her in its expanse.
  Sally fell.
  Asylum Finale:
  Grounded
  When Sally’s senses returned
  to her, she found herself outside
  the Asylum... exactly where she
  was she was unsure, but it felt
  as if she was at the fringes of
  the Asylum. Steps separated her
  from the outside world, past the
  black forest that marked the di-
  vision.
  Beside her, lying upon the
  ground was the frail form of the
  Poet. He looked peaceful and still,
  and Sally at first feared that he
  was dead. Then she saw his chest
  rising and falling in sleep.
  As Sally looked upon the Poet,
  she was suddenly conscious that
  there was something missing from
  her person, but she could not re-
  call what it was. Whatever it was,
  she did not miss it, and she found
  
  171
  171
  that her step was lighter than it
  had been before.
  And the hurting was gone.
  A cold wind blew across the
  Asylum grounds, and Sally shiv-
  ered, pulling the remnants of her
  uniform tight about her. Winter
  had come early this year.
  Of course it had, she thought.
  the rush of air like flight
  as he fell into the Underworld
  The Fall had already come and
  gone. It remained where it was,
  where it should be. In the past.
  She was so tired. She felt as
  if she had been turned inside out,
  and she was exhausted.
  Dead leaves crackled beneath
  her hands as she collapsed onto
  the grounds outside the Asylum.
  • • •
  Sally dreamed.
  • • •
  In the dream, there was a
  shift, a comforting one.
  Sally dreamed she was herself.
  She was again conscious of an
  I. As she lay unconscious, tears
  of relief streamed from her eyes
  and fell upon the Asylum grounds.
  Sally
  The dream started the same as the other.
  I am lying in bed, in the featureless gray.
  And instead of watching myself from a distance,
  Im in me, looking out. It feels strange... differ-
  ent. The gray mist is still there, blanketing
  every corner of the world.
  Except this time...
  ...this time there are other shapes in the
  mist.And when Sam appears, suddenly, silently
  from the mist, the costume is gone. His face is
  curiously relaxed, and as he walks to me, I study
  it desperately - I want to see it one more time
  before...He comes to the bed, to me and kneels,
  watching me. Hes waiting for something.
  I can speak.
  'Sam.'
  Gently, he brushes the hair away from my
  face. Behind him in the mist, the forms move in
  the gray. They are drifting through the mist,
  except there seems to be a purpose in their
  movements, a rhythm, a complexity... suddenly,
  overwhelmingly, I feel an urge, frightening in its
  intensity. I turn to Sam, the words forcing their
  way past my lips.
  'You know what the Asylum is, dont you,
  Sam?'There was the flicker of the smile, and his
  finger pressed against my lips, silencing my
  words.The Asylum
  I thought of a man, and a woman, forever
  separated by the past. An irreconcilable sepa-
  ration of mind and body. And hate.
  A fierce hate, that perhaps wasnt hate,
  but something else.
  You know what the Asylum is dont you Sam
  The question echoed in my mind.
  the Asylum
  Asylum
  But it didnt need an answer anymore.
  
  172
  172
  Appendix 0:
  Psychotech
  �I don�t even want to know
  what that thing is for, do I?�
  - Elliot Manns, the Idiot King -
  This section details some of the medical tech-
  nology used by the Asylum staff to help characters with
  various mental disorders.
  Straitjackets
  Straitjackets are canvas shirts with long sleeves
  designed to bind the arms of a violently insane char-
  acter. The shirt is put on and securely laced; the
  patient’s arms are then folded, and the ends of the
  sleeves are fastened behind the back, binding the
  character’s arms to the sides of his body. Straitjackets
  can be of any strength and durability, although in a
  paranormal Dark Champions campaign, some patients
  need to be specially fitted for straitjackets made of bal-
  listic mesh or cloth.
  Statistics: 5D6 Entangle, Variable Advantage (+1/2, see
  Notes, below), No Range (-1/2), 1 Recoverable Charge
  (-1 1/4), Cannot be used to form “Walls” (-1/4), Strait-
  jackets do not usually restrict leg movement (-1/4...
  although the character can be secured with leg chains
  if it becomes necessary). [75/23] The straitjacket is an
  OAF (-1) when used as a weapon to secure someone,
  but when secured, it is treated as an Obvious Inacces-
  sible Focus (-1/2), due to the difficulty of removing it
  from the subject once it is secured.
  Combat Notes: A character in a straitjacket can still
  fight, but at penalties. For every point of BODY in the
  Entangle, the character suffers a -1 DEX, and corre-
  sponding losses in OCV, DCV, and SPD. Any maneu-
  ver or skill requiring the hands cannot be performed.
  The following additional rules may apply:
  • When a straitjacketed character is being beaten with
  clubs, punches, and kicks, these attacks are unlikely to
  damage the straitjacket, only the character (i.e., “En-
  tangle takes no Damage from an Attack,” +1/2.) The
  GM may rule, however, that a character’s straitjacket
  gives the character partial protection from Physical
  STUN attacks. Every point of DEF in the Entangle gives
  a character a point of non-resistant PD. Only locations
  6-12 (hands, arms, shoulders, chest, stomach; see Hero
  System Rulebook, p.162) are protected... called shots to
  the character’s head and legs are treated as normal.
  • Killing Attacks and Energy Attacks have varying ef-
  fects. In some cases, the Entangle is considered to “take
  no damage from an attack” (if the character is attacked
  with a taser, tranquilizer dart, or shot with a bullet... a
  bullet is generally insufficient to damage the Entangle,
  but it will seriously hurt the character) while in other
  cases, the “Entangle and the character both take dam-
  age” (for example, if Ashtray Art soaked a character’s
  straitjacket with gasoline, then set fire to the strait-
  jacket, the flames will damage both the character and
  the straitjacket).
  A character with the Contortionist Skill or the
  Stretching Power can worm their way out of a strait-
  jacket given time. With the Stretching Power, the char-
  acter needs only to make a DEX Roll to squirm out of
  the straitjacket. They may continue trying every Phase
  until they succeed or run out of END.
  With the Contortionist Skill, it is recommended
  that the contortionist make a number of successful
  Contortionist rolls equal to the BODY of the strait-
  jacket Entangle (i.e., a 5 BODY straitjacket would re-
  quire the Contortionist to make five successful rolls to
  escape). These Contortionist Rolls are usually per-
  formed at a -2 to -4 penalty, depending on the circum-
  stances. The GM can rule that the Contortionist rolls
  do not need to be made in succession... in a 5 BODY
  Entangle, the character can make two rolls, then fail,
  then try again until five successes have been achieved.
  The only penalty is wasted time and chafed skin.
  Characters with the Talent Double Jointed can
  make a DEX Roll to escape with the same stipulations
  as the Contortionist Skill, above (i.e., a 5 BODY En-
  tangle would require 5 DEX Rolls, and the rolls are
  done at a -2 to -4 penalty), except that the DEX Rolls
  must be made succession. Once a character fails a roll,
  they may not try again.
  It is implausible for a character to escape from a
  straitjacket unless the character has some paranormal
  
  173
  173
  power (a flaming Damage Shield, claws, acid blood,
  superhuman strength), a martial arts ability (controlled
  breathing to allow them to “slip free” of bonds or a
  Ch’i power), or some outside help (i.e., a sharp pro-
  jection on the wall, an ally helping them undo the
  straps, and so on). GMs should take this account when
  strapping the character in.
  EEG (Electroencephalograph)
  An electroencephalograph is a device that moni-
  tors electrical activity in the brain. Six to ten electrodes
  are attached to the character’s skull, and the electrical
  activity in the character’s brain is translated into line
  tracings called brain waves (the graphic record of the
  line tracings is called an electroencephalogram). These
  brain waves are associated with different states of men-
  tal activity (awake, drowsy, deep sleep, and so on). The
  alpha wave rhythm is the most common wave form
  and consists of smooth, regular oscillations at a fre-
  quency of 8 to 12 per second. It is usually diminished
  (“blocked”) by sensory stimulation and mental activ-
  ity (including the use of most psi powers). The beta
  rhythm has a frequency of 13 to 24 cycles per second
  and is usually associated with alert subjects (i.e., when
  the character is solving a problem, deciphering a clue,
  and so on). Some psychics and mentalists have been
  observed to have enhanced beta rhythm activity when
  using their abilities, but these cases have been rare. The
  theta rhythm has a frequency of 4-7 cycles per second
  and usually occurs when the character is in light sleep.
  The delta rhythm occurs when the character is in deep
  sleep, at about 0-3 cycles per second.
  An EEG can be used to diagnose brain damage,
  neurological disorders, and can be used in some bio-
  feedback techniques where characters attempt to con-
  sciously alter their own mental states. In psionic cam-
  paigns, an EEG may be a means by which researchers
  can detect the use of mental abilities in patients.
  Statistics: An EEG is usually purchased as Sense Elec-
  trical Activity in the Brain, Discriminatory (to detect
  the specific brain wave patterns), Extra Time (5 Min-
  utes, -2), OIF (-1/2), Bulky (-1/2) [10/2] The EEG will
  generally need an external power source (i.e., it needs
  to be plugged in), and it costs END.
  Note: An EEG can either be allowed to detect mental
  powers automatically (for example, a certain frequency
  and amplitude of alpha wave indicates the use of
  psionic powers) or else the GM may require that an
  additional Detect or Sense be Linked (-1/2) to the EEG
  “power” above.
  EKG (Electrocardiograph)
  This device is used to record contractions of the
  heart. It can be used to diagnose and detect heart dis-
  ease in a character, and it can also be used for moni-
  toring subjects for sleep research in laboratory situa-
  tions.
  Statistics: An EKG is usually purchased as Sense Con-
  tractions of the Heart, Extra Time (5 Minutes, -2), OIF
  (-1/2), Bulky (-1/2). [5/1] It generally requires an ex-
  ternal power source (i.e., it needs to be plugged in),
  and it costs END.
  Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
  In electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), electrical
  current is passed through the brain to create a convul-
  sion of the central nervous system, like an epileptic
  seizure, after which the character is often in a clearer
  state of mind. Also called electroshock therapy and
  shock treatment, ECT is used mostly in treating severe
  Mood Disorders (especially Major Depressive Disor-
  ders), although occasionally, ECT is also used to rouse
  a schizophrenic patient from a catatonic state.
  Prior to ECT treatment, the patient is examined
  and given appropriate tests, which may include an elec-
  troencephalogram (EEG, see above) to detect brain
  injury that might be related to the patient’s condition.
  If the injury is present, the injury rules out the use of
  ECT.
  If no injury is present, the patient is prepared
  for ECT. Usually, ECT is given early in the morning;
  the patient must not have anything to eat or drink for
  eight hours before treatment and morning is gener-
  ally the best time. The patient is put to sleep (usually
  with a short-acting barbiturate or an anesthetic given
  intravenously), then the patient is given a drug
  (succinycholine) to temporarily paralyze the muscles
  so they do not contract during the treatment and cause
  fractures. One electrode is placed above each temple,
  and an electric current is applied for about a second.
  The current triggers a brief seizure (lasting 5 to 20 sec-
  onds); since the character is already anesthetized and
  relaxed by the succinycholine, the character is usually
  unconscious during the procedure (if not, the charac-
  ter is likely to lose consciousness during the treatment).
  An EEG monitors the seizure activity and an EKG
  monitors the patient’s heart rhythm throughout the
  procedure.
  Recovery is rapid; characters normally awaken
  anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes after the seizure,
  but it may take twenty to sixty minutes after awaken-
  ing for a character to recover completely (many char-
  acters have headaches, confusion and muscle stiffness
  after the procedure). Some temporary memory loss is
  common, and severe memory loss occurs in about .5%
  of all patients treated with ECT.
  
  174
  174
  Statistics: 6D6 Electrical Energy Blast, NND [1] (Bio-
  logical rPD or Power Defense in the head [Location 3-
  5] protects, +2), Character only gets a REC every ten
  minutes after ECT is administered [2] (+3/4), No
  Range (-1/2), Extra Time [3] (5 Minutes, -2), OIF (-1/
  2), Bulky or Immobile, depending on the campaign.
  (In the Asylum, it is immobile, -1)  [112/22] It gener-
  ally requires an external power source, and it costs
  END.
  ECT Notes: GMs may wish to take the following into
  account:
  • ECT has proven to be effective in relieving some
  Major Depressive Disorders and Catatonic Schizophre-
  nia. If this is the case, then it is possible that as a result
  of the treatment a character loses points in the appro-
  priate Psychological Limitation... but as a consequence,
  they may suffer any of the following effects: a loss of a
  point of INT, EGO, PRE, or gain a corresponding
  Physical Limitation (ECT Amnesia) at a point value
  equal to the points that were lost from the Psychologi-
  cal Limitation. This is not necessarily the way ECT
  works in the real world, but GMs may choose to make
  it necessary in order to maintain “point balance” in
  the Hero System. If the Major Depressive Disorder/
  Catatonic Schizophrenia is a Temporary or Long Term
  Psychological Limitation, this “point balance” does not
  need to be maintained (as the character never paid
  points for the Psychological Limitation to begin with).
  • If the GM intends to use ECT as a threat in the Asy-
  lum, it is recommended that every time ECT is given
  to a PC, it has a chance of permanently erasing a point
  of EGO, INT or giving the PC a permanent Physical
  Limitation related to the ECT side effects. This is de-
  cidedly unfair, but it can evoke the necessary fear and
  anxiety in players whose PCs are receiving as many as
  three to four shock treatments a day as “punishment.”
  These lost Characteristic or Disadvantage points can
  be regained with Experience Points, if the GM allows.
  History: ECT was used a great deal in the forties and
  fifties before effective drug therapies were widely avail-
  able. ECT has long been controversial, and its use de-
  clined in the 1960s and 1970s. Nevertheless, it has not
  been completely phased out of therapy, and some
  mental institutions still use ECT and consider it the
  only cure for the some cases of depression. Usually,
  the paperwork and getting the bureaucratic go-ahead
  to use ECT is difficult and time-consuming.
  The Asylum is not supposed to resort to ECT
  until they have first tried extensive drug therapy on a
  character (at least three months with each drug). To
  use ECT legally, the Asylum is required to go to court
  and fill out the necessary paperwork, but there have
  been times when this procedure has been ignored.
  Treatment Course: The usual course of ECT treat-
  ments is two or three times a week for three to four
  weeks. A faster method, in which the patient’s heart
  rate is monitored with an electrocardiograph (EKG,
  see above), employs repeated surges of electric current
  in one to three sessions. After this period, once the
  patient and family feel that the patient is more or less
  back to his original level of functioning, one or two
  additional treatments are recommended to prevent a
  relapse.
  1: As this defense is rare in Dark Champions (it may even be non-
  existent, if the Dark Champions-Hudson City published universe is
  used), it is given a +2 Power Advantage. GMs should use either Power
  Defense or rPD, whichever is more appropriate. ECT cannot usu-
  ally be used as a weapon unless the character is divested of armor
  and strapped to the machine.
  2: This is allowed only for ECT treatments. Its presence here is not
  intended to make a case for PCs or NPCs having a similar Power
  Advantage in the GM’s campaign.
  3: Considering that the subject must be strapped to the table, have
  conductive gel applied to his temples, the electrodes put in place,
  and so on, five minutes is a reasonable estimate. It does not take
  into account unwilling subjects or the time it takes for the anes-
  thetic to take effect.
  
  175
  175
  Introduction
  This section presents new applications for Skills,
  Talents, Perks and Powers with a selection of optional
  new Skills, Powers and Power Limitations. Unless noted
  otherwise, all rules detailed in The Ultimate Mentalist
  and Dark Champions are considered to be in effect,
  including the “one for ten” rule for Base and Vehicle
  costs listed in Dark Champions, p.29. GMs confronted
  with an unfamiliar skill in the text should refer to ei-
  ther The Ultimate Mentalist or Dark Champions for an
  explanation.
  Author’s Note: The rules in this section are all optional.
  They are not considered to be part of the official Hero
  System rules and are presented only as suggestions for
  making New Bedlam Asylum campaigns more inter-
  esting.
  Skills
  New Knowledge Skills
  No PC is allowed to purchase any of the follow-
  ing three Skills unless they spend Experience Points
  gained adventuring in the Asylum itself. Crusader pos-
  sessed the following three skills at a 12 or less when he
  was alive. GMs still using the Dark Champions version
  of Crusader (Underworld Enemies, p.6) should add
  these skills to his character sheet.
  Cost
  Area Knowledge Skill
  2/1
  AK: Asylum
  This Area Knowledge covers the general layout
  of the Asylum grounds and interior wards. There is a
  “ceiling” on this skill... only if a character enters cer-
  tain sections of the Asylum or talks to specific patients
  can the skill be raised (these point ceilings are listed in
  Skill Ceilings, below). This skill does not provide the
  character with any knowledge of the Asylum Sub-
  systems (e.g., the ventilation, drainage and electrical
  systems); Asylum Subsystems is a separate Knowledge
  Skill in itself.
  Cost
  Knowledge Skill
  2/1
  KS: Asylum
  A character with this Skill is familiar with the
  Asylum’s history (see Chapter Four) and knows the
  roster of the more important staff members currently
  at the institution (mostly the psychiatrists and charge
  nurses for each ward). The character, at the GM’s dis-
  cretion, might know some of the patients incarcerated
  in the wards, but never with any certainty. The limit of
  knowledge characters can possess are discussed in Skill
  Ceilings, below.
  Cost
  Knowledge Skill
  2/1
  KS: Asylum Subculture
  No character can purchase this skill unless they
  have been a patient in the Asylum. Characters who
  purchase this skill begin to understand the Asylum’s
  inner workings and the machinations of the staff and
  the patients... as the characters approach an 11 or less
  roll, they begin to discover the truth behind the pecu-
  liar currents in the Asylum. To discover the limits of
  the KS: Asylum Subculture, see Skill Ceilings, below.
  The Asylum Subculture Skill is like a Streetwise
  Skill that works only in the Asylum. (As characters may
  discover, Streetwise Skill doesn’t do much in the Asy-
  lum. The staff is hostile to outsiders, and the patients
  are suspicious and close-mouthed with anyone they
  see as “alien.” As a result, purchasing KS: Asylum Sub-
  culture can come in handy.) A successful KS: Asylum
  Subculture roll allows characters to hear rumors on
  the Asylum grapevine, send messages to other patients,
  discover contacts in the Asylum black market, and so
  on. This skill can keep characters up to date on events
  transpiring both in and outside the Asylum involving
  the patients.
  Appendix 1:
  Playgroundz of
  the Mind
  
  176
  176
  Skill Ceilings
  AK: Asylum, KS: Asylum, and KS: Asylum Sub-
  culture have suggested point ceilings. There are sev-
  eral reasons for these ceilings... one being that it is sim-
  ply not possible to have total knowledge of the Asy-
  lum. It is a constantly changing place; each visit differs
  from the last and even differs among the PCs involved.
  GMs may also find that too much knowledge about
  the Asylum can ruin much of the uncertainty and the
  fear, especially if they are using the optional rules for
  KSs described in Horror Hero (i.e., in some circum-
  stances, KSs can be used to offset the effects of shock
  and stress).
  Nevertheless, the “skill ceilings” listed below are
  only suggestions. There is no compulsion to use them
  in a campaign.
  Event
  AK: Asylum
  KS: Asylum
  KS: Subculture
  1. Become lost in the woods outside the Asylum.
  N/A
  N/A
  N/A
  2. Meet the Poet. [1]
  N/A
  N/A
  N/A
  3. Explore Asylum Grounds.
  8-
  N/A
  N/A
  3. Enter the Admissions Building Vestibule.
  8-
  N/A
  N/A
  4. Pass Sharon Ferry without harming her.
  8-
  N/A
  N/A
  5. Explore Admissions Building.
  8-
  8-
  8-
  6. Meet with Dr. Masters and be “sentenced” to a ward.
  8-
  8-
  8-
  7. Go through wards one-four.
  11-
  11-
  11-
  8. Cross from ward five to ward six.
  11-
  11-
  11-
  9. Go through wards six-eight
  12-
  12-
  12-
  10. Enter the end chamber (Cocytus) at the bottom
  level of the Eighth Ward.
  12-
  12-
  12-
  11. Speak with the Heretic and leave the Asylum
  13-
  13-
  13-
  Event: This column also lists the path characters must
  follow in order to gain admittance to the Ninth Ward
  (see Heresies).
  KS: (Asylum) Subculture: This Skill cannot be pur-
  chased unless characters have been patients in the Asy-
  lum. Characters who have spent a month in the Asy-
  lum can purchase a Familiarity (8 or less); characters
  who have spent two months in the Asylum can pur-
  chase KS: Asylum Subculture at an 11 or less. Charac-
  ters may find it easier purchasing a Contact who has
  KS: Asylum Subculture rather than weathering the
  horrors of the Asylum to gain it themselves.
  Note that time spent in the Asylum is only part
  of the requirement to be able to purchase this Skill...
  the second requirement depends how far the charac-
  ters have progressed within the Asylum as per the
  Events column, above. In any event, the GM should
  limit the amount of points that can be spent on the
  Skill by choosing the lowest of the two requirements
  (i.e., a character who has been in the Asylum Admis-
  sions Building [#5] for three months can only pur-
  chase KS: Asylum Subculture at an 8 or less, similarly
  a character who has been at the Asylum for a month
  but has traveled all the way to the Sixth Ward in this
  time [#8] is also limited to an 8 or less roll with the
  Skill).
  Notes on the Ultimate Mentalist
  Characters with the KS: The Psionic World (UM)
  will have some knowledge of psionics in the Asylum,
  but this information will always be sketchy (i.e., no
  details) unless the character also has the KS: Asylum
  Subculture Skill, above.
  Survival
  Cost
  Skill
  3/2
  Survival [Urban]
  This specific Survival Skill is often taken by the
  homeless and is located in the statistics for some of
  the characters in the Patients section, in Chapter Four.
  Urban Survival enables characters to know where to
  go to for handouts and where to seek shelter when the
  weather gets too cold. This roll should be made on a
  daily basis; if the roll is successful, the character has
  obtained enough food to make it through the day and
  has managed to find shelter for the night. This skill is
  different from Streetwise in that Urban Survival re-
  flects the scavenging, scrounging street culture and not
  necessarily criminal activity; Streetwise, AK: Campaign
  City, and KS: Sewer Systems are complementary skills
  to Urban Survival. It is possible that GMs may wish to
  have KS: The Homeless as a street subculture skill,
  much like the subculture skills for street gangs, the
  martial arts world, and so on.
  Weapon Familiarity
  Cost
  Skill
  2
  Weapon Familiarity: Homemade Weapons
  This WF was first introduced in Dark Champi-
  ons, p.83. “Homemade weapons” are common, house-
  hold items and substances that can be turned into
  weapons. A character with this Familiarity can brew
  napalm with what he finds under the kitchen sink, can
  turn aerosol cans into miniature flame-throwers, can
  fashion crude homemade silencers and “zip guns,” and
  
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  knows what common foods and spices can be turned
  into poisons. The character can also use some house-
  hold objects (such as screwdrivers) as HKAs with no
  penalty. Generally, homemade weapons do no more
  than 1/2D6 Killing Damage, but this depends on the
  circumstances, the materials available, the character’s
  skill, and the GM’s discretion. Homemade Weapons is
  considered a two point Uncommon Melee Weapons
  category. Complimentary skills include Weaponsmith
  (Homemade Weapons), KS: Homemade Weapons, PS:
  Home Economics, and SC: Chemistry.
  Cost
  Skill
  2
  Weapon Familiarity: Novelty Items
  This odd weapon familiarity is common to a
  number of patients in the Asylum. It is a mixture of
  knowing how to use such items as bowling pins, yo-
  yos, slingshots, firebrands, lassos, hoops, rings, scarves,
  stilt poles and circus-related gear as weapons. As this
  Weapon Familiarity spans Common and Uncommon
  Melee Weapons in Champions, it is included as a sepa-
  rate weapon familiarity group for economy. It is es-
  sentially combines Common Melee Weapons: Club,
  and Common and Uncommon Missile Weapons:
  Knives (throwing daggers) and Slings (Slingshots).
  Nevertheless, the tightness of this Familiarity (prima-
  rily children’s toys or circus equipment to the exclu-
  sion of more “conventional” weapons such as tonfas,
  actual slings and so on) gives it its low cost.
  This WF is intended especially for Dark Cham-
  pions: The Animated Series (see Appendix Two: Other
  Genres).
  Perks
  Perks can have Power Limitations and can even
  be part of a Mastermind Power Pool (see Power Frame-
  works, below). Characters blackmailing other charac-
  ters may have Contact, Favor and Wealth Perks based
  on a Focus (the incriminating material being used to
  blackmail the victims). Perks may also require a Skill
  Roll limitation (i.e., the character needs to make a Per-
  suasion roll to have access to a Vehicle or Base, or needs
  to use Persuasion to convince a buddy at the police
  station to maintain the Anonymity Perk by erasing the
  character’s criminal file, and so on).
  Contacts
  One new type of Contact is presented in this
  book:
  The Old Boy’s Network: This Contact is an old estab-
  lished network, that while not necessarily in positions
  of power, still exert influence on modern-day organi-
  zations and events... the Old Boy’s Network in the CIA,
  for example, would be the former members of the Of-
  fice of Secret Services (see Chris Cloutier’s Golden Age
  of Champions), or for cinematic campaigns, a world-
  wide Old Boy’s Network might consist of Chauncey’s
  old buddies from the Empire Club (see Justice, Inc.). If
  the character in question contacts the Old Boy’s Net-
  work, this only means trouble for their enemies; credit
  ratings may be slashed, secret investigations under-
  taken (“How the hell did I get on the FBI most wanted
  list?”), or shadowy, skilled killers dressed in black may
  appear at the Contact’s door, eager to get together and
  do one more hit for “old time’s sake.” PCs who take
  this Contact must detail their past associations with
  the Old Boy’s Network and the amount of influence
  the Network can exert. The GM should then assign a
  cost to the Old Boy’s Network according to their in-
  fluence and availability, as per the Contact rules on
  p.43 of the Hero System Rulebook. In addition, after
  contacting the Old Boy’s Network, it is possible that
  the character may get a call from them in the near fu-
  ture requesting the character’s assistance with a mat-
  ter of some delicacy...
  Unions, aristocratic clubs, sisterhoods, alumni,
  fraternal organizations and so on can be taken as Con-
  tacts along similar lines to the Old Boy’s Network.
  Asylum Specific Contacts
  Clerks, Nurses, Orderlies: This Contact is a member
  of the rank and file Asylum staff and can include
  slightly disturbed patients that help out around the
  institution. Depending on the specificity of the con-
  tact, they may be able to tell characters when a new
  inmate has arrived at the Asylum or an old one has
  escaped. They can also surreptitiously check medical
  records, and some may even be able to get access to
  drugs and pharmaceuticals a character needs. Order-
  lies sometimes have a better grasp on what is transpir-
  ing in the Asylum than their superiors do (see
  Orderlies in the Staff section). This Contact category
  can include almost anyone who works at the Asylum,
  including clerks, cooks, custodians, housekeepers,
  nurses, orderlies, police officers, and secretaries. GMs
  may want to consider putting a higher price on charge
  nurses, Hospital Police, records clerks, and nurses who
  work in the pharmacy... if a character is trapped in the
  Asylum, these contacts will be invaluable. Any nurse,
  orderly, or attendant that works in Sixth, Seventh or
  Eighth Ward costs an additional one point, and the
  PC must detail how they made this Contact. See the
  Asylum Staff section for a selection of potential staff
  contacts; characters may gain one of these staff mem-
  bers as a Contact after being trapped in the Asylum.
  Asylum Patient: Asylum patients can indirectly pro-
  vide characters with clues to what is transpiring in the
  Asylum (usually through what they experience in their
  dreams and nightmares) and can even help characters
  imprisoned in the Asylum by getting them food or
  protecting them from the more violent patients. As
  most patients rarely venture outside the institution,
  characters may need to get in touch with them by
  phone, letter, or by visiting them... the patient may even
  be a family member or a loved one, providing an ex-
  cuse for the characters to come to the Asylum without
  
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  attracting attention. See the Patients section for a se-
  lection of potential patient contacts; characters may
  gain one of these patients as a Contact after being
  trapped in the Asylum. Asylum patients should be
  taken as an 8- Contact due to the uncertain informa-
  tion they can provide. Special patients (such as Elliot
  Manns, the Idiot King, UE, p.13) should be assigned a
  cost as the GM sees fit.
  Asylum Psychiatrist: Asylum psychiatrists are one step
  above the orderlies and attendants. They can easily get
  access to records, and even more importantly, they can
  provide their own version of the Asylum’s inner poli-
  tics. They may be able to tell characters what their pa-
  tients are saying verbatim in interviews (this is a vio-
  lation of their professional ethics, but many of them
  will reveal sensitive information for a price or simply
  because they feel they have to tell someone before
  something bad happens). Psychiatrists are +1 Point
  Contacts. They cannot provide some of the informa-
  tion that orderlies can provide, since they are not work-
  ing the Asylum “front lines” and observing patients
  on a day to day basis. As a result, sometimes the psy-
  chiatrists are the last to know when something goes
  wrong.
  See the Staff section for a selection of potential
  psychiatrist contacts; characters may gain one of them
  as a Contact after being trapped in the Asylum.
  Dr. Shreiver: Dr. Shreiver is a +2 Point Contact, due to
  both her position as Medical Director and her psychi-
  atric skills. Nevertheless, while she can help cure dis-
  turbed characters (she is the best psychiatrist in the
  Asylum, especially with Dissociative Disorders) and has
  tremendous influence in the Asylum, her position as
  Director has distanced her from the day to day func-
  tioning of the wards and information that characters
  can gain only through Psychiatrists and Orderlies,
  above.
  A character may not begin the Asylum campaign
  with Dr. Shreiver as a Contact, and even if she is taken
  as a contact, there must be a good reason for the pur-
  chase. Dr. Shreiver is a distrustful cynic, and winning
  her over may require several sessions (seasons?) of
  adventuring.
  Fringe Benefits
  Licensed Doctor: This one-point Perk means the char-
  acter has a medical degree (M.D.) and has been certi-
  fied by the state in which they practice. Without this
  Perk, non-licensed doctors cannot legally prescribe
  drugs.
  Talents
  Some Talents are either mental powers or a by-
  product of mental powers. Where appropriate, a Tal-
  ent should be labeled as a psionic, psychokinetic or a
  psychic power on the character sheet when it is pur-
  chased (see UM). It is suggested that Talents that are
  side effects of Mental Powers be Linked (-1/2) to the
  appropriate Mental Power.
  Cramming
  Cramming can be a psionic ability or a normal
  Talent. A character may be able to take in skills easily
  with Telepathy, enabling them to gain a working fa-
  miliarity with any skill they can “read” from the minds
  of others. This Talent also simulates characters who
  have been given low-scale telepathic programming, a
  sort of “skill pool” that can only hold a limited num-
  ber of skills, all with a low level of success. Skill Levels
  do not add to Crammed skills.
  Psionic Cramming usually has the “Linked to
  Telepathy” (-1/2) Power Limitation.
  Danger Sense
  Danger Sense can be either a psionic or psychic
  mental power. There are many ways mental Danger
  Sense can be built, each with a different effects and
  limitations:
  Psychic-Based (+0): Two possibilities for Psychic-
  Based Danger Sense involve Clairsentience and lim-
  ited Precognition. Both of these possibilities are treated
  as conventional Danger Sense.
  • Precognition: The character can see a few seconds into
  the future, warning them of danger. This type of Dan-
  ger Sense is considered to be a selective form of Pre-
  cognition. A failed Danger Sense roll can simulate the
  character “misreading” a future timeline, processing it
  too late to react, or misjudging when the attack takes
  place.
  • Clairsentience: The character has tapped into his en-
  vironment with Clairsentience. He is always subcon-
  sciously monitoring his immediate surroundings, the
  equivalent of having eyes in the back of his head. A
  failed Danger Sense roll can simulate an imperceptive
  glance at the environment, being too distracted to spot
  the danger, or simply not reacting fast enough to pre-
  vent being hurt.
  Psionic-Based (-1/4): One possibility for Psionic-Based
  Danger Sense is that the character’s subconscious mind
  is always monitoring the thoughts of others in the vi-
  cinity. This selective, receiving telepathy picks out hos-
  tile thoughts or negative thoughts as long the charac-
  ter is the focus of the hostile or negative thoughts
  (thoughts such as, “I’m going to shoot the PC,” “I’ve
  got my rifle trained on the PC,” “I’m going to run the
  PC down in my big bad car,” and so on, meet the crite-
  ria). The character with Psionic-Based Danger Sense
  cannot actually read the thoughts in the mind of the
  attacker, but has the feeling that someone in range
  wishes to do them harm. The emphasis is on the ac-
  tion; characters with Danger Sense cannot normally
  pick up thoughts directed at them that have no action
  
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  associated with them. Thoughts such as “Man, I really
  hate the PC,” or “the PC is a real jerk” will not trigger
  Psionic-Based Danger Sense.
  Psionic Danger Sense has a handicap; it will not
  detect bombs, rotten floorboards on a bridge, an ad-
  vancing security robot, or anything that does not have
  a thought pattern or actually intends to do them harm.
  For example, if a driver barreling down on the charac-
  ter on a deserted highway is fiddling with his radio
  and not looking at the road, the character with Psionic-
  Based Danger Sense will not realize they are in danger,
  since the driver does not see them or wishes to do them
  harm. However, if it was in the middle of a busy street,
  bystanders may trigger the character’s Danger Sense
  (“That car’s going to hit the PC!”), allowing the PC to
  react.
  A failed Psionic-Based Danger Sense roll means
  that the hostile information was not processed in time,
  or else it was accidentally “skipped” when the
  character’s mind was filtering the incoming thoughts.
  Psionic-Based Danger Sense can have any range and
  be applied to almost any environment, whether in or
  out of combat; it simply depends on the power of the
  telepath and the nature of the threat. It is recom-
  mended, however, that Psionic-Based Danger Sense be
  purchased so that the character “becomes forewarned
  of any danger to his person, regardless of the source”
  (+15). Psionics, for example, could pick up the hostile
  thoughts of an invisible attacker, even if they couldn’t
  see them.
  It is possible that the Danger Sense Talent, if
  psionic, needs to be turned on in order to work; in
  effect, it is a conscious monitoring of thoughts in the
  vicinity. Power Limitations that would be appropriate
  for this form of Danger Sense would be Concentrate,
  Costs END, and Linked (to Telepathy or
  Clairsentience).
  The GM can decide to make Danger Sense ei-
  ther a Mental Sense or an Unusual Sense in the “En-
  hanced Senses” category. This is optional. If it is al-
  lowed, advantages such as Discriminatory (what kind
  of danger), Targeting (where the danger is), and so on,
  are allowed. If Danger Sense is treated as an Enhanced
  Sense, it is already considered to have 360 Degree Sens-
  ing and Range built into it.
  In addition, Danger Sense can be treated as a
  Sense for the purposes of defining what sense a power
  can disable or dispel... examples include Entangles that
  stop Danger Sense (a telekinetic fist that generates so
  much alpha wave interference that it blocks telepathic
  transmissions from the victim), Clairsentience with
  Danger Sense (this can be dangerous for characters
  with precognition and should be monitored carefully),
  Darkness vs. Danger Sense, Flashes vs. Danger Sense,
  and so on. Characters can also purchase Invisibility to
  Danger Sense (see the fool in Underworld Enemies,
  p.16) with the GM’s permission.
  Eidetic Memory
  If a character has Enhanced Senses, Eidetic
  Memory allows them to memorize information they
  gain from those senses as well; the applications of this
  are not apparent at first, but Eidetic Memory with
  Tracking Scent (to keep other character’s smells on file,
  along with poisons and others), Eidetic Memory with
  Discriminatory Mental Awareness (allowing a charac-
  ter to recognize particular mental powers, especially
  those of a specific psychic attacker) and so on, might
  prove useful during an psychic investigation. In addi-
  tion, a character’s Eidetic Memory may be limited de-
  pending on the sense; characters may have peculiar
  forms of Eidetic Memory as a result of their psychic
  gifts... Eidetic Hearing, Eidetic Touch, Eidetic Smell,
  and so on. When Eidetic Memory is limited to a single
  sense, it is usually treated as a -1/2 Limitation.
  Eidetic Memory can either be treated as a men-
  tal power or a normal Talent.
  New Abilities
  Aid
  Psychiatric Counseling: Aid can be a “non-powered”
  power when it is assigned the “Requires a SC: Psychia-
  try Skill Roll” Power Limitation (-1/2). In this case,
  Aid represents sort of a “super-counseling” for EGO,
  INT or PRE (PRE Aid may remove someone’s fear or
  timidity). As a non-powered power, this Aid should
  be given a Time Delay of several weeks or even months.
  1D6 EGO Aid, 0 END (+1/2), Can only raise EGO/
  INT/PRE to starting values (-1/2), Requires a SC: Psy-
  chiatry Skill Roll (-1/2), Incantations (Psychotherapy
  Question and Answer Sessions, -1/2), Time Delay (One
  week to one month, either -4 or -4 1/2)
  Telepathic Surgery: An EGO or INT Aid can simulate
  telepathic surgery; some telepaths have familiarized
  themselves with the human mind to such an extent
  that they can repair psyches by entering the minds of
  others and patching up or smoothing out psychologi-
  cal trauma. This Aid works only against psyches that
  have been damaged by mental powers or psychologi-
  cal trauma; it may or may not work against physical
  trauma that has damaged the EGO (i.e., a bacteria that
  ate away part of the character’s brain tissue, a brain
  tumor). There may be a Time Delay in the procedure.
  Concentrate is a good Power Limitation to take with
  this power.
  Any Level of EGO or INT Aid, Can only raise EGO or
  INT to starting values (-1/2), Requires a SC: Psychic
  Surgery Skill Roll (-1/2).
  
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  Detects
  The Psi-Scanners mentioned in Mind Games,
  p.12, were designed to detect and locate the peculiar
  alpha waves emitted by someone with Dr. Poe’s men-
  tal mutation; furthermore, there was the suggestion
  that the devices could be improved to allow the Scan-
  ners to detect the nature of the mutant’s powers
  (psionic, psychokinetic or psychic). This implies each
  category of mental powers has a different frequency.
  Characters can purchase the following detects:
  Detect Cerebellic Mutations: Detect Cerebellic Muta-
  tions will only detect the presence of a Cerebellic Mu-
  tation, not the type of Cerebellic Mutation (i.e., psionic,
  psychokinetic, or psychic), unless it is purchased as a
  Discriminatory Sense.
  Detect Psionic Powers: Detect Psionic Powers will only
  detect Psionic Powers, not the type of Psionic power
  (Telepathy, Mind Control and Mental Illusions), un-
  less it is purchased as a Discriminatory Sense. It will
  not allow a character to determine how strong the
  psionic power is (i.e., the Active Point Cost).
  Detect Psychokinetic Powers: Detect Psychokinetic
  Powers will only detect Psychokinetic Powers, not the
  type of Psychokinetic power (Biokinesis, Pyrokinesis
  and Telekinesis), unless it is purchased as a Discrimi-
  natory Sense. It will not allow a character to determine
  how strong the psychokinetic power is (i.e., the Active
  Point Cost).
  Detect Psychic Powers: Detect Psychic Powers will only
  detect Psychic Powers, not the type of Psychic power
  (Clairsentience, Retrocognition, Precognition, Aura
  Sense), unless it is purchased as a Discriminatory Sense.
  It will not allow a character to determine how strong
  the psychic power is (i.e., the Active Point Cost).
  Detect Lies: Detect Lies is an appropriate Detect or
  Sense Power, based on either mental senses (telepathic
  scan or biopathic reading of his heart), smell (“I can
  smell his lies from here”), hearing (the liar’s voice is
  shaking, or the listener’s hearing is so sensitive he or
  she can hear the liar’s heart beat faster), touch (can
  sense the liar’s nervousness through the minute elec-
  trical charge traveling through their nervous system,
  through perspiration or through their pulse) or sight
  (“He looks like he’s lying”). The GM makes the PER
  Roll to see if the character succeeds. Some characters,
  especially cops, can figure out when someone is being
  shifty or trying to pull one over on them just by ob-
  serving the liar’s body movements and facial expres-
  sion.
  Detect Object: Some objects have a powerful and spe-
  cific psychic signature; some psionics and mages have
  objects in which they have invested some of their own
  mental energy, whether it is an amulet, a sword passed
  down through the generations, a family heirloom, and
  so on. Characters might be able to locate the object in
  question even when they cannot see it, by following its
  specific psychic signature.
  Detect Truth: As a side note, “Detect Truth” will not
  detect truth, per se. It will only detect when someone
  is speaking what they believe to be the Truth.
  Instant Change
  Characters who can switch instantly from one
  Multiform identity to the other (Dissociative Identity
  Disorder or not) should purchase Instant Change. It
  usually takes a Full Phase to switch between
  Multiforms.
  Life Support
  Longevity
  Characters with Longevity age slower than nor-
  mal human beings. The character should include an
  approximate year ratio (i.e., they age one year for ev-
  ery five) when they purchase this form of Life Sup-
  port. Longevity is essentially “Life Support: Immune
  to Aging” with the limitation that the character still
  ages, although much slower than a normal human
  being (-3/4). Longevity costs two points.
  “Longevity” is a standard trait of Advanced Gen-
  eration mutants described in Sean Fannon’s The Mu-
  tant File.
  Mental Illusions
  Hallucinations: Any character who has the ability to
  induce hallucinations in others (either through a drug,
  mental attack or mutant ability) should use the Men-
  tal Illusions power (any level). Hallucination induc-
  tion can be taken with the Power Limitation Limited
  Sense Group (-1/4 for every sense that is not affected;
  see UM). Schizophrenic hallucinations, for example,
  commonly affect only the Hearing Sense Group.
  Attackers may also consider taking the No Con-
  scious Control Power Limitation (-1, see UM). Using
  Schizophrenia as an example again, schizophrenics
  usually attribute hallucinatory voices and noises as
  something familiar to them, not to the attacker.
  Mind Control
  Characters with Mind Control can temporarily
  induce any of the Psychosomatic Disadvantages (see
  below) into a target’s mind. The Frequency and Inten-
  sity of the Psychological Limitation usually depends
  on the Effect Roll. It is recommended, for the sake of
  simplicity, that for every point above the victim’s EGO
  on the Effect Table (once the target’s defenses are fac-
  tored in) that the mentalist can create one point of a
  Psychosomatic Disadvantage in a target (see Psycho-
  somatic Disadvantages, below). For example, a men-
  talist who used their Mind Control on a target and
  scored an EGO+5 on the Effect table could induce a
  
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  five point Psychosomatic Disadvantage. If they scored
  an EGO+15 on the Effect table, they could induce a
  fifteen point Psychosomatic Disadvantage, and so on.
  The GM should round normally... i.e., an EGO+3 Ef-
  fect or an EGO+7 Effect would become a five point
  Disadvantage, an EGO+13 or an EGO+17 Effect would
  become a fifteen point Disadvantage, and so on.
  Delusions: Some characters can induce a delusional
  state in a target. For mentalist characters, delusions are
  considered to be a psionic attack and can be repre-
  sented with the most versatility by Mind Control. The
  delusional theme (erotomanic, persecutory, grandiose)
  can be specified at the time of the attack for a Mind
  Control power.
  Mind Link
  As mentioned in the Ultimate Mentalist, char-
  acters may purchase the Clairsentience Power, with the
  Limitation “Linked to Mind Link” (-1/2), “only to sense
  what target is sensing” (-1/2). Rather than a character
  “communicating” what they see with their thoughts,
  the psionic can actually see through their eyes, hear
  what they hear, and so on. Some psionics have devel-
  oped this ability to such a degree that they take dam-
  age when the person they are Mind Linked with takes
  damage. (“Feedback,” a -1 Power Limitation. See UM)
  Limited Feedback: Another suggested Power Limita-
  tion for Mind Link is “Limited Feedback.” This -1/2
  Limitation only transfers the STUN the character lost
  from the attack back along the Mind Link circuit. (Un-
  der the normal “Feedback” Limitation, the character
  takes all the STUN from the attack, whether or not the
  STUN actually penetrated the target’s defenses.)
  Note: These clarifications are included because a num-
  ber of Asylum patients use Mind Link in this manner.
  Many patients have tricked dupes into accepting Mind
  Links, then used Mind Control on them through the
  Link to pull them around like puppets and force them
  to forget their actions while Mind Controlled.
  GMs should be careful about allowing mental-
  ist characters to use Clairsentience with Mind Link.
  Some psionics have used friendly civilians and foreign
  nationals as “Trojan Horses” to enter conference rooms,
  records buildings and secret military bases to spy on
  installations, using the senses of the victim they are
  Mind Linked with; in addition, when Linked with
  Clairsentience, the psionic can use their mental pow-
  ers through the mind of the victim, such as Mind Con-
  trol or Ego Blast. Characters may believe they have
  defeated a telepath only to discover that their fallen
  opponent seems to have possessed no psionic powers
  at all (although psychic traces may be left in the victim’s
  psyche from the Mind Link or Clairsentience).
  This “Trojan Horse” trick (favored by the CIA)
  can be used on unwilling subjects by substituting Te-
  lepathy for the Mind Link power.
  Multiform
  Multiform can be used to simulate the effects of
  a Dissociative Identity Disorder (i.e., Multiple Person-
  ality Disorder) or a Bipolar Mood Disorder (Manic
  Depression). In these cases, the Multiform is frequently
  triggered with the Disadvantage Accidental Change,
  Psychosomatic (see Psychosomatic Disadvantages, be-
  low).
  Dissociative Multiform: In a Dissociative Identity Dis-
  order, changing from personality to personality is usu-
  ally a Half Phase action. If the character wants to shift
  from personality to personality instantly, they should
  purchase Instant Change. Multiforms that simulate a
  Dissociative Identity Disorder usually affect a
  character’s Psychosomatic Disadvantages (see Psycho-
  somatic Disadvantages, below), but not necessarily their
  physical abilities.
  Bipolar Multiform: A Bipolar Mood Disorder built
  with the Multiform Power may want to take the Extra
  Time Disadvantage (some characters gradually slip
  into Depressive and Manic episodes). There are usu-
  ally discrepancies in the psychological and physical
  abilities between Bipolar Multiforms. See Mad/Sad
  Billy, Shadow Syndicates, for more details.
  Skills
  Skills, when purchased as powers, are considered
  to be part of the Special Powers (Hero System Rulebook,
  p.56) and while advantages and limitations can be ap-
  plied to them, they cannot be placed in Power Frame-
  works without the GM’s permission.
  Telepathy
  Some telepaths in the text are labeled as “receiv-
  ing” or “projecting” telepaths. Receiving and Project-
  ing Telepathy corresponds to Receptive and Broadcast
  Telepathy in the Ultimate Mentalist; the only differ-
  ence is one of terminology. Receiving telepaths can only
  read the thoughts of others; projecting telepaths can
  only send thoughts to others. Neither telepath can have
  a telepathic dialogue with another character.
  Limitation: Telepathic Bridge: Some mentalists can use
  their mental powers only after they have established a
  “bridge” with their Telepathy. These characters must
  first establish an alpha carrier wave to the mind of their
  opponent, then use the carrier wave as a bridge for
  attacking characters with their mental powers (see
  Freak and Crave, Underworld Enemies, p.22 and 36,
  respectively). Any mental power that requires a tele-
  pathic bridge be established before it can be used has a
  -1/2 Power Limitation.
  Sometimes, the telepathic bridge restricts the
  effect of other mental powers broadcast along its
  length. In this case, the attacker’s mental powers (say,
  Mental Illusions or Mind Control) are limited by the
  initial Telepathy Effect Roll that established the bridge.
  
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  For example, a character who established a telepathic
  bridge (i.e., Telepathy) at the EGO+10 level would have
  all powers that used the bridge restricted to an EGO+10
  Effect. The telepath is allowed to attempt to strengthen
  the carrier wave with new attack rolls until it has
  reached its maximum EGO+30, but this may take some
  time. If a mental power requires a telepathic bridge be
  established first and the bridge also restricts the men-
  tal power using the carrier wave, then this is a -3/4
  Power Limitation.
  This Limitation is essentially a crippled form of
  Mind Scan that requires Line of Sight and Extra Time
  to establish.
  Telepathy: Pseudopathy
  Some characters can tell what others are think-
  ing simply by watching their expressions, their body
  movements, listening to their tone of voice, and pay-
  ing attention to what is said and how it is said. This
  “pseudopathy” is not real telepathy, but it functions
  much the same way. Pseudopathy is built as follows:
  Pseudopathy: Any level of Telepathy, 0 END (+1/2),
  Invisible Effects (+1/2), AVAD (see New Power Limi-
  tations, below; pseudopathy works vs. Presence Defense
  instead of Mental Defense, +1/4), Limited Power: Ef-
  fect Roll is limited to EGO+20 (-1/2),  Ineffective
  against characters that have no human mannerisms (-
  1/4).
  This power cannot be pushed (Hero System
  Rulebook, p.168). Other possible pseudopathic Power
  Limitations include Activation, Concentrate, Extra
  Time, Reduced by Range, Requires a Skill Roll (Con-
  versation, Deduction, Persuasion, Seduction, SC: Psy-
  chology) or Requires a PER Roll. If the pseudopath
  does not possess enough levels of Telepathy to make a
  successful EGO+20 Effect Roll against an average hu-
  man (10 EGO), then they cannot take the Limited
  Power Limitation listed above.
  Transform
  Mental Transforms are Transforms with Based
  On Ego Combat Value Power Advantage (and usually
  applied against Mental Defense, not Power Defense)
  and with the Works Against EGO, Not BODY Modi-
  fier (which is either an Advantage or a Limitation, or
  neither, depending on the campaign). Mental Trans-
  forms are important because they are capable of in-
  ducing any of the Psychosomatic Disadvantages listed
  below. For more information on Mental Transforms,
  see the Ultimate Mentalist.
  Delusions: Some characters can induce a delusional
  state in a target. For mentalist characters, delusions are
  considered to be a psionic attack, and can be imposed
  on a target over a long period by using the Mental
  Transform power (see UM). The delusional theme
  (erotomanic, persecutory, grandiose) must be speci-
  fied when the Mental Transform is purchased.
  New Powers
  Presence Defense (Psychological Resis-
  tance)
  Cost
  Power
  1
  Presence Defense (Psychological Resistance)
  This power is purchased by “unfazeable” char-
  acters... the character’s nervous system may have been
  ruined by drug use or toxins (e.g., Poker Face from
  Dark Champions, p.147, or Contagion from Justice Not
  Law, p.98), the character has seen the face of evil and
  anything else is old hat, or the character is a war vet-
  eran who’s had flashbacks that would leave some fool
  in a cape peeing in his tights. Every point of Presence
  Defense equals two points of Defense against Presence
  Attacks. When the target with Presence Defense is hit
  with a Presence Attack, he subtracts two points from
  the Presence Attack for every point of Presence De-
  fense he possesses. The remaining points in the PRE
  attack are applied normally to the character.
  There are two important rules for using Pres-
  ence Defense with the Shock and Stress rules (described
  later on):
  1. Presence Defense is added to a character’s Psycho-
  logical Resistance (EGO or PRE, whichever is higher).
  GMs using the Shock and Stress rules or using Asy-
  lum in a Horror Hero campaign should consider re-
  naming Presence Defense “Psychological Resistance.”
  2. Presence Defense does not aid a character’s Psycho-
  logical Recovery.
  Presence Defense is basically a shortened form
  of the following power: the Characteristic PRE, pur-
  chased with only protects against PRE attacks (-1).
  Presence Defense Cost: 2 points of Presence Defense
  for 1 character point, minimum cost is 5 points.
  Power Limitations
  Limitations and Disadvantages
  While researching some of the Psychological
  Limitations for this book, a heretical idea suggested
  itself: the idea of assigning Power Limitations (nota-
  bly, the Linked Limitation) to Disadvantages. The fol-
  lowing paragraphs are a discussion of the idea. As with
  everything in this chapter, it is not a rule, only some-
  thing for a GM to consider.
  
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  For example, some Sleep Disorders (insomnia,
  hypersomnia, nightmares), while being separate Psy-
  chological Limitations in themselves, are caused by
  other Psychological Limitations such as Anxiety Dis-
  orders or Mood Disorders. It is not unreasonable to
  assume that if the Psychological Limitation that caused
  the Sleep Disorder were removed (by drug therapy,
  psychoanalysis, or psychic surgery), then the Sleep
  Disorder might fade with it. Thus, the Sleep Disorder
  Psychological Limitation could be treated as if it were
  Linked to the Psychological Limitation that caused it.
  Some Substance-Abuse Physical Limitations cause Psy-
  chological Limitations... once the direct effects of a sub-
  stance are removed from a character’s body, the Psy-
  chological Limitation is likely to fade. Again, in this
  situation, the Linked Limitation works well. If the GM
  does not wish to use this “Limitations and Disadvan-
  tages” rule in the campaign, then ignore the sections
  of the text that suggest it.
  GMs who want to use this rule, might wish to
  consider applying other Limitations to Disadvantages:
  for example, an Unluck Disadvantage tied to one of
  the character’s Foci (which happens all the time in fic-
  tion with cursed swords, unpredictable talismans, and
  so on), a Manic Episode that only occurs once (1
  Charge, a -2 Limitation... although a character would
  have to think of a replacement Disadvantage after the
  “charge” had expended itself or else buy the Disad-
  vantage off with experience), or a Disadvantage that
  occurs only in certain situations (i.e., the character only
  has a chance to go Berserk when there is a full moon
  in the sky; a Limited Power Limitation worth -2 to the
  Disadvantage). Generally, Disadvantages with Limita-
  tions applied to them are worth much less than they
  would be otherwise, but allow PCs and NPCs more
  specificity with their Disadvantages.
  Advantages and Disadvantages
  Taking the idea one step further, some charac-
  ters may wish to apply Power Advantages to Disad-
  vantages. An example might work like so:
  Example: The Midnight Man has a “quiet” Enraged
  Disadvantage (trigger: whenever his ally, Kid Midnight,
  is harmed, a Common Occurrence with a 11 or less to
  become Enraged and an 11 or less to recover). This
  Disadvantage is worth a total of ten points. Whenever
  his sidekick, Kid Midnight, is harmed, the Midnight
  Man attacks the foe who harmed his friend exactly like
  someone with the Enraged Disadvantage is supposed
  to.
  The player, however, whines that he doesn’t want
  the Midnight Man to foam at the mouth while “En-
  raged” and asks the GM if he can purchase Invisible
  Effects to Normal Sight (a +1/2 Power Advantage) to
  his Enraged to “quiet it down” and make it more in
  keeping with his “shadowy stalker of the night” motif.
  The GM reluctantly agrees, secretly thinking that
  the Midnight Man player is silly for wanting such a
  thing. Since Invisible Effects will make the Enraged
  Disadvantage less noticeable, and thus, less of a Dis-
  advantage (foes would be less likely to exploit it since
  it isn’t as apparent), Invisible Effects is applied to the
  Enraged Disadvantage like a Limitation of the oppo-
  site value (-1/2). Since the Enraged was originally worth
  ten points, the Enraged with Invisible Effects (Sight)
  is now worth only seven points.
  When “Advantages” are applied to Disadvan-
  tages, they are usually treated as Limitations to the cost
  (i.e., Invisible Effects is treated as a -1/2 Limitation to
  the Disadvantage and reduce its cost, since the Disad-
  vantage is no longer as handicapping as a conventional
  Berserk Disadvantage).
  Obviously, not all Disadvantages can have “Ad-
  vantages” applied to them; the appropriateness of the
  Disadvantage and “Advantage” combination will vary.
  Only the following Advantages are recommended:
  Charges (the Disadvantage only takes place a limited
  number of times during the adventure and only when
  the GM deems it appropriate), Invisible Power Effects,
  and Trigger. Disadvantages that lend themselves to
  “Advantages” include Age (some characters with an
  Immortality drug may Trigger their Age Disadvantage
  when deprived of their drug, while other characters
  don’t look their age, i.e., Invisible Effects), Berserk,
  Enraged (as per the Midnight Man example above),
  Distinctive Features (Trigger: The Distinctive Features
  only manifest themselves in certain circumstances,
  such as when a vampire is seen in a mirror, or if a mer-
  maid in human form is doused with water), Physical
  Limitation (Trigger and Invisible Power Effects), Psy-
  chological Limitation (Trigger: Whenever character
  uses X power) and Unluck.
  Specific Examples: Specific examples of the use of “Ad-
  vantages” with Disadvantages include Cognitive Com-
  pulsions (a Physical Limitation or Psychological Limi-
  tation where the character goes through a silent “ritual”
  in their head, such as praying, to ward off some nega-
  tive event they believe will take place; see Obsessive-
  Compulsive Disorder in Eye for an Eye for more in-
  formation). Cognitive Compulsion Disadvantages
  would lend themselves to an Invisible Effects (Sight)
  Advantage.
  Limited Power
  The following Limitation is intended for men-
  talist characters, but it can be extended to almost any
  power.
  Limited Power: Can only be used on other mentalists
  [-1 Power Limitation]: This Limitation represents
  “mental paraplegics” who must use a pre-existing al-
  pha carrier wave to attack an opponent with their
  mental powers. Their powers have no effect on char-
  acters who do not possess one of the five Mental Pow-
  ers defined in the Hero System Rulebook (Ego Attack,
  Mental Illusions, Mind Control, Mind Scan and Te-
  lepathy). Mental Awareness does not count, but some
  
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  powers with the Based on ECV Power Advantage
  might, at the GM’s discretion. This Limited Power
  could also be simulated with the Damage Shield and
  Trigger Power Advantages.
  Side Effects
  Some Psychological Limitations can be used as
  Side Effects for a character’s powers (physical, mental
  or otherwise). Some characters who fail to use their
  powers properly may have a psychological (psychotic?)
  reaction instead of a physical one. Suggestions include
  hallucinations, delusions, Panic Attacks, Manic Epi-
  sodes, Depressive Episodes or some form of Tempo-
  rary Psychosomatic Limitation.
  Note: Some characters automatically have Side Effects
  whenever they use their powers, even if their powers
  have no Activation Chance at all. If this is the case, the
  following chart is recommended:
  Automatic Side Effects
  Bonus: Side Effect:
  -1/4
  Automatic 5-10 Point Disadvantage
  -1/2
  Automatic 15 Point Disadvantage
  -3/4
  Automatic 20 Point Disadvantage
  -1
  Automatic 25 Point Disadvantage
  The character automatically gains the appropri-
  ate Disadvantage when they use the power, and this
  Disadvantage must be listed on the character sheet or
  chosen by the GM before the adventure/campaign be-
  gins (although it can be left random and the GM rolls
  for a Disadvantage every time the Side Effects come
  into play; i.e., they could roll on the Random Insanity
  Chart). The Disadvantage lasts as long as if the char-
  acter took the appropriate BODY damage instead
  (Hero System Rulebook, p.111).
  Alternatively, PCs and GMs may wish to simu-
  late the Side Effect with an appropriate Disadvantage
  (say a Psychological Limitation) with the Trigger “Ad-
  vantage” (only when using X power). See Limitations
  and Disadvantages  in the Power Limitations section,
  above, for details on using this optional rule.
  With this new, “improved” Power Limitation,
  PCs and GMs can build psionics who have psychotic
  episodes (Psychological Limitation) whenever they use
  their Mental Illusions, experience brain hemorrhag-
  ing (Physical Limitation) when they use their Mind
  Control, or lose control of their bodily functions
  (Physical Limitation) when using their Telekinesis. The
  combinations are endless.
  New Power Modifiers
  Attacks Versus Alternate Defense
  (AVAD)
  Originally called “works vs. power defense in-
  stead of mental defense” (or vice versa) in Underworld
  Enemies, Attacks Versus Alternate Defense is a zero-
  sum Power Limitation that allows characters to specify
  (at the time of purchase) if they wish a Mental Power
  to work against Power Defense instead of Mental De-
  fense, or whether they want a power normally resisted
  by Power Defense (e.g., Dispel, Drain, Suppress, Trans-
  fer and Transform) to work against Mental Defense
  instead.
  AVAD Mental Powers: Mental Powers with the Attacks
  Versus Alternate Defense (AVAD) Modifier are men-
  tal powers that effect the physiology of a target rather
  than their mind (i.e., in Underworld Enemies, the fool’s
  Ego Attack attacks the victim’s nervous system, not
  their mind, but it has much the same effect as a con-
  ventional Ego Attack). Most AVAD Mental Powers are
  some form of psychokinetic power. While AVAD is
  usually handled with the EGO Powers Based on
  CON Power Limitation, AVAD allows the Mental
  Power to remain invisible to all senses except Mental
  Awareness, allows the mental attack to remain based
  on an ECV Roll (which represents a mental “lock on”
  target better than Ego Powers Based on Con) and al-
  lows the character with the AVAD power to remain able
  to detect the use of other mental powers.
  AVAD Power Defense-Based Powers: Power Defense-
  based Powers with the Alternate Defense Modifier are
  Dispels, Drains, Suppressions, Transfers and Trans-
  forms that require the character overcome a target’s
  willpower in order to work (END Drain, “You are get-
  ting sleepy...”). Transforms that change the psychol-
  ogy of the target, Drains that chip away at a character’s
  willpower, and so on, could be considered AVAD at-
  tacks. While this limitation is usually handled with the
  Based on ECV Power Advantage, it is more economi-
  cal to use AVAD; especially in campaigns like Dark
  Champions that have “ceilings” on the Active Cost of a
  power (Based on ECV is an expensive advantage).
  AVAD is usually a zero-sum limitation, since
  Mental Defense and Power Defense cost the same.
  However, the cost of AVAD should vary according to
  campaign. Some campaigns have Mental Defense left
  and right and only a few characters with Power De-
  fense; in other campaigns, the reverse is true. Depend-
  ing on the campaign, GMs should make AVAD  either
  a Power Advantage or Limitation. For conventional
  Champions and Dark Champions campaigns, it is a
  zero-sum limitation (characters rarely have either
  Mental or Power Defense, or if they do, it is in equal
  amounts).
  
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  If the GM wishes, Flash Defense (or even Pres-
  ence Defense, see above) can also be part of the AVAD
  framework. Some powers (whether Mental or Power
  Defense-Based) work only if the attacker makes eye
  contact or can speak to the victim. An AVAD Ego At-
  tack can be a stream of words that fill a victim’s minds
  with terrifying thoughts and imaginings (and be de-
  fended against by Hearing Flash Defense), an AVAD
  Mind Control attack may require the psionic to make
  eye contact with the victim (and could be blocked by
  Sight Flash Defense), and so on. Some Flashes may be
  “brain-frying” electrical blasts that short out a
  character’s nervous system (AVAD, Power Defense) or
  a mental suggestion that forces the character’s brain
  to “turn off” a selected sense (AVAD, Mental Defense).
  Attacks Versus Alternate Defense is usually la-
  beled on a character sheet as “AVAD (the Alternate
  Defense whether Flash, Mental, Power or Presence
  Defense that now defends, +0).”
  Psychosomatic Power
  Limitations
  The powers of some characters are affected by
  psychological blocks. The character believes he can use
  his power only in a certain way, or only under certain
  circumstances. Because he believes this to be true, he
  limits his power accordingly. These types of Limita-
  tions are called Psychosomatic Limitations.
  Example: The mutant heroine Red Witch believes her
  probability manipulation power is actually magic. In
  order to use her “magic” correctly, she must perform
  Gestures and Incantations for her power to “work.” If
  she is in a situation where she cannot speak or move
  her hands, she cannot use her power.
  Psychosomatic Limitations are treated as con-
  ventional Power Limitations. The difference is that
  these Psychosomatic Limitations can be affected by any
  mental power designed to remove psychological blocks,
  such as Psychic Surgery, Mind Control or Mental
  Transform. Certain Drain and Suppress Powers may
  also affect Psychosomatic Limitations.
  When a character’s Power Limitation is psycho-
  somatic, it must be labeled on their character sheet.
  Linked
  Some powers can be Linked to a character’s Psy-
  chological Limitations. For example, a werewolf might
  have Mental Defense based on Psychological Limita-
  tion: Bestial Instincts (i.e., the beast within allows the
  character to shrug off mental attacks), or a Mind
  Controller’s power might be linked to his Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: Aristocratic (he believes he has the right
  to use his Mind Control on others... and does). A char-
  acter who has an Invisibility power based on Mental
  Illusions may only be able to use it as long as they pos-
  sess the Psychological Limitation: Timid or the Psy-
  chological Limitation: Social Phobia (they really don’t
  want to be noticed by others, and their power responds
  accordingly). Some mental powers fluctuate based on
  a character’s state of mind and the strength of their
  convictions, whether strengthened by fanaticism,
  weakened by fear or anxiety, or fed by a supreme con-
  ceit or arrogance.
  As Psychological Limitations do not come into
  play in every situation (i.e., a religious zealot who has
  Mental Defense Linked to his Psychological Limita-
  tion: Fanatic of Religion, should not be able to use his
  Mental Defense in situations where his religious belief
  does not play a part), Linked is treated as a Disadvan-
  tage. The value of the Linked Limitation is based on
  the Frequency of the Psychological Limitation, whether
  Uncommon (Teleport linked to the Psychological
  Limitation: Claustrophobia, i.e., the character can
  teleport only when trapped in a tight place... Uncom-
  mon is a -1 Limitation), Common (Images linked to
  Psychological Limitation: Prankster; can only form
  Images when trying to pull a prank... Common is a -1/
  2 Limitation), Very Common (Telepathy linked to
  Paranoia; the character can only pick up thoughts when
  he thinks someone’s out to get him... Very Common is
  a -1/4 Limitation).
  In fiction, many characters have lost their pow-
  ers as a result of violating their own codes of ethics or
  by losing faith in themselves. Some character’s powers
  work only in the strangest circumstances or in tense
  situations. Linking powers to Psychological Limitations
  is a way of reflecting this “psychosomatic syndrome”
  statistically when role-playing is not enough. The
  power is there, but the character’s mood or personal-
  ity traits limit its performance.
  This type of disadvantage is usually role-played,
  rather than reduced to numbers... nevertheless, some
  campaigns may need the statistical reinforcement, es-
  pecially in any game where a character’s Psychological
  Limitations can be tampered with, such as in Asylum.
  Furthermore, this application of the Linked Limita-
  tion allows mentalists who can twist Psychological
  Limitations to undermine some of the character’s pow-
  ers as well, which can add to the realism.
  This version of the Linked Limitation can be
  bought off with experience points.
  Power Frameworks
  Disclaimer
  It has been difficult to design some of the char-
  acters in the Asylum series without violating Hero Sys-
  tem conventions, notably placing Skills, Perks and Tal-
  ents in Variable Power Pools. Such Power Pools open
  themselves up to all kinds of abuse. Nevertheless, some-
  
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  times it’s the only way certain cinematic effects can be
  achieved using the Hero rules; these concepts can be
  more accurately and efficiently represented by a
  Multipower or a Power Pool rather than purchasing
  every single skill that a character should possess. If GMs
  have a problem with including Skills, Perks and Tal-
  ents in Power Frameworks, they are under no com-
  pulsion to use them nor to allow any player in their
  campaign to purchase them.
  Variable Power Pools
  A Note on Masterminds
  Several characters in this book could be consid-
  ered to be archetypal “masterminds.” They waste a lot
  of time constructing bases, vehicles and drafting fol-
  lowers into carrying out their dastardly schemes. While
  they may not have a good reason for doing this, they
  have the power to do so. In game terms, this can get
  sticky.
  The powers and resources of “Masterminds” can
  be handled in two ways. One is to give them a Master-
  mind Power Pool (see Mastermind Power Pool, below),
  or use the option presented in Chris Cloutier’s Golden
  Age of Champions, that of a “Mastermind” power (see
  Mastermind, below). Either one is fine. The only dif-
  ference between the two is that the Power Pool tends
  to be more expensive, but allows more variety (the
  character can purchase powers and foci, not just Bases),
  but the Mastermind option is easier, less expensive, and
  quicker to use. The first option has been used in this
  text, but the second option is presented here for GMs
  who prefer the latter method.
  Mastermind Power Pools
  A Mastermind Power Pool is a cinematic power
  pool that allows villains access to a number of resources
  when they embark upon their schemes. Almost every
  cinematic villain in Asylum has a Power Pool that can
  be used for bases, followers and vehicles appropriate
  for their dark designs. Most of the time, these items
  can just be given to villains for the purposes of plot,
  but if the PCs are sticklers for rules, GMs may want to
  play it safe with a Mastermind Power Pool. A Master-
  mind Power Pool has the following Power Limitations:
  Only change between adventures (-1/2) and Restricted
  Powers (-1/4).
  Restricted Powers: The “Restricted Powers” Limitation
  is designed to represent the following disadvantage:
  the villain cannot usually give themselves biological
  superpowers (i.e., they could not mutate themselves
  into monsters, change their physiology so that they
  could fire energy beams), although they can purchase
  almost any other power, including Perks (Contacts,
  Favors, Money, Vehicles and Bases), or any Skill, Tal-
  ent or Power with the Focus Limitation.
  Some players may complain about Perks being
  part of a Mastermind Power Pool. It does make a cer-
  tain amount of sense, however; for example, the Face
  may have tipped over a bank just before the adventure
  starts and suddenly have the Wealth Perk. He may also
  be blackmailing several members of the city govern-
  ment, making them either his Followers, or forcing
  them to act as Contacts or give him Favors. Vehicles
  and Bases, as any vigilante knows, can be there today
  and gone tomorrow, making them prime candidates
  for a Power Pool.
  Characters with the Mastermind Power Pool can
  take the “Requires a Characteristic Roll” (usually INT,
  although PRE would make sense, too) or “Requires a
  Skill Roll” Limitation for their Power Pool. Appropri-
  ate Required Skills include Criminology (to plan the
  perfect crime, -1/2), KS: Campaign City Underworld
  (Limitation is reduced because it is a cheap skill, -1/4),
  PS: Criminal Mastermind (Limitation is reduced be-
  cause it is a cheap skill, -1/4), Inventor (-1/2), Mechan-
  ics (for Vehicles and gadgets, -1/2), Persuasion (Fol-
  lowers: “Come on, guys. Once more for old time’s
  sake?” -1/2), or Contacts (for getting Bases or Follow-
  ers, -1/4). A Mastermind Power Pool may be Linked
  to Wealth as well; if the character doesn’t have the funds
  to finance the crime, then they can’t use their Power
  Pool. It’s a GM call.
  Mastermind
  With the Mastermind option, the character pays
  fifty points (not subject to Multipower, Elemental
  Control or any limitation whatsoever) and gets an
  amount equivalent to his Powers Points to build a base.
  A villain built on 300 points with 50 points spent on
  the Mastermind option, would get 300 points avail-
  able for Bases. Every experience point gives him an-
  other point for his base. This option is available only
  to Masterminds.
  If the GM wishes, the Mastermind Option can
  be lengthened to include Followers and Vehicles as well.
  GMs using the one for ten rule for Vehicles and Bases
  in Dark Champions should not abuse this rule... it
  should be used for effect only, not to overwhelm the
  characters.
  Skill Power Pools
  Skill Power Pools are useful, because they can
  accommodate new skills being presented in upcom-
  ing Hero books without having to keep adding them
  to the character sheet. The Power Pools listed below
  are considered to have a standard Restricted Powers
  Limitation, Skills only (-1). This does not include Non-
  Powered Powers such as “super disguise” (Shapeshift
  with a Disguise roll), “super ventriloquism” (Images
  vs. Hearing with a Ventriloquism roll), and so on. Re-
  stricted Powers that include Skills and Non-Powered
  Powers (which must have a Skill Roll attached to them
  and be explained as a skill, rather than a power) are a -
  1/2 Limitation.
  
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  Characters with Skill Power Pools cannot pur-
  chase Martial Arts abilities although they can still pur-
  chase Combat Levels and Non-Powered Powers that
  simulate Martial Arts abilities.
  Skill Power Pools can represent any of a number
  of effects:
  Cinematic: This Skill Power Pool is for cinematic cam-
  paigns. The character with this Power Pool simply has
  a tremendous repertoire of skills, either through fa-
  natical training, an extensive adventuring career
  (“When I was in the dank dungeons of the Evil Ge-
  nius, I was forced to learn how to pick the lock of my
  cell in order to escape...”), or a powerful Eidetic
  Memory that has none of the limitations associated
  with the Eidetic Skill Power Pool listed below. Pulp Era
  heroes might have a Power Pool like this one. Charac-
  ters may want to take the “Requires a Characteristic
  Roll (INT)” Power Limitation to recall the skill, or have
  an Activation Roll associated with it.
  Dormant: A Dormant Skill Power Pool represents a
  character who has a number of skills stored in their
  subconscious, any one of which they may recall over
  the course of an adventure. Whether this is due to CIA
  programming, brain damage, or amnesia, skills sur-
  face in the character’s consciousness under certain
  conditions established by the GM. Dormant Skill
  Power Pools usually have Restricted Powers (Skills, -
  1), Skills change only under circumstances established
  by the GM (Variable Limitation). Circumstances in-
  clude:
  • Environmental: A character may remember their
  Desert Survival skill when they are lost in the desert.
  They may remember their WF: Knives skill when a
  gang member throws them a blade and challenges them
  to a duel. The environmental trigger is considered a -
  1/2 Power Limitation, and it should also be accompa-
  nied by an INT Roll or an Activation Roll to remem-
  ber the skill correctly. The skills surface only when the
  environment is present; when it is gone, the skills sub-
  merge back into the character’s mind. Even when the
  character realizes they have a skill they cannot call it
  up at will; it surfaces only when the environment calls
  for it. Such Power Pools can have a “Can Change Pow-
  ers as a 0 Phase Action” (+1) to simulate skills that
  immediately pop into a character’s mind when the cir-
  cumstances allow. Otherwise, the character slowly re-
  members the skill necessary to the situation... this
  works well with Survival skills (taking a minute or two
  to remember a Survival skill is not usually a problem,
  considering it is rarely needed in high pressure situa-
  tions), but during combat, Weapon Familiarities and
  Combat Levels might be needed immediately and
  would not normally be available in time without the
  “Can Change Powers as a 0 Phase Action” Advantage.
  • Amnesiac: This is essentially an uncontrolled Dor-
  mant Power Pool. It is purchased as a -2 Limitation to
  the Control Cost. The GM decides when the Skill
  comes forth, usually to forward the adventure. The
  Power Pool is unreliable, untrustworthy, and usually
  raises more questions than it answers. It may require a
  Characteristic Roll (INT, -1/2) to remember the skill
  correctly and may have the “Can Change Powers as a 0
  Phase Action” Advantage as well. The character can-
  not hold onto the skill once the GM decides it has
  served its purpose... the character will quickly forget it
  until the GM decides it resurfaces. This Skill Pool is
  usually empty under normal circumstances (which
  may not be the case for Eidetic Power Pools and Psionic
  Skill Power Pools).
  • Eidetic: This Power Pool can be taken by any charac-
  ter who has the Talent: Eidetic Memory. It is essen-
  tially a form of “Super Cramming.” This Power Pool
  simulates characters whose photographic memory al-
  lows them to instantly compile and process skills (in
  minutes of study... things such as memorizing phone
  books, criminal data bases, mug shots, blueprints, and
  so on). Eidetic Memory Skill Power Pools are usually
  Linked to Eidetic Memory (although Linked is usu-
  ally a -1/2 limitation, it is hard to deprive a character
  of a Talent, so it is a -1/4 limitation instead), Restricted
  Powers (Knowledge Skills, -1), Limited Power: Must
  have some means of studying the needed skill (-1/2).
  Eidetic skills remain in the Power Pool until they are
  erased to make room for new skills. Once a skill is
  erased from the Eidetic Power Pool, the character must
  study the skill again in order to place it back into his
  Power Pool.
  Eidetic Power Pools usually allow a character
  only to purchase Knowledge Skills, and it is recom-
  mended that characters only be allowed to purchase
  these Skills up to an 11 less roll. The GM may make
  exceptions depending on the character.
  • Psionic: A character with a psionic skill power pool
  can telepathically download skills from other charac-
  ters and use them as their own. Psionic Skill Power
  Pools are usually Linked to Telepathy (-1/2), Restricted
  Powers (Skills, -1), Must read the mind of a character
  of a character that has the needed skill (-1/2), Skill can
  only be taken at level the target possesses (-1/2). Psionic
  skills remain in the Power Pool until they are erased to
  make room for new skills. Once a skill is erased from
  the Psionic Skill Power Pool, the character must find
  another target who has the skill in order to place it
  back into his Power Pool.
  This power does not allow a psionic to get a list-
  ing of every skill the character possesses. What the char-
  acter must do is first establish contact with Telepathy
  (which is much easier with a willing target than a hos-
  tile one), then ask the question: “Do you have [insert
  name of skill the character wishes to copy]?” If no, then
  the character can either break off contact or ask an-
  other question next Phase if they wish to see if the char-
  acter has another skill.
  
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  188
  This power cannot normally be done in com-
  bat; it usually takes anywhere from one turn to one
  minute after establishing telepathic contact for the
  character to copy the skill... and even then, they should
  be in surroundings where few distractions are present.
  Experienced telepaths may wish to purchase a Skill
  (Psionics, see UM) for changing the Power Pool in com-
  bat.
  This power pool does not steal the skill from the
  character. To simulate telepathically stealing skills from
  another, characters should purchase a Mental Trans-
  form.
  Psychosomatic
  Disadvantages
  Some problems are all in the mind. Psychoso-
  matic Disadvantages are Disadvantages caused or in-
  fluenced by a character’s psychological state. When a
  character purchases a Disadvantage, they need to in-
  dicate whether it is related to their physiology or to
  their psychology (Psychosomatic) and record it on
  their character sheet (the actual Disadvantage is listed
  first, followed by the Psychosomatic label in parenthe-
  sis). Psychosomatic Disadvantages may be able to be
  cured by Telepathic Surgery, psychiatric counseling, or
  may be affected by mental attacks from other charac-
  ters.
  Psychosomatic Disadvantages only take effect
  when the character perceives that the “trigger” for their
  disadvantage exists. For example, a character who has
  a Psychosomatic Dependency on tranquilizers and is
  being fed a placebo will not take any damage from the
  Dependency.
  Any of the Psychosomatic Disadvantages below
  may be used in place of Temporary or Long Term Psy-
  chological Limitations (i.e., Psychological Limitations
  caused by Shock and Stress... see the next chapter).
  Accidental Change
  PCs must indicate whether their Accidental
  Change Disadvantage (each one) is psychosomatic
  (emotion or mentally driven, conscious or not) or
  based on environmental stimuli (the full moon, sun-
  rise, radiation) and label it on their character sheet. A
  character with Accidental Change does not necessar-
  ily change their form; their personality may change.
  Characters with a Dissociative Identity Disorder (Mul-
  tiple Personality Disorder) may have a Psychosomatic
  Accidental Change to simulate their changes from one
  personality to the other.
  Berserk
  Berserks and Enraged are usually psychosomatic.
  If they are triggered by chemical or environmental
  stimuli, this must be indicated on the character sheet
  to prevent misinterpretation.
  GMs may want to consider giving a character a
  temporary Berserk or Enraged Disadvantage rather
  than a temporary Psychological Limitation due to the
  effects of Stress and Shock (see Horror Hero’s Shock
  and Stress rules, pp.22-31).
  Catatonic
  The Catatonic Disadvantage works much the
  same way the Berserk and or Enraged Disadvantage
  does. A character with the Catatonic Disadvantage will
  enter a catatonic state (0 DCV) when confronted with
  a certain circumstance (say, when they see someone
  killed, or if they are wounded in combat). While they
  can still perceive their environment, they cannot take
  any physical action or use any mental power. The point
  total for the Catatonic Disadvantage is calculated ex-
  actly the same way as a Berserk Disadvantage is: the
  GM and the PC decide how common the circumstance
  that causes the catatonic behavior occurs in the cam-
  paign (Uncommon, Common, Very Common), the
  chance for the character to become catatonic when
  exposed to the situation (anywhere from an 8 or less
  to a 14 or less) and the chance of recovery once the
  circumstance is removed (anywhere from an 8 or less
  to a 14 or less). If the character is at 1/2 DCV while
  Catatonic, then the point total of the Disadvantage is
  halved.
  The character will still be able to see what is go-
  ing around them while catatonic, but he will either be
  unable to move (0 DCV) or, if Catatonic is taken at 1/
  2 DCV, then the character will be incapable of per-
  forming a goal-directed action. Characters who can-
  not perceive what is going on around them (i.e., they
  enter a coma) gain +5 points to the Disadvantage
  (which is added to the Disadvantage before the 1/2
  DCV modifier, above, is applied).
  Catatonic Bonus
  Circumstances
  Points
  Uncommon
  5
  Common
  10
  Very Common
  15
  Chance to go Catatonic
  Bonus
  8 or less
  +0
  11 or less
  +5
  14 or less
  +10
  Chance to Recover
  Bonus
  14 or less
  +0
  11 or less
  +5
  8 or less
  +10
  Modifiers
  Bonus
  Character Cannot Sense Environment
  +5
  Character is at 1/2 DCV
  x 1/2
  Characters can recover only when (1) someone
  attempts to snap them out of it, (2) when the circum-
  stance is removed (note that the character still must
  
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  189
  make a roll every Phase after the circumstance is re-
  moved; they do not automatically break out of their
  catatonic state when the trigger is removed) or (3) the
  character can take a free recovery after Segment 12 if
  the character did not have an opportunity to recover
  that Turn (i.e., no one tried to snap him out of it).
  Like Berserk and Enraged, the character com-
  pletely loses control of their own actions when the cir-
  cumstance occurs (i.e., an arachnophobic character
  may become Catatonic when they see a spider). Cata-
  tonic is usually a Psychosomatic Disadvantage (al-
  though some effects, such as a severe allergic attack or
  epilepsy, could be simulated with the Catatonic Dis-
  advantage... in a Horror Hero campaign, a vampire may
  go Catatonic if they are staked through the heart).
  Unless indicated otherwise on the character sheet, how-
  ever, Catatonic is assumed to be a Psychosomatic Dis-
  advantage.
  There are several types of catatonic behavior:
  1. Catalepsy/Stupor: The character enters a catatonic
  stupor where they are completely unaware of their
  environment. This is a 0 DCV Catatonic Disadvan-
  tage.
  2. Rigidity: The character maintains a rigid posture and
  resists efforts to be moved.  This is a 0 DCV Catatonic
  Disadvantage.
  3. Negativism: The character resists all instructions or
  else maintains a rigid posture against attempts to be
  moved (as per Rigidity, above). The character may
  become mute as well.  This can be treated as a 0 DCV
  Catatonic Disadvantage. The trigger is Common (“re-
  sistance,” whenever anyone gives the character an or-
  der or tries to move them).
  4. Posturing: Inappropriate or bizarre posturing, such
  as having one’s arms outstretched as if crucified, stand-
  ing motionless with a hand raised as if about to ask a
  question, and so on. This is taken as a 0 DCV Cata-
  tonic Disadvantage.
  5. Excessive Motor Activity: Purposeless, excessive ac-
  tivity, such as walking in a circle, hand shaking or wav-
  ing, body rocking, dancing with an invisible partner,
  doing jumping jacks, pounding one’s head against the
  wall, and so on. As the character can still move, this is
  taken as a 1/2 DCV Catatonic Disadvantage, but the
  character can not perform any goal-directed activity
  nor think straight while Catatonic.
  6. Cataplexy: Cataplexy is the sudden loss of muscle
  tone that occurs in some disorders. Cataplexy is usu-
  ally triggered when the character experiences intense
  emotions such as laughter, anger, fear or surprise, af-
  ter which the character collapses. Cataplexy is treated
  as per the Catatonic Disadvantage, (0 DCV) with a
  Common or Very Common trigger.
  Dependence
  Dependencies can be Psychosomatic, rather than
  Physical. For example, Arcturus, the city’s most infa-
  mous serial killer, may be so possessive of his tiny plush
  bear that he will go into trauma if he separated from it
  for long periods of time.
  A normal Dependency does STUN Damage to
  the victim until their STUN is reduced to 0. After this,
  the victim takes BODY until they perish. Psychoso-
  matic Dependencies, however, usually only do STUN
  Damage, as they are tied to the victim’s psychology
  rather than their physiology. There are several ways
  that a GM can simulate a Psychosomatic Dependency:
  1. The Psychosomatic Dependency may do STUN only.
  This Dependency is a -5 Reduction on the chart. Char-
  acters, instead of taking BODY, simply become uncon-
  scious when their STUN is reduced to 0. They can be
  roused from their unconscious state, but unless their
  Dependency is satisfied, they will slip into uncon-
  sciousness soon after awakening.
  2. The Psychosomatic Dependency may do STUN only,
  but when the character reaches 0, they become Cata-
  tonic (see above). The GM will have to decide how the
  character can recover after they have become coma-
  tose; perhaps through drugs, ECT (electroconvulsive
  treatment) or slow recovery... but these will only be
  temporary measures until the Dependency is satisfied,
  or else the character will sink back into a Catatonic
  state soon after awakening.
  3. The Psychosomatic Dependency may do STUN only,
  but when the character reaches 0, they begin to lose
  one point of EGO, rather than BODY. When their EGO
  reaches 0, they become brain dead.
  4. In the description for Dependency in the Hero Sys-
  tem Rulebook, p.120, the GM is given the option to re-
  place every 1D6 of STUN with 10 Points of an Active
  Attack. This could include a 1D6 Ego Attack, 1D6 En-
  tangle (so distraught they cannot move), 1D6 Flash
  (Hysterical Blindness), or a 2D6 Presence Attack with
  no defense.
  The best way to work Psychosomatic Dependen-
  cies is to use the Stress and Shock rules mentioned in
  Horror Hero (pp.22-31). Instead of a 1D6 STUN Sus-
  ceptibility, the character may be struck with a 2D6
  General Presence Attack (which can affect future Pres-
  ence Attacks against the character), gain one Stress
  Level (which will affect the PC’s characteristics and
  future Presence Attacks directed against them), or gain
  a 1/2D6 to their Long Term Stress. Characters afflicted
  with this type of Dependency are considered to have
  no Psychological Resistance for the purposes of accu-
  mulating this Stress. Once the Dependency is satisfied,
  the character can recover normally. If it is not satis-
  fied, the character will become increasing traumatized,
  perhaps even going insane, but they will not take BODY
  damage.
  Note: Dependency-Induced Mental Transforms are a
  way for psionics to psychologically damage a charac-
  
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  190
  ter without directly attacking them. Attackers may give
  a character a Dependency on their gun; if a PC is caged
  in the Asylum and deprived of their weapon, they may
  go insane. Other examples include a 1D6 STUN De-
  pendency when not committing a criminal act, a Stress
  Level Dependency on staying safely at home in their
  Secret ID, and so on. The GM can undoubtedly think
  of more foul and unpleasant Psychosomatic Depen-
  dencies that can afflict a character. Nevertheless, the
  Dependency should have a “back door” for the char-
  acter to work around, so that they can still take action
  and outwit their attacker.
  Distinctive Features
  Distinctive Features can be Psychosomatic. For
  example, the rituals of an Obsessive-Compulsive Dis-
  order (e.g., making sure whatever is touched by the
  left hand is touched by the right hand in the exact same
  place for the same length of time; touching every cor-
  ner in the room starting from the left; always looking
  twice at every stranger that passes by, and so on), the
  symptoms of some Anxiety Disorders (especially the
  trembling and shaking that results from Panic Attacks),
  Tourette’s Disorder, stuttering, and even facial tics
  could all be considered to be Psychosomatic Distinc-
  tive Features. These features rarely cause a Major or
  Extreme Reaction (with the exception of Tourette’s
  Disorder)... they are simply noticed as “odd” or strange.
  Their Concealability ranges from Easily Concealable
  to Not Concealable depending on the behavior or
  symptoms of the disorder.
  Echolalia (the parrot-like repetition of a word
  or phrase just spoken by another person) and echop-
  raxia (the repeated, unwilling imitation of the move-
  ments of another) are two symptoms of some mental
  disorders, especially Schizophrenia. Both symptoms
  could be considered to be Distinctive Features (Psy-
  chosomatic) that cause either a Recognizable or Ma-
  jor Reaction.
  Physical Limitations
  Some Psychological Limitations should be
  treated as Physical Limitations, especially if the GM is
  using Somatization Disorders (physical pain induced
  by the character’s psychological state) in their cam-
  paigns. In these cases, the character’s Physical Limita-
  tion has a psychological basis and should be treated as
  a Physical Limitation (Psychosomatic).
  Susceptibility
  Susceptibilities can be Psychosomatic rather than
  Physical. A normal Susceptibility does STUN Damage
  to the victim as long as they are exposed to the situa-
  tion, object or effect they are Susceptible to, until their
  STUN is reduced to 0. After this, the victim takes BODY
  until they perish.
  Psychosomatic Susceptibilities, however, usually
  only do STUN Damage to the victim (as for Depen-
  dency, above). There are several ways a GM can simu-
  late a Psychosomatic Susceptibility:
  1. The Psychosomatic Susceptibility may do STUN
  only. This Susceptibility is a -5 Reduction on the chart.
  When the character’s STUN is reduced to 0, they be-
  come unconscious. While they can be roused from
  their unconscious state, they will slip into unconscious-
  ness again if the object or effect they are Susceptible to
  is not removed.
  2. The Psychosomatic Susceptibility may do STUN
  only, but when the character reaches 0, they become
  Catatonic (see the Catatonic Disadvantage, above). The
  GM will have to decide how the character can recover
  after they have become comatose. Drugs or electro-
  convulsive therapy (ECT) might work, but they will
  only be temporary measures until the object or effect
  the character is Susceptible to is removed.
  3. The Psychosomatic Susceptibility may do STUN
  only, but when the character reaches 0, they begin to
  lose one point of EGO, rather than BODY. When their
  EGO reaches 0, the character becomes brain dead.
  4. In the description for Susceptibility in the Hero Sys-
  tem Rulebook, p.126, the GM is given the option to re-
  place every 1D6 of STUN with 10 Points of an Active
  Attack. This could include a 1D6 Ego Attack, 1D6 En-
  tangle (so distraught they cannot move), 1D6 Flash
  (Hysterical Blindness), or a 2D6 Presence Attack with
  no defense.
  The best way to work Psychosomatic Suscepti-
  bilities is to use the Stress and Shock rules as for De-
  pendency, above: instead of a 1D6 STUN Susceptibil-
  ity, the character may suffer a 2D6 General Presence
  Attack (which can affect future Presence Attacks against
  the character), gain one Stress Level (which will affect
  the PC’s characteristics and future Presence Attacks
  directed against them), or gain a 1/2D6 to their Long
  Term Stress. Characters afflicted with this type of Sus-
  ceptibility are considered to have no Psychological
  Resistance for the purposes of accumulating this Stress.
  Once the object or effect they are Susceptible to is re-
  moved, the character can recover normally. If not, the
  character will become increasingly traumatized and
  gain Temporary Psychological Limitations, but they
  will not die.
  A character with a Phobia may have a Psychoso-
  matic Susceptibility whenever they are in a situation
  involving their phobia.
  Note: Susceptibility-Induced Mental Transforms are a
  way for psionics to psychologically damage a charac-
  ter without directly attacking them. An attacker could
  give a character a Stress Level Susceptibility to being
  imprisoned in the Asylum, which could drive a char-
  acter mad within hours. A Stress Level Susceptibility
  to fighting crime or being out at night could cut a
  vigilante’s career off at the knees. Nevertheless, no
  matter how crippling, the Psychosomatic Susceptibil-
  ity should have a “back door” for the character to work
  
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  191
  around, so that they can still take action and turn the
  tables on their attacker.
  Vulnerability
  Many Asylum characters have psychosomatic
  Vulnerabilities, Vulnerabilities that are not tied to a
  physical defect or to a character’s biology, but to their
  psychology. Timidness can leave a character vulner-
  able to Presence Attacks, or a paranoid character may
  be especially vulnerable to Mental Illusions or Telepa-
  thy. Psychosomatic Vulnerabilities are usually intan-
  gible (Presence, Mental Attacks), but some phobias can
  cause a character to suffer additional STUN when at-
  tacked by the object of their fear (a pyrophobic char-
  acter attacked with a torch or a flamethrower may suf-
  fer trauma that causes them to be stunned, even if the
  physical damage would not normally be enough to stun
  them). Psychosomatic Vulnerabilities of this sort are
  usually STUN only, and they must be labeled as “Vul-
  nerability (Psychosomatic)” on their character sheet.
  Characters with a Mental Transform could con-
  ceivably give a victim a Psychosomatic Vulnerability,
  although this Vulnerability must be coupled with an
  appropriate Psychological Limitation (i.e., Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: Pyrophobia with a Vulnerability: x2
  STUN vs. Flame Attacks). As a general rule, a Trans-
  form-induced Psychosomatic Vulnerability must have
  at least a corresponding Psychological Limitation of
  equal level (i.e., a character with the Vulnerability: x2
  Effect from Presence Attacks [a Common Vulnerabil-
  ity, worth 20 Points], must have a Psychological Limi-
  tation [i.e., Timid, Cowardly, Phobic] worth 20 Points).
  In Transforms where the attacker can only induce one
  Disadvantage at a time, they must insert the Psycho-
  logical Limitation into the mind of their target before
  they induce the Psychosomatic Vulnerability.
  Note: In Asylum, a Vulnerability to Presence Attacks is
  considered a Common Disadvantage. Not only do
  many characters in this book perform PRE Attacks,
  but if the GM is using the Stress and Shock rules de-
  scribed in Horror Hero section, a Vulnerability to Pres-
  ence Attacks becomes much more debilitating than it
  would 
  otherwise 
  be 
  in 
  a 
  conventional
  Champions game.
  Disadvantages
  Dependent NPC (DNPC)
  A character does not even have to know the
  DNPC in order to take the DNPC Disadvantage. This
  is treated as a “Floating DNPC.” Depending on the
  character’s psychological state, they may form a de-
  pendency or a need to protect someone that they mis-
  take for a loved one, or who they feel is appropriate
  for their heroic/criminal identity. For example, a char-
  acter who believes they are a four-color superhero may
  chose a unknowing female reporter as a DNPC. This
  attachment is usually disconcerting for the “Depen-
  dent” NPC.
  Characters suffering from a Dependent Person-
  ality Disorder (see Personality Disorders in an Eye for
  an Eye) may take the DNPC at a higher cost than nor-
  mal... the frequency of the DNPC’s appearance is usu-
  ally high because the character is spending so much
  time around them.
  Hunteds
  The cost of the Disadvantage, “Hunted by the
  Asylum,” varies depending on whether the character
  is hunted by the Asylum staff or by the patients.
  The Staff: The Asylum staff, including Shreiver, is not
  much of a threat. In almost all cases, the Asylum is
  considered a Less Powerful Hunted with a Limited
  Geographical Area (Fell’s Point or the Campaign City).
  Whenever possible, this Hunted should be replaced
  with the local Police, as the police are the ones that
  actually bring the escaped convicts back to the Asy-
  lum (see Chapter Two: Escapes). It is not unheard of
  that the Asylum staff may be looking for the character
  separately (if they are a patient); reasons such as pub-
  lic embarrassment if the escape was leaked to the press,
  the fear that the Fell’s Point police will accidentally
  shoot an inmate while apprehending them, and so on
  can lead to a separate Asylum staff Hunted. Some of
  the staff members may have a vendetta against the PCs,
  but in a non-combat role... they may appear on talk
  shows denouncing the character, convince the local
  authorities that the character is a menace and that a
  special task force needs to be appointed, or even form
  alliances with other vigilantes and heroes, acting as
  counsel and offering advice in piecing together the
  character’s Secret ID.
  Patients: Being hunted by the inmates is a different
  matter, and the amount of points depends on whether
  the character is hunted by a specific member of the
  Asylum or the entire Asylum. Specific patients Hunteds
  are assigned points as normal.
  If the entire Asylum is taken as a Hunted, it
  should be treated as a Mo Pow threat with a 14- roll. If
  a PC takes this as a Hunted, the GM is allowed to have
  the Asylum patients mob the PC en masse and even
  have them employ team tactics. As this can become
  rather grisly, GMs should consider suggesting that
  characters purchase a “Floating Hunted” as a substi-
  tute for being Hunted by the entire Asylum (the Float-
  ing Hunted usually means that only one patient comes
  after the PC at any one time, no matter how large the
  group is, see DC, p.41).
  
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  192
  Mystery Disadvantage
  Cost
  Disadvantage
  Var.
  Mystery Disadvantage(s)
  This Disadvantage is the character version of the
  Mystery Disadvantage presented in “Vehicles and
  Bases,” on p.191 of the Hero System Rulebook. Some-
  thing is wrong with the character, but they don’t know
  what. The GM chooses the Mystery Disadvantage (i.e.,
  the PC has accidentally pissed off the Master of Crime,
  the PC is secretly dying of cancer, the PC has a repressed
  Oedipal complex... whatever). If a player needs the
  points or wants to spice up their PC’s life by placing it
  in the GM’s hands, this is a surefire way to do it. This
  Disadvantage can also be limited to Mystery Hunteds;
  characters can declare the Mystery Disadvantage as a
  “Mysterious Enemy” and let the GM fill in the villain
  later. Players should be allowed the option to replace
  the Mystery Disadvantage with appropriate Disadvan-
  tages their PCs come across in the course of the cam-
  paign (“I’d like to make Bruce Harlick one of my
  Hunteds”). Until then, the GM can use the Mystery
  Disadvantage at the PC’s expense (“Sorry, Bruce
  Harlick is already one of your Hunteds”).
  Physical Limitations
  Some of the Disadvantages in this book that at
  first glance appear to be Psychological Limitations are
  actually Physical Limitations. Some characters may
  have been programmed to behave in certain ways, and
  neither psychiatric counseling or maturity will cause
  them to change their behavior.
  Everyman Skills
  There is one “new” Physical Limitation included
  in this book, primarily for characters who are afflicted
  with Mental Retardation (i.e., they have an INT below
  8). The Physical Limitation is listed as “No Everyman
  Skills.” Everyman Skills are basic abilities that charac-
  ters gain simply while growing up; some characters,
  however, due to social isolation or mental retardation,
  do not have these skills. The Physical Limitation can
  reflect two of the following:
  1. The character does not possess any of the Everyman
  Skills listed on p.18 of the Hero System Rulebook. This
  is a ten point Physical Limitation. Characters cannot
  drive a car, read, write, speak, and have no Professional
  Skills.
  2. The character possesses some Everyman Skills (usu-
  ally Climbing, Concealment, Stealth and two points
  of Language). This is a five point Physical Limitation.
  It is usually taken by characters who have Mental Re-
  tardation.
  Characters can still purchase these “Everyman
  Skills” later on in the campaign with Experience Points
  (for example, a character can learn to drive a car, or
  read and write), but the No Everyman Skills Physical
  Limitation must be bought off first.
  If the GM is not using Everyman Skills in their
  campaign, then this Limitation should be ignored.
  Psychological Limitations
  Note: All the Psychological Limitations in this book
  are labeled, and PCs adventuring in the Asylum must
  label the Frequency and Intensity of their Psychologi-
  cal Limitations as well.
  Psychological Limitations regarding vigilante
  and criminal psychology have already been covered in
  Steven Long’s Dark Champions and Eye for an Eye; and
  players are encouraged to refer to those two books for
  more details on Psychological Limitations in Dark
  Champions.
  Signature: This Disadvantage was first introduced in
  Cyber Hero, p.35. Characters with this Psychological
  Limitation have a signature they leave at the site of all
  their escapades. This is a disadvantage for characters
  who routinely break the law (vigilante or villain) or
  otherwise make a habit of angering powerful people.
  It is a common limitation in Dark Champions where
  high EGOs and low sanity tend to run hand in hand.
  A character’s signature may be trivial (a blue
  moon card, a black rose, a spray painted slogan) or
  require elaborate preparation (shaving all the hair from
  the bodies of one’s victims). A signature ensures that
  other characters in the campaign know who is respon-
  sible for criminal acts or vigilante justice, and a well-
  advertised signature may attract the attention of a
  “copy-cat” character who will use the signature to com-
  mit crimes and leave the character take the blame.
  Many Dark Champions: The Animated Series
  villains have this Disadvantage (see Appendix Two:
  Other Genres), and so do some serial killers. Signature
  is considered to be a Common Psychological Limita-
  tion, of any Intensity. If the character has no real com-
  pulsion with leaving a signature, but prefers to do so
  when possible, then it is a Moderate Intensity Limita-
  tion. If the character needs to escape a crime scene
  quickly (i.e., the police are busting down the door) and
  can avoid leaving a signature by making an EGO Roll,
  then it is a Strong Limitation. If characters must leave
  a signature under any circumstances, even when they
  are in danger of being killed or captured, it is a Total
  Commitment.
  It is possible that a Signature Psychological Limi-
  tation may become part of an Obsessive Compulsive
  ritual (i.e., obsessive compulsive need to leave clues to
  one’s crimes, obsessive compulsive need to perform
  crimes involving the number two, and so on).
  
  193
  193
  Reputation
  A character’s reputation can be confined to a
  Limited Area (e.g., a city, an island, a space colony),
  that reduces the cost of the Disadvantage by 5 points.
  This type of Reputation transcends cultural and so-
  cial boundaries, but not geographical ones... everyone
  in the Limited Area knows who the character is, from
  the lowest criminals to the most prominent city busi-
  nessman. This Disadvantage is appropriate for local
  vigilantes, gang leaders or civil rights leaders who are
  big names in their neighborhood, but no one outside
  of the Limited Area has any idea who they are.
  The new Reputation chart reads as follows:
  Points
  Recognized
  -10
  Limited Geographical Area (a city block, the
  Thieves Quarter, “the Hood”)
  -5
  Limited Geographical Area (City)
  -5
  Limited Group (Criminals, Businessmen,
  Cops; DC, p.42)
  0
  Split Reputation (DC, p.42)
  
  194
  194
  “Whats wrong with the world
  today is it keeps changing all the
  time, getting messed up with naive
  idealism, black and white morality,
  anti-gravity lasers and all that
  nonsense.”
  - Elliot Manns, the Idiot King -
  The time of Gods is at hand. What you are
  witnessing is only the seeds of the Age to come.
  - The Heretic -
  Other Genres
  Asylum is intended to complement an existing
  campaign. Every campaign has its own feel and house
  rules, however, so to help integration, a selection of
  genres is presented below, along with suggested
  changes, additions and reductions. This section deals
  only with genres in general. GMs and players inter-
  ested in including Asylum with specific Champions
  products, whether adventures, sourcebooks or enemies
  compilations, should turn to the Other Inmates sec-
  tion, later on.
  Hero Genre Books
  A selection of four different genres are included
  here: Four-Color Champions, Dark Champions, Hor-
  ror Hero and Cyber Hero.
  Champions Four-Color
  This is the four-color Champions Universe,
  where the Champions and other heroes and villains of
  comparable power and experience exist (this is not
  necessarily the four-color Dark Champions universe
  inhabited by Card Shark and others, see below). In the
  standard world of Champions, the Asylum is an alter-
  native institution to other psychiatric facilities in the
  Campaign City and should be employed as a (low-key)
  horror setting for “change of pace” adventures if the
  GM and the PCs want to take a break from interna-
  tional or galactic conflicts.
  The Asylum, however, presents the problem of
  campaign tone. Some segments may inappropriate,
  morally or stylistically, for four-color campaigns. GMs
  may wish to modify the material here and change this
  text into the Stronghold Asylum for the Criminally
  Insane, an Asylum designed to mesh with the main-
  stream Champions universe better than the Asylum
  in these pages. If GMs wish to use the SACI institu-
  tion, it can be used in place of the Asylum described in
  these pages or as an alternative facility for extremely
  powerful inmates.
  Game Mechanics: To use Asylum in a four-color uni-
  verse, a few changes have to made. First, the enhanced
  powers and statistics in four-color campaigns makes
  rehauling the power levels of the characters presented
  in these pages a necessity. Offensive and Defensive
  powers should be increased to 50 or 60 Active Points,
  and in addition, some “realistic” details from some of
  the characters should be omitted or ignored. For con-
  venience, Power Variations are included for each char-
  acter in this sourcebook to minimize the fuss of trans-
  lating characters and any math... if a villain is needed
  quickly for a four-color campaign, then the statistics
  can be added on quickly and the details worked out
  later.
  Readers should also turn to the Other Inmates
  section for details on what four color villains from
  other Champions products could be used with Asy-
  lum.
  Dark Champions
  Asylum is designed for a standard Dark Cham-
  pions campaign (if such a thing exists), but it is Dark
  Champions only in the “feel” of the genre. There are
  many variations of what can constitute a Dark Cham-
  pions campaign, many of which were outlined in Jus-
  tice, Not Law and the Dark Champions rulebook, in-
  cluding Heroic-level Dark Champions (the Scarecrow)
  and Futuristic Dark Champions (Copperhead). Spe-
  cifics on using Asylum in a Futuristic Dark Champi-
  ons genre is included both in the Cyber Hero section
  and in the High-tech section, detailed later on.
  As has already been mentioned in the Introduc-
  tion preceding this section, Asylum  takes place in a
  “Minor Superpowers” or “Occasional Superpowers”
  Appendix 2:
  Other Genres
  
  195
  195
  environment discussed in Justice, Not Law. Crusader
  (Champions Rulebook, Underworld Enemies) was as-
  sumed to exist in an “Idealistic Street Level Campaign,”
  described in DC, p.11.
  Dark Champions Heroic
  The characters in a Dark Champions Heroic
  Campaign are normal human beings, built on 75 base
  points and having up to 75 points of Disadvantages.
  Characters do not have to pay points for their weap-
  ons. As a general rule, characters in a Dark Champions
  Heroic campaign should be at a power level where they
  still feel threatened by thugs. DCV is limited to about
  an 8 or so, with a resistant defense of no more than 8
  in each category. Characters using heavy firepower will
  be met with the same level of force in their opponents.
  As explained in the Introduction section, player
  characters do not have to have weapons to defeat the
  characters in this supplement; a quick thinking player,
  or one who simply pays attention to the behavior of
  the patients, will be able to identify the patients’ Achil-
  les heels and use it against them without a single shot
  being fired. Players should not always have to feel that
  they have to enter a Dark Champions environment
  armed to the teeth in order to survive.
  Tech level will vary. See the Cyber Hero, High-
  Tech and other paragraphs below for using Asylum in
  high-tech campaigns.
  Game Mechanics: Many characters in this supplement
  possess paranormal powers; if the GM does not per-
  mit superpowers in their Heroic Dark Champions cam-
  paigns, then these characters need to be edited. Infor-
  mation on converting every character in this supple-
  ment to a Heroic Campaign is contained in the “Dark
  Champions, Realistic” entry in their Powers/Tactics
  sections.
  Dark Champions: The Animated Series
  Dark Champions: The Animated Series
  (“DC:TAS”) is a subgenre of Dark Champions. It is
  based on the TV show, Batman: The Animated Series
  (and its related comic book, Batman Adventures).
  DC:TAS mixes aspects of street-level and four-color
  games, taking the best from both worlds. As a general
  rule, the DC:TAS environment tends to be a “sanitized”
  version of more realistic Dark Champions games, and
  the tone of the campaign is somewhat lighter. Even
  though the characters are “vigilantes,” the morality in
  this subgenre is usually pretty black and white.
  Cyber Hero
  There are no cyborgs in Asylum, but many in-
  mates could be given brain tissue grafts, bionics and
  psychic “wetware” to explain their odd assortment of
  powers. Asylum could even be a Cyber Hero corpora-
  tion; just drop it in San Francisco 2090 as either an
  archaic walled building in the Fillmore District (with
  connections and numerous outlets to the sewer sys-
  tems and subsystems that run beneath the city), an
  outlying quarantined suburb (away from the Corpo-
  rate Suburbs) or inserted directly into the Humana
  Medical Center (Cyber Hero, p.187). If a GM gives Asy-
  lum characters a more digital focus, many psychic pow-
  ers could have technical applications (electropathic
  characters, mechanical empaths and so on). Also, the
  Heretic may not exist in a disembodied “psyche” state;
  he may be an artificial intelligence flowing through
  Cyberspace, riding the currents of data in an attempt
  to process everything he can about the human race.
  He would be attempting to digitize as many humans
  as possible (the Heretic could make cyber runners
  afraid to hack into the system). Skeeter, the NPC de-
  scribed in the adventure at the end of Cyber Hero, To
  Raise a Ghost, would make an excellent inmate if he
  never regained his human body.
  In a Cyber Hero campaign, Asylum technology
  should be a decade (or more) out of date, to make it
  have more of an “old-fashioned” institution. It would
  be ironic for inmates to be using present-day items in
  their insane crusades, clashing with the high-technol-
  ogy 2090s.
  Also see the “Psiberpunk” campaign theme in
  Cyber Hero, p.96.
  Game Mechanics: Other than substituting their pow-
  ers for cybertechnology, most of the characters in this
  supplement can remain as they are.
  Horror Hero
  Warning: Players in a Horror Hero campaign using any
  of the campaign worlds in the Horror Hero genre book
  should read no further; reading this section will spoil
  many of the surprises and mystery essential to gaming
  in Horror Hero.
  The horror in Asylum comes from the extreme
  manifestations of common human behaviors. These
  extremes are caused by societal pressure, mental ill-
  ness, or a sudden loss or tragedy. There is nothing to
  exclude the possibility that these pressures could be
  the result of demonic influence or the presence of black
  magic in the world of Dark Champions. Note that the
  concept of Duality described in Horror Hero (“Defin-
  ing Horror Magic: That Foul Sorcery...”) is widespread
  throughout the Asylum, whether the opposition in-
  cludes male/female, mind/body, dreams/reality and
  life/death.
  Spell Use: The paranormal powers of many Asylum
  inmates are psychic. While this translates well into
  some aspects of Horror Hero, it does not translate well
  with those inmates that have obvious superpowers that
  cannot be duplicated with spells or with demonic pos-
  session. In a “real-world” Horror Hero universe, it is
  advisable to cut away the paranormal powers of the
  inmates. In the Power Variation section of each char-
  acter, Horror Hero GMs should use the rules for Real-
  istic Dark Champions to tailor the characters to a Hor-
  ror Hero campaign.
  
  196
  196
  Timelines: GMs may want to run the Asylum in dif-
  ferent time periods. This is fine. Information is pro-
  vided that details conditions at the Asylum for the three
  different eras mentioned in Horror Hero...“In the
  Shadow of the Civil War,” which takes place either dur-
  ing or in the aftermath of the Civil War, “Beating it to
  a Pulp” that takes place in the Pulp Era, and the mod-
  ern-day “Awful Truth.”
  The Heretic: The Heretic can serve as an Oracle De-
  mon (Horror Hero, p.120) in almost any of the
  timelines listed below, with the Asylum built as a spiri-
  tual cage to keep him confined.
  The Shadow of the Civil War
  The Black Dawn: The GM can make Gans (use his
  physical statistics, not his incorporeal form) a mem-
  ber of the Black Dawn, or else the GM can replace Gans
  with Dr. Arthur Barrosmythe and fill the Locust Val-
  ley Asylum with patients from the pages of this book.
  The Locust Valley Asylum may be the precursor to the
  Asylum, evolving slowly through the twentieth cen-
  tury to become the Dark Champions psychiatric insti-
  tution.
  Fell’s Point: This fictional campaign city in which the
  Asylum is located is targeted by Barrosmythe’s Dead
  Soul Dominion for its shipping port and its access to
  Europe and other coastal cities along the Atlantic. Not
  only is it an important shipping route, but it is also a
  means by which cultists can travel internationally with
  ease, either stowing away or being smuggled to another
  port. Characters attempting to eradicate a Black Dawn
  dominion in Fell’s Point may be frustrated by the way
  the members can slip through their carefully planned
  traps as if they were sieves, drifting into the corners of
  Fell’s Point to regroup elsewhere.
  Plots: It is possible the Asylum can serve a processing
  center for Possessor Demons from the Pit. The Asy-
  lum patients can provide a herd of human stock for
  them to bond with, and patients who are possessed
  (without outward indication) can be sent back out into
  society “cured” of their mental illness. If the Possessor
  Demon fails to sublimate the personality of the host
  and a contest of wills takes place as the demon and
  patient vie for control, the patient’s behavioral insta-
  bility and “psychotic symptoms” will hardly be out of
  place in the Asylum.
  Characters: Almost any character in this book could
  be an Incarnate Demon, although not all of them at
  once (Incarnate Demons are rare and the Pit employs
  a variety of other servants to carry out their dark de-
  signs). Many may also have been touched by demonic
  forces. The Asylum may be a breeding ground for ser-
  vants of the Dead Soul Dominion, possessor demons
  infecting the deranged prisoners so that more horri-
  fying creatures are created from their union. The
  Asylum’s resemblance to Dante’s Inferno may be much
  more than coincidence.
  Dr. Shreiver may either be a member of the
  Fortunatii or a member of the Dead Soul Dominion
  under thrall to Barrosmythe; her position as the Asy-
  lum can be replaced by Barrosmythe and the Asylum
  itself turned into the Locust Valley Asylum in New York.
  Beating it to a Pulp: The Pulp Era
  The pulp era is defined from the pulp fiction
  from the Twenties and Thirties and spans the Atlantic;
  as Fell’s Point is located on the East Coast, it is ideally
  suited for adventurers wishing to investigate the mys-
  teries of the Cult of Taxlan.
  The characters in this supplement are occasion-
  ally referred to as having such and such a power that is
  “cinematic.” These cinematic powers should be exag-
  gerated in a Horror Hero pulp campaign. In addition,
  martial arts styles should be a little flashier, and some
  characters may have gained their abilities while travel-
  ing to hidden temples nestled deep in the Himalayas.
  Some Asylum inmates may be possessed by
  Bakas (shades of Taxlan priests summoned back to the
  waking world). In the possession, they gain strange and
  unusual powers. In addition, there should be at least
  one Aquasanguis in the depths of the Asylum (notice
  how many water and flooding problems there are in
  the institution?) or seeping through the sewer system
  of Fell’s Point, as well as one or two Chauches that roam
  the Asylum interiors or black city streets. If the Asy-
  lum has been taken over by the Heretic, some of the
  orderlies may be zombies.
  Furthermore, the Heretic, aspiring to Godhood,
  may be following the path the God Taxlan did centu-
  ries ago. He may even be planning to sacrifice all of
  the inhabitants of Fell’s Point to absorb their psychic
  energy and to gain enough power to break free of his
  prison. If this is the case, one of his servants may have
  uncovered the tattered manuscript of the “Revelations
  of Chronos” (Horror Hero, p.147). To stop the Heretic
  (and Taxlan) the PCs must recover the twelve pieces
  of the scroll, each held by a major player in the Asy-
  lum (the Idiot King, Reverend M, Freak, Dr. Masters,
  the Heretic, and so on) and use it against the Heretic
  and Taxlan.
  The Asylum itself may have been one of the sites
  of a Taxlan cult city, its labyrinths and underground
  caves long since forgotten and lying hidden beneath
  the peninsula (these caves and caverns will be on a
  much smaller scale than Taxlan’s lair in Haiti, but
  daunting nonetheless, touching almost every corner
  of Fell’s Point). The Asylum’s position overlooking the
  Atlantic may have once been the locale of a false light-
  house beacon to send ships crashing into the shores
  and their crews to a watery grave to strengthen the dark
  God.
  The Asylum, alternatively, could have been fi-
  nanced by the Dark Corner Society who were using
  the walled compound to cover the Taxlan taint that
  lay beneath the foundations, attempting to seal it in.
  
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  197
  The Awful Truth: The Modern World
  The information in this section assumes the Asy-
  lum exists in the present-day Champions universe,
  straddling Dark Champions and Champions (what
  spawned these paranormals and sociopathic vigilan-
  tes, anyway?) The purpose of this book is in part to
  demonstrate how Horror Hero and Champions can be
  meshed into a paranormal horror campaign (e.g., The
  Crow).
  Asylum adventures are essentially built upon a
  “conspiracy theory.” Paranormal mentalists intent
  upon taking over the world have infiltrated all levels
  of society, and their victory is imminent. This (“Can it
  be true?”) campaign premise allows for the element of
  “Paranoid Horror” that fills Modern Horror Hero cam-
  paigns. Unseen forces are present all around the char-
  acters, sinister psionics manipulating leaders for un-
  known reasons, and a powerful evil is stirring in the
  depths of the Asylum! There are plenty of adventure
  hooks, whispered rumors and strange pieces of infor-
  mation to set the PCs on the trail of the conspiracy.
  The Asylum may also be charged with mystical
  energy, making it a target of the Shapeshifter Interna-
  tional Conspiracy; the strange selection of psychics and
  paranormals in the Asylum can become tools by which
  the Shapeshifters can increase their power. The ranks
  of the CIA may already be filled with those loyal to the
  Conspiracy and are keeping a watchful eye on the Asy-
  lum to protect it from being taken over by those hos-
  tile to the Conspiracy. It may also be that the Heretic
  and his growing power may be at odds with the con-
  spiracy, and they may attack him and his paranormal
  servants, leading the PCs into a three-way conflict, with
  the psychic powers and shapeshifting killers blurring
  the battle lines.
  One adventure seed for a Modern World Hor-
  ror campaign that might lead characters to Fell’s Point
  would be if Jim Bob Barnes (Horror Hero, p.200) was
  recently captured by the Asylum and being used as bait
  to lure the other members of SABER into an ambush.
  Mystic Masters and Ultimate Super
  Mages
  This really isn’t a separate campaign as much as
  a super-magical Asylum campaign; a “Mystic Masters”
  campaign is one with supermages (weaker, “glamor”
  mages, sort of the Mystic Masters Dark Champions
  equivalent, with spells far less powerful than those in a
  regular Champions campaign, are mentioned in the
  Horror Hero section, above). In a Mystic Masters cam-
  paign, the Heretic is creating a number of magical
  horrors from within the Asylum; the heroes must dis-
  cover his diabolical plot in time to prevent him from
  turning Fell’s Point into a breeding ground for magi-
  cal monstrosities... or selling out the city and the world
  to creatures from another dimension, such as Hell (see
  Horror Enemies and Horror Hero). Many characters
  from Horror Enemies and Mystic Masters would be
  appropriate for such a campaign; especially the Devil’s
  Advocates, Mephistopheles, and the Totems. (“You
  mean the Asylum was built on an Indian burial
  ground?! Great. Just great.”)
  The Asylum in a Mystic Masters campaign pos-
  sesses its own magical reservoir and perhaps even a
  limited personality, given birth from the psychologi-
  cal residue of the inmates.
  Asylum can be treated as a minor campaign with
  a narrow focus, which can serve as a tangent or an in-
  termission from the current campaign; the PCs have
  to prevent the Heretic (a powerful astral being with
  tremendous magical power siphoned from the magi-
  cal energy trapped in the Asylum walls and in the
  minds of the inmates, both of which become the
  Heretic’s power battery, allowing him to penetrate the
  prison Dr. Shreiver wove around him) from increas-
  ing his own power, perhaps trapping him in the depths
  of the Asylum with a stronger binding spell so that he
  may never again exert his powers on the inmates and
  the surrounding city.
  GMs should follow the rules for Champions
  Four-Color in the section above for tailoring the pow-
  ers of the characters in this book. There are also some
  additional rules for dealing with characters in a four-
  color magical campaign:
  1. Four-color mages in the Asylum never mess up their
  spells; magic tends to be more reliable and much more
  powerful. Mystic Masters are assumed to have a great
  deal more control of their magical abilities than their
  Fantasy Hero counterparts.
  2. Few people can practice truly powerful magic... al-
  though magicians will discover that new spells are easy
  to find (and learn, if the character has enough experi-
  ence).
  3. Magic can come from a variety of sources, includ-
  ing Personal Magic, External Magic (emitted from the
  Asylum itself, which should be treated as a “manna
  well” of magical energies), Bestowed Magic (the Her-
  etic can bestow limited powers on his servants, whether
  they realize it or not) and Focus Magic (which should
  be used only rarely in Asylum, but may be present in
  some of the artifacts and artwork manufactured by the
  inmates in Occupational Therapy; see the Steward
  Building, Chapter One).
  Characters: Not all characters in Asylum are appro-
  priate for mystic campaigns, as Asylum tends to ig-
  nore the presence of magic in the Champions Universe.
  Powers or abilities that seem to be magical can be ex-
  plained, and (in truth, are) variations of psychic pow-
  ers. There are many “mystical hotlines” and “dream
  crystals” that psionic occultists believe give them their
  precognitive and clairsentient powers, and some Asy-
  lum inmates believe their psychic abilities really are
  magical powers. GMs who run magical campaigns are
  encouraged to transform as many inmates as they wish
  into mystical or magically endowed characters. The
  
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  198
  Asylum can become a place where magical energies
  cross and unexplained phenomena occurs (see Horror
  Hero, above).
  In a Mystic Masters campaign, Dr. Shreiver is a
  minor spell caster, whose efforts to imprison the Her-
  etic were only partially successful: her inexperience and
  limited abilities prevented her from constructing a last-
  ing prison, and now leaks and cracks are developing
  in the walls of the Heretic’s cell, allowing him to use
  his powers on the Asylum and its inmates. The Heretic’s
  powers should surpass the abilities of the strongest PC
  in the campaign (but not anywhere near enough to
  approach Tyrannon’s level of power) and have enough
  raw power to challenge the entire group of characters
  gaming in the Asylum. While caged, however, his pow-
  ers are drastically reduced.
  Temporal Scope of Campaign
  New Bedlam Asylum is assumed to exist in a
  modern day Dark Champions or Horror Hero environ-
  ment. The GM is welcome to change the campaign so
  that it takes place in the 1880s, the 1940s, or even in
  the future. As mentioned in the entries that follow, ex-
  tended timelines of the Asylum have been provided in
  their sections to help flesh out campaigns that take
  place in the past. Adventures can be run where the
  characters are gaming in many timelines at once, the
  actions in one timeline having consequences in the
  other timelines.
  
  199
  199
  “Well, lets see. Theres me and me
  and me and me. Thats at least four
  right there. I�m sure theres some
  more of us around here somewhere.”
  - Elliot Manns, as the Idiot King -
  Introduction
  Many characters from the Champions Universe
  can be integrated into a New Bedlam Asylum campaign.
  The “potential patients” presented in this section, how-
  ever, are only suggestions; the supporting cast will vary
  according to the GM, the genre, and power limitations
  of the campaign.
  Four-Color Inmates
  In the references below, there are several “ifs,”
  usually relating to confining powerful characters in the
  Asylum. This is because, as the Asylum stands, most
  four-color characters can walk in and out of the insti-
  tution with the staff having little or no chance of stop-
  ping them. There are several ways of dealing with this
  situation. The first is to give the Asylum a series of high-
  tech guards, either on loan from PRIMUS (Classic
  Organizations), SAT (Classic Organizations), UNTIL
  (Hero Almanac 2), NILE (Shadow Syndicates) the CIA,
  or the federal government. The Asylum may have a
  powerful patron not tied to any government, either a
  parapharmaceutical company, a dummy corporation
  established by Master Control or some other arrange-
  ment in which high-tech guards are provided to in-
  sure their “investment” is protected. If the Heretic ex-
  ists in the GM’s campaign, he should have the power
  to draw powerful supervillains to his threshold and
  have them remain there until he relaxes his hold.
  Another option, not as unreasonable as some
  would believe, is the patients, no matter how power-
  ful, remain there willingly. Some characters recognize
  that they have problems and fear to re-enter the world
  until they feel secure in their own minds. Some may
  be too frightened to leave, or the staff may not want
  them to leave because of the public attention and grants
  they receive by having superpowered inmates within
  their walls.
  Hot-Sleep: In a conventional Champions campaign,
  Stronghold (Classic Enemies) uses special “hot sleep”
  cells to sedate its criminals, keeping them asleep for
  the duration of their sentence. While this procedure is
  controversial and a violation of a prisoner’s rights,
  many Asylum staff would be willing to use this same
  method with some of the more dangerous prisoners.
  Specific Inmates
  Champions Rulebook: The Champions rulebook has
  three villains who immediately present themselves as
  inmates: Ogre’s childlike mentality, Dragonfly’s social
  interaction problems and Spider Monkey’s psycho-
  pathic tendencies (and she may also be labeled with a
  Regressive Personality Disorder if the physicians be-
  lieve she was once human)... all these characters need
  help.
  Heroes may also be incarcerated in the Asylum.
  If the Champions exist in the GM’s campaign, two of
  them are prime candidates: one is Quantum (she is so
  close to going over the edge that she may need to be
  captured and forced to seek psychiatric treatment) and
  Solitaire (while sane, many inmates would love to lure
  her to the Asylum and trap her there; her naiveté and
  psychic sensitivity would provide years [perhaps de-
  cades] of amusement).
  Mind Games: If you need Psis, Scott Heine’s Mind
  Games is the place to go. It is possible that PSI could
  make a bid to take over the Asylum and even succeed.
  Campaigns can be run where PSI has already seized
  the Asylum and uses it as a recruiting center or a rest-
  ing place whenever they come to Fell’s Point. If PSI
  was ever sundered by the PCs, many members of PSI,
  especially Inquisitor, Revelation, Mind Slayer, Torment
  and others could be confined at the Asylum. It is also
  possible PSI may be recruiters for the Asylum, acting
  as a division of mobile psychics who hunt for new pa-
  tients to add to the Army of Misery.
  If the GM is using Mind Games as published,
  either ignore the references to Dr. Sebastian Poe in the
  Timeline and in the Heresies section or integrate PSI’s
  history into the Asylum’s history.
  Appendix 3:
  Other Inmates
  
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  200
  Classic Enemies: Wyvern (The Conquerors: Regressive
  Personality Disorder), Le Sone (Eurostar; Paranoid
  Schizophrenia), Pantera (Regressive Personality Dis-
  order), Beamline, Black Mamba (also see VIPER),
  Earthmaster, Griffin, Halfjack, Hideous, Leech and
  Plague. For a standard Asylum campaign, Halfjack and
  Hideous should have their powers reduced; if playing
  in a four color campaign, these characters are fine.
  Blowtorch is a prime candidate. Blowtorch, if his
  suit is reduced to 6PD and 6ED (or less) could easily
  become a Dark Champions foe. Foxbat (or a
  simulacrum Foxbot) is not only an amusing villain to
  use, but many of Foxbat’s reactions and actions can
  serve as a commentary on the state of comics and role-
  playing in the 90s and beyond.
  Challenges for Champions: Red Raptor and his obses-
  sion with vengeance is a good case study. If trapped
  on Earth, Morjok’s “delusions” of planes beyond the
  Champions universe could result in him being impris-
  oned; to make matters worse, his knowledge and magi-
  cal powers could warp the minds and bodies of those
  around him, creating new inmates. Dr. Megaton is also
  a candidate (with the usual problems in confinement),
  Lucifer (“So, you’re... a demon from hell?”), the Pup-
  peteer, and Starhand. (Starhand does talk to his hand,
  after all. He may remind characters of The Shining.)
  Mystic Masters: Allen Varney’s Mystic Masters has a
  number of potential inmates. One potential plot line
  that would involve many Mystic Masters villains would
  be if Vincent Dimitrios is somehow rescued or escapes
  from the Thanatic Rod (perhaps without the PC’s
  knowledge), is placed in the Asylum (“We found him
  wandering on the outskirts of the grounds, raving like
  a madman about the end of the world...”), with his
  powers drained and his mind shattered by his joining
  and separation from the Thanatic Rod. PCs searching
  for the sorcerer would have to rescue him from the
  depths of the Asylum and its torments in order to pro-
  tect Earth from Tyrannon’s machinations.
  As another plot device, Adrian Vandaleur may
  be “resting” in the Asylum, masquerading as an eld-
  erly patient to distance himself from the Vandaleur
  political climate. Adrian may even be responsible for
  the creation of new foes or a reason for Deus Ex
  Machina when things look hopeless for the characters
  (or the inmates). Edward and Anais Vandaleur, if they
  were “chastised” by Adrian, may also be in the Asy-
  lum, where they would be forced to slowly regain their
  powers and might create chaos in their attempts to
  escape.
  See Mystic Masters campaigns for more details.
  The Zodiac Conspiracy: As the Asylum stands, it would
  be near impossible for any member of the Zodiac to
  be kept there for long. If the GM wants to run an ad-
  venture where one of the Zodiac has lost their warn-
  ing beacons (and teleport abilities), one of the Zodiac
  may be trapped in the Asylum. They may have lost all
  memories of themselves and the Zodiac. Possible pa-
  tients include: Gemini (the psychiatrists mistake his
  condition for a Multiple Personality Disorder), Can-
  cer, Libra, Capricorn, Aquarius (if he has amnesia, his
  unconscious weather manipulation may be the rea-
  son ominous storm clouds gather over Fell’s Point, a
  side effect of his brooding) and Aries.
  Day of the Destroyer: Rakshasa, the Shape and Dr.
  Destroyer II.
  Kingdom of Champions: Playtime, Dr. Mantis
  (insectoid fixation), and Dr. Brutallus.
  Champions in 3D: See the Interdimensional section in
  the Other Genres section.
  Alien Enemies: The Cerebraeum, the Champ, the Ex-
  terminators, the Midnight Society (perfect), Orion the
  Hunter (hunting an inmate or imprisoned in the Asy-
  lum), the Pantheon (if they could be held) and the
  Puppeteers (“Why the hell is everyone acting so
  @#$@#% weird?!”).
  Road Kill: Ted and Heavy Metal could be inmates in a
  four color Asylum campaign. Ted, a barely repressed
  drug-overdosed psychotic with maniacal strength,
  would make a dangerous foe for most 75 point PCs.
  Classic Organizations: Except for DEMON and
  CLOWN, not many characters in Classic Organizations
  present themselves as inmates. Several patients may
  believe they have some relation to the Golden Avenger
  (or who believe they are Golden Avenger). Note that
  the Disinformer has been given a parallel existence in
  Dark Champions as Alexander Romanov (if the GM
  has separated Dark Champions from the mainstream
  Champions universe; otherwise, either the Classic
  Organizations or Asylum version can be used). Also see
  the notes on DEMON in the Other Genres mystic sec-
  tion. It is unlikely that CLOWN would (could) be
  placed in the Asylum.
  European Enemies: The Napoleon of Crime, Blackjack,
  and the Thespian are all delightful fun.
  Champions Presents #1: If Spectrum could somehow
  be defeated (no mean feat), Rage, Slime, Purple Haze,
  Heatseeker and Nimbus (or Angstrom), may find
  themselves in the Asylum.
  Champions of the North: Jon Mattson’s Champions of
  the North has one advantage over many Champions
  supplements in that the characters within are on a
  point level to compete with characters in a Dark Cham-
  pions universe. While magic and alien races form a core
  of some of the characters in the book, the presence of
  low-powered characters makes it an effective addition
  
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  201
  to a four-color Dark Champions campaign. The Asy-
  lum can be redefined as an isolated retreat in the Ca-
  nadian mountains, or even a part of the McHayle In-
  stitute, the MISSION. The following characters may
  find themselves in the walls of the Asylum (As with
  Horror Enemies below, the mention of any of the vil-
  lains here does not mean they can be held in the Asy-
  lum) Leaper, Inertia, Purifier, Redemption, and Lord
  Dire.
  High-Tech Enemies: Any campaign with Master Con-
  trol is going to have a higher percentage of
  schizophrenics, either through the effects of his pow-
  ers, or mental thoughts he is beaming into the minds
  of others. Master Control, much like the Mind-Mas-
  ter Complex (see Horror Enemies) may send agents
  too bent and warped by his telepathic suggestions to
  cool their heels in the Asylum. He may even use the
  Asylum as a dumping or recruiting ground to store
  his mentally-handicapped troops if they react “badly”
  to his control. If Live Wire (from the Deconstruction
  Company) becomes too much of a problem, he may
  also be sentenced there.
  Champions Presents #2: MAVRIC’s a little crazy. So is
  every member of Coil.
  Champions Universe: This Universe book introduced
  the Stronghold Institute for the Criminally Insane (see
  the Champions Timetable). For more information, see
  Other Genres.
  VIPER: The entire Serpent Syndicate, if they could ever
  be captured, need psychiatric help. Python is suffering
  from extreme Megalomania, and Asylum staff may
  even interpret his obsession with the “hypothetical”
  figure of King Cobra as a persecution delusional dis-
  order. As mentioned in Classic Enemies, Black Mamba
  lost his rationality many years ago. Komodo is a psy-
  chotic. Hiss is isolationist with an Regressive Person-
  ality Disorder and maintains the same persecution
  complex with the “hypothetical figure” of King Cobra
  as does Python.
  Snake Pack: If the Packmaster is killed, the Snake Pack,
  freed of control, are suffering from regressive person-
  ality disorders and mental retardation. It is not unrea-
  sonable for the Snake Pack to be interred at the Asy-
  lum.
  Other obvious inmates include Shift, Savant,
  Mind Wipe, Sanction and Scattershot. As with Foxbat,
  Scattershot can provide a commentary on the state of
  literature and some cutting criticisms of action heroes
  in the 90's. When combined with Tenderheart (UE,
  p.86, Harlequin Novels) many adventure seeds present
  themselves.
  Dark Champions: Heroes of Vengeance: Rigor Mortis
  and the Bogeyman from Stephen Long’s Dark Cham-
  pions can be inmates (the Bogeyman may work in the
  Asylum library). Psychiatrists could devote a lifetime
  to Harbinger.
  Shadows of the City: Scott Sigler’s street level adven-
  ture book had several villains who make the grade, with
  Reverend M and Reign both prime contestants for the
  Asylum in a Four-Color Dark Champions universe. Any
  of the Nocturnals are good candidates, but it is un-
  likely the Asylum could hold any of them for long with-
  out many staff casualties. An interesting side adven-
  ture to Street Magic was if Savior was not wounded,
  but simply imprisoned in the Asylum, putting him out
  of the way for the Nocturnals to rule the night. PCs
  would be forced to enter the Asylum and rescue him.
  Allies: The Posse, Tantrum, Hardwire, the Aryan, Felix
  9 (CIA ties), Totengeist, Mr. Nobody, and Interference.
  Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies: This horrify-
  ing collection from Dean Shomshak contains many
  villains and ne’er-do-wells that can be used in Asy-
  lum. The following characters (if they could be held)
  could become major players in any Asylum campaign:
  Fearmonger, Whisper, Decay, Dr. Black, Hell-Rider,
  Ooze, the Reverend Gil Purdue, Razor Girl, the
  Homonculus (“Oh, what a cute little doll!”), Four-eyes,
  Black Fang, Caiman, Lady Twilight and Lamplighter.
  Of the ones mentioned, Fearmonger, Dr. Black, Ooze,
  Gil Purdue and Caiman could be used in a paranor-
  mal/X-Files Dark Champions campaign.
  The Mind-Master Complex: The Mind-Master Com-
  plex is a special case. If GMs want Asylum and the
  Mind-Master Complex to co-exist, the MMC would
  have domination over the Asylum, the military and
  the CIA. The Asylum then becomes a storage ware-
  house for MMC puppets. It is suggested Gans be re-
  moved from the Asylum in any campaign that involves
  the MMC (too many psionics spoil the brew). Major
  Mind should added to the campaign, perhaps in the
  role of a CIA recruiter.
  Any magic-using characters should refer to the
  Mystic Masters entry. In addition, Horror Enemies con-
  tains a detailed section on serial killers in its pages.
  GMs interested in knowing more about the place of
  serial killers in the Hero universe are encouraged to
  read it.
  The Mutant File: The Heretic is isolating the Asylum
  from the rest of the world in order to create/allow the
  development of second generation mutants within its
  walls... parapsychologists in the Asylum may soon re-
  alize they are sitting on top of the biggest mutant popu-
  lation explosion in history. If this was discovered by
  
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  202
  Genocide, the organization would set fire to Fell’s Point
  with their weapons and hate, drawing IMAGE and
  heroes from across the seaboard into the conflict.
  Eye for an Eye: All the New Powers, abilities, talents,
  skill and Vehicle Combat rules in I4I have been ob-
  served in Asylum, and the criminal psychology sec-
  tion has been expanded. Raven may be the focus of
  many of the “delusions” of paranoid schizophrenics
  in the Asylum; the Asylum may be a human landfill
  for pawns and tools that have been used and discarded
  by Raven or driven mad by the Darke Brotherhood.
  Murderer’s Row: If the PCs have not encountered the
  killer Mercy in their adventures, she should be placed
  in the Asylum’s Medical Division to await wounded
  PCs who fall into her clutches (or if she has been en-
  countered before, she has traveled South from Hudson
  City to escape her pursuers). Her husband, Death’s
  Messenger, may come in search of his wife or looking
  to cause more destruction. The Cannibal, the Passion
  Killer and Puritan may find themselves on the streets
  of Fell’s Point or in the halls of the Asylum.
  Hudson City Blues: Most of the vigilantes described in
  Ed Carmien’s Hudson City Blues would make perfect
  case studies of Vigilante Personality Disorder.
  Enemies for Hire: Cold Drake, Ember, Interface (law-
  yers could argue he has a Persona Personality Disor-
  der, even though he’s pretty sane), Kryogen (looking
  for information on Crusader in the Asylum), and
  Oddball.
  Enemies Assemble: Aeolus, Megaera, and Foxbat.
  Pyramid in the Sky: The Director (“All the Asylum’s a
  stage...”) and his allies may either come to free the
  Method or to destroy him with style.
  Justice Not Law
  Justice Not Law is a special case because of the
  potential difficulty in integrating the Asylum with
  Hudson City (and the Dark Champions published
  universe). Some Asylum inmates possess psychic or
  paranormal powers (latent or not).
  Nevertheless, as mentioned in Justice Not Law,
  the percentage of paranormals in a campaign (whether
  before or after Asylum) is up to the GM. As a result,
  this section details how to how to integrate Asylum
  into Hudson City, suggesting parallel locations for
  scenes in this book, connections to Hudson City NPCs,
  heroes and villains, and so on. Whether or not the cam-
  paign takes place in tandem with Hudson City, the
  world situation presented in Justice Not Law (“The
  World Beyond Hudson City,” pp. 55-64) should be used
  as is, with the fictional countries of Lurranga, Costa
  Azúl, Guamanga, Taqiristan, and the Kingdom of Awad
  on the Arabian peninsula present in the “Asylum uni-
  verse” (see Headhunter and Disinformer).
  Asylum, as it stands, takes place in the world of
  Hudson City, but not in the city proper. This hypo-
  thetical city is referred to as “Fell’s Point,” and except
  for the greater percentage of paranormals within its
  confines and its more “cinematic” malevolence, bears
  some similarities to Hudson City.
  Toddberry Asylum: If the GM wishes, the Asylum in
  these pages can be placed in Hudson City, either
  complementing or replacing the Toddberry Asylum
  (JNL, p.21), although the GM should take care to ob-
  serve the Hudson City conventions for superpowered
  and non-superpowered residents. The presence of
  Gans alone is enough to complicate matters, and the
  four color residents of the Asylum may be difficult to
  integrate into the depowered war zone of Hudson City.
  In the published universe, all the Dark Champions,
  Realistic versions of Asylum characters should be used,
  and the presence of the Heretic nothing more than a
  delusion within the mind of the Asylum patients and
  Dr. Shreiver.
  The following characters from Justice Not Law
  can be used in an Asylum campaign: The Arsenal (see
  Headhunter), ICE (especially Enock), Carnivore, Cha-
  rade, Contagion, Darkling (Brrrrrr), Firebug, Guillo-
  tine, the Headless Hangman, Predator, Snafu and
  Voltiac. Penny Dreadful, especially, is perfect.
  Dark Angel, Jack O Lantern (“Why the need for
  these public demonstrations of your skills, Claude? Is
  it to compensate for not receiving enough attention as
  a child?”), Renegade (the Janitor of God), and the
  Sandman all have their own problems and neuroses
  that could be explored in an Asylum environment.
  Underworld Enemies
  There is a campaign link between Underworld
  Enemies and New Bedlam Asylum. These two books
  are considered to be in the “same” universe: Some of
  the foes and aberrant personalities of the Asylum have
  been described in Underworld Enemies, although that
  book is not necessary to use New Bedlam Asylum. All
  relevant characters are reprinted here with a brief sum-
  mary for the sake of convenience. Many Asylum char-
  acters have had past dealings with or been “blessed”
  by a character in Underworld Enemies.
  Sally Anne Robinson, Dr. Shreiver and Dr. Gans
  have been taken from Underworld Enemies and re-
  printed with changes in their backgrounds and statis-
  tics. See their entries elsewhere in the book.
  
  ASYLUM EXAMINATION RECORD
  Patient’s Name:
  Patient’s Number:
  Name:
  Date of Examination:
  Date of Birth:
  Examiner:
  Patient Number:
  Ward:
  Education:
  Marital Status:
  Reason for Referral:
  Referred By:
  Psychological Tests Administered:
  BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
  BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATION:
  INTERPRETATION OF TEST FINDINGS:
  SUMMARY:
  DIAGNOSTIC IMPRESSION:
  RECOMMENDATION:
  Handout #1
  
  WORD ASSOCIATION TEST
  1. hat
  2. lamp
  3. love
  4. book
  5. father
  6. paper
  7. breast
  8. curtains
  9. trunk
  10. drink
  11. party
  12. spring
  13. bowel movement
  14. chair
  15. boy friend
  16. screen
  17. penis
  18. radiator
  19. frame
  20. suicide
  21. mountain
  22. snake
  23. house
  24. vagina
  25. tobacco
  26. mouth
  27. horse
  28. taxi
  29. intercourse
  30. look
  31. wife
  32. table
  33. fight
  34. beef
  35. stomach
  36. farm
  37. man
  38. taxes
  39. nipple
  40. doctor
  41. dirt
  42. cuts
  43. movies
  44. bite
  45. dog
  46. dance
  47. gun
  48. water
  49. husband
  50. mud
  51. woman
  52. fire
  53. suck
  54. money
  55. mother
  56. hospital
  57. girl friend
  58. masturbation
  59. hunger
  60. touch
  Handout #2
  
  M-M SENTENCE COMPLETION TEST
  Patient's Name:
  Date:
  Sex:
  Age:
  Instructions:
  Below  are several partially completed sentences. Read each
  one and finish it by writing the first thing that comes to your
  mind. Work as quickly as you can. If you cannot complete an
  item, circle the number and return to it later.
  1.  Sometimes he wishes
  2. He felt held back by
  3. When the other fellow challenged him to a fight
  4. His personality
  5. Some women
  6. He depends on his family for
  7. Because of his mother
  8. Before entering the doctor’s office he usually feels
  9. Most women should
  10. His family treats him as
  11. Most of all he wants
  12. He gets sore when
  13. When he thinks of marriage
  14. His superior officers
  15. Compared with other women, his wife
  Handout #3
  
  16. Doctors usually
  17. If he were King he would
  18. Many mothers
  19. He would be happy if
  20. Nothing is so upsetting as
  21. If the bully hit him he would
  22. He daydreams about
  23. Most men act as though
  24. Ever since he became sick
  25. When others have to rely on him
  26. The thing that bothers him most is
  27. When it comes to sexual relations he prefers
  28. When they turned him down for the job he
  29. A wife usually
  30. When he is with a group of people
  31. Seeing that he could not make the grade he
  32. Talking about his troubles makes him feel
  33. His greatest sexual difficulty is
  34. He is afraid of
  
  35. When they tried to get his goat
  36. His marriage
  37. Most people in a position of authority
  38. The women in his life
  39. He is ashamed of
  40. When he was completely on his own he
  41. The doctor who is treating him
  42. He feels that his family
  43. When he was bawled out he
  44. The men over him
  45. At social gatherings he
  46. Because of his illness
  47. When she walked out on him he
  48. Whenever he was with his father he felt
  49. His sexual desires
  50. He thinks of himself as
  51. The main thing is marriage is
  52. He felt the other fellows
  53. Because of his father
  
  54. When he failed
  55. After he left the interview he felt
  56. His mother always used to
  57. When they didn’t invite him
  58. When he has to make a decision he
  59. When away from his family
  60. His neighbors
  61. His first sexual experience
  62. When asked to take over the job he
  63. In many marriages
  64. In the company of women he feels
  65. What he really thought would help him
  66. When she refused him he
  67. When given new responsibilities
  68. When they left him flat
  69. A fellow can work best when his supervisor
  70. Many fathers
  71. When he realized he was going to fail
  72. If his family would only
  
  73. The men who work in his department
  74. It makes him nervous when
  75. When they passed him without speaking he
  76. Following the sexual act he usually feels
  77. More than anything else he needs
  78. Having responsibility makes him
  79. He felt to blame when
  80. When with others he tends to
  81. Taking orders
  82. When there’s a quarrel in the family
  83. A man wants a woman who
  84. When he was knocked down he
  85. When he saw his boss coming he
  86. Sexual intercourse
  87. He often worries about
  88. When he saw that he was not getting ahead
  89. Lots of fellows
  90. Whenever he was with his mother he felt
  91. A man who would
  
  92. Whenever he does below average work he
  93. His father always used to
  94. Compared to most men he
  95. His standards are
  96. His lack of success caused him to
  97. When he is criticized he
  98. Women usually think he
  99. The main thing in his life
  100. Anybody would be angry if
  This exam can either be given out loud, or else the sheet can be given to
  a character to fill out on their own. The character’s response is recorded next
  to the sentence, and the results of the test are placed in the character’s
  file.
  
  STAFF RULES
  1. Ward rounds should be made every ten to fifteen minutes, and each patient should
  be seen.
  2. At least one member of the personnel must be on the hall at all times. If
  circumstances arise that necessitate using all the personnel they must call the
  supervisor for relief.
  3. Do not hesitate to call for help should you anticipate any unusual difficulty in
  carrying out a treatment.
  4. Tube feedings are to be done by the ward administrator, or the doctor on call. An
  R.N. �Resident Nurse� may do this procedure in the presence of the doctor.
  5. Patients using “sharps,” such as razors, scissors, nail files, and so on, must be
  specialed. The person who gives out the sharp is responsible for its return.
  6. No patients are permitted in the kitchen unless the patient is making a telephone
  call.
  7. All doors leading off the ward are to be double locked.
  8. The bathrooms, linen closet, dresser drawers, and closets are to be kept locked.
  9. Fruit juice, milk and crackers may be served ad lib between meals. If the patient
  has candy, or fresh fruit is available, this may be served also. No tea, coffee, or
  sandwiches may be served. Nourishment hour is from 9-9 PM and sandwiches are served at
  that time.
  10. Appointments with outside doctors, hairdressers, and so on, must be made through
  the nursing office.
  11. Cigarettes are kept in the designated cupboard in the kitchen. Smoking is
  permitted on the hall, or in the living room. No smoking in rooms is allowed unless a
  patient is specialed. Patients are not to have matches or cigarette lighters. Ciga-
  rettes and matches may be given to patients going for walks or to psychotherapy hours,
  but they must be turned in upon return to the ward.
  12. Ashtrays are always to be used and should be returned to the kitchen.
  13. All letters, except those listed below, are to be received from patients only if
  they are unsealed. These are to be sent to the administrator to be read. Exceptions to
  this are:
  a) To one or more designated, responsible relatives or friends.
  b) To the State Department of Mental Hygiene
  c) To the Superintendent (or the Assistant Superintendent, in her absence)
  d) To the Superintendent of Nurses
  e) To the patient’s therapist
  f) To the patient’s administrator
  14. Incoming mail is charged on the nurses’ notes and then given directly to the
  patient — unless the behavior of the patient indicates otherwise.
  15. �Female Wards� 
  �Female Wards� 
  �Female Wards� 
  �Female Wards� 
  �Female Wards� No Tampax, or other internal tampons, are to be worn on the floor
  without a specific order from the Doctor and Head Nurse.
  16. Patients are to be in bed by 10 PM, lights out between 10 and 10:30 P.M. Patients
  cannot have cigarettes after 10 PM.
  Handout #4
  
  Babyface James
           [ADMISSIONS WARD]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with 13 DEX, 9 INT and 8 EGO.] +1” Running (7”
  Total), Contact: “Pickett,” a Fell’s Point Fence, 8-, Lockpicking 12-, Sleight of Hand
  12-, Stealth 12-, Streetwise 11-, AK: The Fell’s Point Borough 11-, WF: Small Arms.
  25+ Disadvantages: Reputation: “Babyface James, two-bit thief,” (Limited Area:
  The Fell’s Point Borough) on an 8 or less.
  Appearance: A smooth-faced young black man, not more than twenty years old,
  with a thin, lean frame and a wild gleam in his eyes. He often murmurs about
  Jesus, occasionally gesticulating wildly with his hands.
  Notes: Babyface James is a small-time hood who has developed a system to avoid
  being prosecuted in Fell’s Point. Mostly working the Fell’s Point Borough as a
  petty thief, he makes sure his thefts are always small-time, such as hub caps,
  walkmans, wallets, that kind of thing, just enough to keep him under the grand
  larceny rap. Still, he knows that because of the sheer number of thefts he pulls,
  arrests are not only an occupational hazard, but bound to happen with regularity.
  Nevertheless, he also knows how much the Fell’s Point police detest busy work,
  especially considering the relatively minor items James steals. So, to relieve the
  cops of the chore of having to fill out a bunch of forms and send him to jail,
  whenever the cops cuff him, Babyface starts talking wildly about Jesus. As long as
  he talks crazy and puts up half a decent front, he ends up in the Asylum instead of
  in jail. Once in the Asylum, he simply waits until he is released.
  Glenn Beckman
                    [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Normal with 12 DEX, 11 CON, 13 INT, 8 EGO, and 8 PRE.] Glenn is not believed to possess any
  paranormal powers. He claims he can see “electricity in the air, like flickering insects,” but this is be-
  lieved to be due to his hallucinations. He possesses Computer Science 8-, Electronics 8-, Mechanics 8-
  , Tactics 8- (Paranoia), PS: High School Guidance Counselor (PRE) 11-, SC: Psychology 12-, Danger
  Sense (Intuitional), Out of Combat, Immediate vicinity 12- (Paranoia) and Defense Maneuver I (See
  UMA, p. 145; this is also a result of his Paranoia).
  50+ Disadvantages: Vulnerability (Psychosomatic), x2 Effect from Psionic Attacks, Enraged if con-
  tacted telepathically (Uncommon/Common, depending on campaign) 11-, 11-, Psychological Limita-
  tion: Paranoid Schizophrenia (Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Scar on forehead (Concealable,
  Noticed) and 2D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A black male, about 6’ 3”, with a thin, bony frame. He appears to be in his late forties,
  although the many wrinkles etched into his face make determining his age difficult. There is a long scar
  on his forehead that runs from the upper left of his skull down to just above his right eye. Although his
  eyes dart about, they will focus and track the movement of any character who comes within striking
  distance of him. Occasionally a tear travels down the man’s face, but he does not seem to be aware of it.
  Notes: Glenn is thirty, but he has aged badly. A former guidance counselor at Montgomery High
  School in Fell’s Point, he had an affair with one of the students at the school and was subsequently
  attacked by the teenager’s father, who cornered him in his office with a baseball bat. It is believed that
  Glenn was in the early stages of Paranoid Schizophrenia for many years before the attack, but his
  disorder was exacerbated by the head trauma and has been deteriorating ever since. He has been in
  the Asylum for only a month and is adjusting poorly. His overbearing wife, Eunice, comes to visit him
  once a week. He seems to be terrified of her and flinches whenever her name is mentioned.
  Glenn experiences auditory and visual hallucinations. He claims to have seen bright, flicker-
  ing “insects” swarming in the air, and in thick clouds around the walls and ceilings of the Asylum. He
  also claims he can hear his wife and other figures speaking to him (including the teenager he had an
  affair with, her father, and the principal of Montgomery School who fired him), berating him and
  reinforcing his own sense of worthlessness. When given a choice, Glenn will shun others on the ward
  and retreat to a safe corner, his eyes alert for some imaginary threat.
  Handout #5
  Each of these patients is presented so that they can be cut out and pasted onto 3x5 index cards.
  They are listed in the same order as the text, in case you wish to cross-reference, as some back-
  ground information has been lost due to space.
  
  William “Iron Bill” Billings
                   [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with an 8 INT, 8 EGO and 12 PRE.] He is relatively lucid (at this time; see
  Disadvantages, below) and has most Everyman Skills along with the Lightsleep Talent, AK: Fell’s Point
  Penitentiary (the “Pen”) 8, WF: Knives, Pistols, and Prison Weapons.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Hostile (Common, Moderate), Psychological Limita-
  tion: Occasional Depressive Symptoms (Uncommon, Moderate), Psychological Limitation: Undiffer-
  entiated Schizophrenia (Chronic, Common, Moderate), Distinctive Features: Tattoo on left forearm
  (Concealable, Noticed) and 1D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A tiny, frail white male in his fifties or early sixties. He is almost bald except for dirty gray
  hair above the ears and on the back of his head. He is relatively well-groomed and neat, although he
  occasionally picks his nose. A poorly-done tattoo of a skull with a serpent slithering through the eye
  sockets has been stitched on his left forearm. A book is usually tucked under his arm.
  Notes: “Iron Bill” is a 53 year old Roman Catholic with a criminal record. His delinquent
  behavior began when he was twelve, culminating in armed robbery attempt when he was
  eighteen. Arrested and sentenced to the Fell’s Point Penitentiary (the Pen) for ten years, he
  began to manifest strange behavior in prison. Shortly after his release, he violated parole,
  and he was sent to the Asylum, where the intensity of his behavior increased. In the first
  three months of his stay, he began to have delusions, manic episodes and set fire to his
  mattress twice. While Bill has calmed somewhat since his early days, he can still be danger-
  ous if he feels he is being threatened. He is hostile to newcomers and may try and see how far
  he can push them without actually getting into a fight.
  Bill spends most of his time reading and trying to “broaden his horizons.” While his
  Schizophrenia is currently in remission (this is the reason for his “high” INT and EGO), it is
  only a matter of time before he returns to a fully psychotic state. Bill frequently has bouts of
  mania and depression, though they are not serious enough to qualify as Major Depressive
  or Manic Episodes.
  (“Bad”) Brian
   [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Use the Skilled Normal template for Brian’s Manic Episode and the Incompetent
  template for his Depressive Phase.] Brian has standard Everyman Skills. When he is in his
  Depressive Episode, he may not have the strength or energy to use them.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged if Attacked or if approached in a “father-like” manner (i.e.,
  patronizing, commanding, treating Brian like a child, and so on; Common) 11-, 11-, but
  Brian has the Enraged Disadvantage only when having a Manic Episode (-1/2), Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: (Rapid-Cycling) Bipolar I Disorder with Psychotic Delusions (Common,
  Strong), Psychological Limitation: Heroin Addiction (Weak, Uncommon, Moderate), Physical
  Limitation: Near Sighted (Infrequently, Slightly)
  Appearance: An athletic white male in his mid-twenties with a slightly disheveled appear-
  ance. He has sandy blonde hair and freckles, with a square face and bright green eyes.
  Notes: Brian (24 years old) has a history of impulsive behavior and was admitted shortly
  after he attacked his father. He has a past history of drug abuse (heroin) and although he is
  not doing drugs now, he may have a relapse (he has taken the drug several times during his
  stay at the Asylum, only to be forced into withdrawal by the staff when they find his cache
  of drugs). When the characters first arrive at the Asylum, Brian will be in one of Manic
  Episodes. As a result, he has bursts of hyperactivity, and any character speaking to him may
  be alarmed by the way he leaps on top of furniture and gestures dramatically to make a
  point. Although Brian appears alert and lucid, he is psychotic and has a considerable reser-
  voir of animosity, especially toward his father. His emotions rotate like a carousel, cycling
  through anger, depression and irritation. No matter what emotional state he is in, Brian
  acts defensive and denies he has any problems; he blames his current “imprisonment” on
  his father, the government, and Big Brother, who are acting against him to prevent him
  from being successful.
  
  Bailey Burr
               [WARD 8F]
  Skills: [Normal with 12 STR, 8 INT, 9 EGO.] Bailey has no Everyman Skills except for
  Language: English (2-3 Points).
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Schizophrenia, Undifferentiated with Au-
  ditory Hallucinations (Common, Strong), Psychological Limitation: Borderline Personal-
  ity Disorder (Common, Moderate), Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Frequently,
  Slightly), Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behavior (Not Concealable, Major), Distinc-
  tive Features: Mangled Hands (see Appearance; Concealable, Noticed).
  Appearance: A large white male in his late twenties, with a sloping forehead, bulbous nose,
  and big lips. He sports a large, dumb smile and frequently scratches himself through the
  thin fabric of his patient uniform. His hands are covered with scars, especially around the
  tips of his fingers, and the pinkie and forefinger are missing from his left hand. (They have
  been severed where they meet his palm.)
  Notes: Bailey is a schizophrenic, which doesn’t really make him anything special compared to most of
  the Asylum patients except he also has a Borderline Personality Disorder and loves to “play games.” He
  always tries to set the staff against each other, everyone from the orderlies to the therapist, acting
  differently around each (being friendly to one, sullen to another, passing on lies, being nice to the
  therapist when visiting them, screaming at the charge nurse when he gets back to the ward, obeying
  one orderly with a smile, then refusing to listen to another). Even if he can’t provoke the PCs, he will
  try and stir up the other patients and staff against them. Play Burr as a stupid meddlesome jerk.
  Burr’s schizophrenia is pretty advanced; he experiences auditory hallucinations that tell him to
  stick things in his ears... usually cigarette butts. He goes along with the voices because it makes sense to
  him that if he stuck things in his ears that would block out the voices. When possible, he scrounges
  butts from the ashtrays and from other patients to serve as earplugs.
  His mangled hands are a testament to what can happen when Bailey can’t find anything to stick
  in his ears. During a particularly bad episode, he bit off both the fingers of his left hand and jammed
  them in his ears. Occasionally the staff catch him chewing on his other fingers.
  “Charlie”
  [WARD 6]
  Skills: [Normal with 9 INT, 8 EGO, 9 PRE and 8 COM.] Everyman Skills, CK: Fell’s
  Point 11-, PS: Factory Worker 11-, WF: Small Arms.
  25+ Disadvantages: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with Paranoid Features and
  Religious Delusions (Chronic, Very Common, Strong), Psychological Limitation:
  Alcoholism (Medium Addiction, Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Schizo-
  phrenic Behavior (Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: A tall white man in his late twenties with greasy black hair down to
  his shoulders. He stares blankly into space. There are scars on his neck (apparently
  made by a knife or razor). He appears unkempt, untidy, and he often wipes his
  nose on the sleeves of his uniform or lets food fall on his lap during meals.
  Notes: Charlie is 22 years old.Charlie has a criminal record and a history of hospitalization. He held
  up a Quick Corner in Fell’s Point three years ago, was arrested, and sentenced to the Fell’s Point
  Penitentiary (the Pen). Within a month of being at the Pen, he first showed signs of bizarre behavior.
  When he was transferred to the State Hospital in Fell’s Point, he began to have psychotic episodes and
  made several suicide attempts. He remained in the hospital for a year, was released, then shortly
  afterwards, became delusional, claiming that God and the Devil were in direct communication with
  him. At this time, Charlie also began to hear voices that tell him to cut his wrists and neck and drink
  himself to death. He slit his wrists once with a razor blade, but then went to a neighbor for help after
  seeing how much he was bleeding. After this incident, he was admitted to the Asylum, where he has
  remained for the past few months. He still hears the “voice of the Devil” calling him names and
  telling him he has no reason to live, but he is so guarded and defensive most of the time, he will rarely
  admit to it.
  Charlie drank heavily in high school, mostly whiskey and beer, and he still is nursing his
  alcoholism. He has created many problems in the past by getting other patients and visitors to the
  Asylum to smuggle him alcohol.
  
  Mr. Clockwork
               [WARD 7C]
  Skills: [Normal.] Mr. Clockwork has standard Everyman Skills, except for Deduc-
  tion, which is impaired due to his disorder.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged when he feels his “timing” has been disrupted (Com-
  mon), 8-, 11- but only when having a Manic Episode (-1/2), Psychological Limita-
  tion: Bipolar I Mood Disorder with Somatic and Persecutory Delusions (Timing,
  Common, Strong), 1D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A short, middle-aged, white male in his forties, this patient is thin
  and wiry, with thin arms that look much too long for his body. He is neatly dressed
  in a standard green patient uniform, and his face looks as if someone squeezed it
  in a vise... the muscles all are knotted up and his eyes bulge from his sockets. His
  speech is slow and methodical, like a metronome.
  Notes: Mr. Clockwork spends his time resetting clocks around the Asylum, making them alternately
  faster and slower. Despite the watchfulness of the staff, he is usually quite successful in screwing up
  daily schedules. At times, he will steal people’s wristwatches and alarm clocks and fiddle with them,
  occasionally taking them apart to “torture” them by snapping their gears or playing with their battery
  connections. He often smiles evilly when he “operates” on the clocks, occasionally snickering and
  laughing as he completes his operations. (He can be used by the GM to disrupt time in the Asylum and
  confuse the PCs.)
  Mr. Clockwork claims his behavior is his “revenge” on time itself. He blames it for a number of
  crimes, including its direct responsibility for the mortality of man, its constant interference that makes
  people all over the world late for appointments, the evil deadlines it creates and the way it prevents
  people from having enough time to do anything properly or to slow down and enjoy life. Shortly after
  Mr. Clockwork was fired from his job at UPS, he walked into the Fell’s Point University Campus li-
  brary and methodically smashed all the clocks there with a sledgehammer. He voluntarily surrendered
  to the campus police when they arrived at the scene, claiming that “now his work here was done.”
  In the future, Mr. Clockwork may put on a silly costume and go out and battle time in Fell’s
  Point. He is more of an annoyance than a serious threat.
  Crease
                [WARD 7B]
  Skills: [Normal with 13 DEX, 9 INT, and 8 EGO.] Crease has no superhuman pow-
  ers, but he is quite limber and agile and can slip through the crawl spaces in the
  Asylum walls with little difficulty. He has all Everyman Skills, plus Ambidexterity,
  AK: Asylum Crawl Spaces 8-, and Contortionist at a 13 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages:  Psychological Limitation: Delusional Disorder, Unspecified
  (“Folding Mentality,” Common, Total), Distinctive Features (Psychosomatic): Fold-
  ing Mentality (see below, Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: A thin white male, about twenty years old, with short brown hair and
  dark brown eyes. He is on the short side, about five feet tall, and spends most of his
  time hunched against the wall of the ward, his chest folded over his legs.
  Notes: All human beings are like pieces of paper, the wrinkles in the flesh and the tiny lines crisscross-
  ing the skin proof that they can fold themselves as thin as a sheet. Crease regards everyone with this
  “folding mentality”; in his eyes, tall or obese people are simply more “unfolded” than others, while
  thin, frail people, especially older people, are “folding” into themselves as they approach death. He
  will take time to explain this to anyone who seems interested.
  When afraid, Crease “folds up” in weird positions. While these positions are painful to get
  into, constant repetition and practice has made him quite limber. At other times, Crease can be found
  trying to hide in wastebaskets (with other scrap paper), in file cabinets, or plasters himself against a
  wall to make himself “invisible” to others. The characters may find him in some surprising places. If
  Crease wanted to, he could escape from the Asylum within hours, but he is afraid of the outside world
  and does not want to leave.
  Crease also believes he can walk through walls by slipping under cracks in doorways (he can’t,
  but he simulates the effect by waiting at a door until it opens, then “sliding” through the open door to
  the other side). When he has folded himself into a piece of paper, he gets irritated when the other
  patients make a lot of movements in the air, because this makes him fly around the room.
  
  Isaiah Dent
                 [WARD 6]
  Skills: [Normal with an 8 INT and 8 EGO.] Isaiah has no Everyman Skills except
  for Shadowing, Stealth (both at 8-) and four points of English Language.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with
  Psychotic Symptoms and Delusions of Reference (Common, Strong), Distinctive
  Features: Disheveled Appearance (Concealable, Noticed).
  Appearance: A tall, blond-haired white man in his late twenties with an average
  build. He has a confused expression, as if he is uncertain where he is. He wears a
  standard green patient uniform and has a disheveled appearance.
  Notes: Isaiah (age 27) gets patients and doctors confused, and he usually ends up
  approaching strange patients and asking them questions, or pestering doctors
  passing through the ward for help. When informed that he is addressing the wrong
  person, he looks for anything that might substantiate his theory, including name-
  plates on door (“That’s not right!”), names sewn into clothing (“Hey, those aren’t
  right either! What’s going on here?!”) and even attempts to get confirmation from
  other patients and nurses that the character is really someone else. When pre-
  sented with evidence to the contrary, he frowns suspiciously and continues to
  follow the characters, demanding an explanation for their “lies.” If escorted away
  by orderlies, he will eventually find his way back to the character, screaming, “you
  can’t fool me! I know it’s you!”
  Jimmy Diesel
                  [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Normal with 16 STR, 13 CON, 9 INT, 8 EGO, 13 PRE, 5 PD and 30 STUN.]
  Everyman Skills, PS: Truck Driver 11-, TF: Trucks, +2 Combat Levels with HTH
  Combat (Brawling).
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Intermittent Explosive Disorder; Jimmy’s Enraged
  has a Full Turn Delay before he completely loses his temper) 11-, 11-, Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: Psychotic Episodes (Uncommon, Strong), Distinctive Features: See
  Appearance (Concealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: A large, burly white male with leathery skin, a bushy beard and mus-
  tache and a thick head of dark brown hair. He stands almost six foot, and moves
  slowly and carefully around the Asylum. He has a tattoo saying “Lullaby” on his
  arm, but it is nearly lost under his thick arm hair. He has several cigar burns on his
  forearms and hands.
  Notes: Jimmy, 31, used to work as a truck driver before he was admitted to the Asylum. He
  was unfortunate enough to be driving his rig through Fell’s Point during the 1990 riot (see
  Sally Robinson, Background) and was attacked by a band of looters who pulled him from his
  cab and nearly beat him to death. Jimmy suffered severe head trauma from the attack, which
  is believed to be responsible for his current condition.
  When relaxed, Jimmy likes talking about women, saying vulgar and foul things with
  a trace of eagerness, but otherwise calm and restrained. Nevertheless, any PC who makes a
  Sight PER Roll will notice that the staff is extremely careful around Jimmy.
  When he gets angry, such as when someone grabs him or runs into him (accident or
  not), his nostrils flare, and with every breath he draws, he swells, clenching his teeth and
  working his legs until he is running through the ward like a locomotive, smashing down
  anything in his path (usually whoever touched him). When angry enough, Jimmy has been
  known to smash a door to pieces and use the fragments as clubs.
  
  Martin Finch, The Handyman
             [WARD 8G]
  Skills: [Competent with a 9 INT.] Despite his template, Martin has no additional
  skills and powers other than Climbing, Shadowing, Stealth, Sleight of Hand (all
  at 8-) and three points of English Language.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged if accused of stealing an object (Common) 11-, 11-
  , Psychological Limitation: Kleptomania (Common, Strong), Psychological Limi-
  tation: Schizophrenia, Undifferentiated (Common, Strong), Distinctive Features:
  Slightly Disorganized Speech and Behavior (Concealable, Recognized)
  Appearance: An obese bald white male in his thirties, this patient looks like a
  professional wrestler. He has a heavy frame, huge arms and a gorilla-like appear-
  ance. He rarely blinks, and often stares intently at others for no apparent reason.
  He is dressed in a clean patient uniform and wears a pair of light blue slippers on
  his feet.
  Notes: Martin, 32, used to be a construction worker in Fell’s Point and lived with his mother in a one-
  room apartment in the Fell’s Point Borough. Although he has had Schizophrenic symptoms since his
  early twenties, his behavior was ignored for several years until he was finally admitted to the Asylum
  six years ago.
  Martin has two behaviors that may prove to be a problem for PCs: one is his kleptomania. The
  staff usually turns a blind eye toward his thefts, because Martin becomes threatening and assaultive if
  he is either accused of stealing something or if he is caught while in the middle of slipping something
  into his pocket. (Martin usually puts the stolen items down somewhere later, and the items can then
  be retrieved safely by the staff.) Martin’s other problematic behavior is that he likes to “fix” things,
  usually trying to take something apart and then putting it back together again with a vital piece miss-
  ing. Sometimes he just leaves the object disassembled and wanders off.
  Martin can be used as a plot device in an Asylum adventure, either stealing one of the character’s
  Foci or taking a valuable clue to a mystery taking place within the Asylum and hiding it somewhere.
  Gough Godfrey
              [NO WARD]
  Powers and Skills: “Gough” (a nickname given to him by the staff because of his appearance) Godfrey
  is believed to possess no Everyman Skills and if his appearance is any indicator of his statistics, he
  possesses typical Senior Citizen abilities (probably with a reduced INT). Gough is incapable of speech.
  Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia (Very Common, Total), Dis-
  tinctive Features (Psychosomatic): Disheveled Appearance, Disorganized Behavior (Not Concealable,
  Major), Distinctive Features: Missing Left Ear (Concealable, Noticed), Age: 60+, Monitored by the
  Asylum Staff (Ls Pow) 8-, Mystery ID: (UE, p. 5) Michaelis Saietta.
  Appearance: This small (4’ 11”) Caucasian man is a mass of wrinkles and spotted flesh. His hands
  shake, and he has a facial tic on the corner of his upper left lip... a tic that leads viewer upwards to the
  black and purple mash of scar tissue where his left ear once was. He looks so old as to be regressing
  into childhood: his back is hunched, and his legs are bent in almost a crouch. He is incontinent, and
  can often be found smearing his feces and urine on the floors and walls of the ward.
  Notes: There are no records on Gough, and he is considered a permanent fixture
  of the Asylum... he has been here as long as many of the staff can remember. De-
  spite his incontinence, he is rarely makes too much trouble for the staff. (In fact, if
  characters pay attention, it seems that many of the staff members seem to com-
  pletely forget Gough’s presence, even when he is close by doodling with his own
  feces.) While Gough can be found in almost any ward in the Asylum, he seems to
  prefer the Seventh Ward.
  Characters who make an EGO Roll while examining the “smears” Gough
  creates with his own excrement will notice that they have a strange intricacy about
  them.
  
  Juán Guatarez
          [ADMISSIONS WARD/WARD 8]
  Powers and Skills: [Competent.] Juán possesses the Dirty Infighting Package (Kidney Blow,
  Punch, Eye Gouge), can use knives with Art (+1), and has Lightsleep, Concealment 11-,
  Lockpicking 12-, Stealth 12-, Streetwise 8- (his Streetwise is 8 or less in the United States;
  in Guamanga, it is much higher), KS: Fell’s Point Underworld 8-, PS: Drug Dealer 11- and
  +1 Combat Level with HTH Combat. Juán keeps a shiv (1/2D6 HKA) close to him when-
  ever possible.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Mild Paranoia (Common, Moderate) and
  Hunted by Guamangan assassins (Mo Pow) on an 11 or less.
  Appearance: A Hispanic male in his early thirties with a mustache and short black hair.
  He stands no more than five foot five inches (he seems even shorter in his patient uni-
  form), with an average build and a slight nervous tension running through his body. He
  has a tendency to stare at everything around him with wide eyes.
  Notes: Juán Guatarez has faked insanity to hide from assassins hired by dissidents in the Central
  American country of Guamanga (see JNL, p. 59) who have ordered Juán’s death for taking sides in a
  sensitive political dispute. Juán arrived in Fell’s Point two years ago and was just beginning to feel safe
  until he someone took several shots at him with a rifle while he was driving in his car about a month
  ago. Panicked, he drove to the nearest police station and went into hysterics. He wasn’t placed in
  custody, but his performance caused him to be shipped to the Asylum for an evaluation. Juán decided
  to keep up the “mad front” and lay low in the Asylum until the assassins called off their search.
  Juán watches new inmates warily to see if they have come for him or not... while the price on
  his head is real, his flight from his country and his fear of being killed has contributed to a certain
  level of paranoia. Juán has been working on making contacts with the Asylum pharmacists so he can
  continue his drug operations within the Asylum. He is always curious about the outside world and
  may try to form an alliance with PCs that enter the Asylum. If it decides it is necessary, he may hire
  some killers from the Asylum to go after the assassins that are looking for him; alternatively, the
  assassins may have tracked Juán down to the Asylum and pay Hell Razor (UE, p. 74) or one of the
  inmates to dispose of him.
  Old Scott Heller
                  [WARD 5]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with 6 INT and 6 EGO.] Heller is not believed to pos-
  sess any skills, but he has +1” Running and gains +5 STR when Enraged (-1/4).
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Common Variable Trigger... see below) 8-, 8-, Psy-
  chological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with Auditory Hallucina-
  tions (Very Common, Total), Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Frequently,
  Greatly), Distinctive Features: Screaming (Not Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: A white male in his forties with long gray hair and stubble along his
  chin and neck. His blood red Adam’s apple juts from his throat, and his face, neck
  and shoulders are laced with heavy wrinkles and folds of flesh. When he squints at
  others, his eyes are nearly lost beneath his creased eyelids.
  Notes: Scott is so tortured by his hallucinations that he needs a release... unfortu-
  nately, he doesn’t know how to express himself in any way other than screaming. If
  something is going on in the ward that gets him excited, he howls at the top of his
  lungs. Presence Attacks, the effects of Shock and Stress, and being threatened by
  another patient are all guaranteed to set him off... furthermore, (ironically enough)
  Heller can’t tolerate loud noises, and if a character near him speaks in anything
  above a whisper, he will launch himself at them, kicking and pounding. Within a
  week of his arrival at the Asylum, Heller had assaulted every patient on the ward.
  He is likely to continue this behavior against any PCs that approach him.
  
  Cyril “C-Dog” Hooks
                 [WARD 3]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with an 8 INT and 7 EGO.] +1” Running (7” Total).
  Cyril has the standard Everyman Skills, plus one drug dealer Contact in the Fell’s
  Point Borough, AK: Borough 8- and WF with Knives and Small Arms.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Alcoholism (Common, Strong), Psy-
  chological Limitation: Delusional Disorder, Somatic (Common, Strong), Psycho-
  logical Limitation: Pathological Liar (Common, Strong), Physical Limitation:
  Syphilis (Slightly, Infrequently)
  Appearance: Uptight, with a nervous smile and darting eyes, this patient is a lean
  black male in his early twenties with short dreadlocks (some of them barely a few
  inches long; they look like clumps of ragged black worms sprouting from his head).
  He dresses in a normal blue T-shirt, but keeps the green pants of his patient uni-
  form, making a half-and-half effect.
  Notes: Cyril has escaped from the Asylum twice since his month-long stay, traveling into Fell’s Point
  both times to get stoned and drunk, and then allowing himself to be picked up by the police (usually
  on some public nuisance charge) and returned to the Asylum, feeling guilty about his “binge.” During
  his last trip, however, Cyril somehow managed to smuggle some marijuana and heroin onto the ward,
  and his cache has not been discovered by the Asylum staff. Cyril plans to distribute it to make new
  friends on the ward, and to apologize to the others for “taking off.” He will offer to “fix up” any new
  patients on the ward with drugs or women.
  It is difficult to tell what is wrong with Cyril; other than his obvious nervousness and rapid
  speech, he seems normal. In truth, Cyril has suicidal thoughts and somatic delusions (sometimes he
  feels his organs moving around in his body, as if changing places with each other and tangling up his
  breathing and digestion) although he covers them up and lies to the staff and doctors about almost
  everything. He dimly suspects that during one of his past heroin experiences, he injected some kind of
  liquid creature into his body that is slowly taking control of him. His symptoms are so deeply buried
  in his mind that they surface only when he is drinking, and even then, he simply rationalizes them
  away.
  The Invisible Man
                  [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] The Invisible Man has standard Everyman Skills except for
  Stealth at an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Delusional Disorder (Grandiose, “In-
  visibility,” Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Naked as a Jaybird (Conceal-
  able, Major)
  Appearance: A small white man in his early thirties, pale, with short brown hair
  and green eyes. He is frequently naked, and he creeps along the walls and floor of
  the ward, holding his breath and darting his eyes back and forth as people pass.
  Sometimes when someone comes too close, he freezes, then slowly tip-toes after
  them, smiling evilly.
  Notes: The Invisible Man is under the delusion that he can turn invisible at will
  and is being hunted by the CIA who want to use his powers to assassinate foreign
  leaders. He was caught streaking in one of the Fell’s Point parks, and has been
  arrested many times for indecent exposure (he claims he was trying to elude the
  CIA agents who were shadowing him)... the last time he was arrested by police, he
  was referred to the Asylum, where he has remained for a year with little or no
  change in his condition. The staff have a hard time keeping him in clothes and try
  to ignore him when he jumps out at them while “invisible.” The Invisible Man will
  creep behind characters in the wards, shadowing them as he smiles and giggles to
  himself. He will become extremely upset if someone claims they can see him, and
  he will argue with them childishly. (“You do not see me! Do Not! Do Not!”)
  
  Joseph
              [WARD 8H]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with a 5 INT and 5 EGO.] Joseph has no Everyman Skills
  except for Language: English (1 point). Joseph functions at about a third grade
  level and uses only single words and phrases (usually inappropriate to the situa-
  tion) when expressing himself.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Dependent Personality Disorder
  (Common, Strong), Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Severe Mental Re-
  tardation), Age: 40+
  Appearance: A short (4’ 11”), white male in his late fifties. He is almost completely
  bald except for tufts of hair over his eyes. His smiles are always tentative... and
  when he opens his mouth, he reveals his toothless gums. He occasionally raises his
  hand for no apparent reason, as if waiting for someone to call on him.
  Notes: Joseph is 58 and relatively harmless, although he can be annoying at times.
  If given a task by the staff, he often turns to other patients for help if he thinks that
  they can do it for him and will follow them with an imploring expression until
  they chase him away or do his job for him. When he is placed in a confusing situ-
  ation, Joseph must make an INT Roll or else he will run away as quickly as pos-
  sible. Incontinent during the night, Joseph is mobile during the day and can gen-
  erally take care of himself. He is allowed to walk the ward without restriction.
  Neil Kearns
               [WARD 8H]
  Skills: [Normal with a 8 INT and 7 EGO.] Neil is assumed to have no Everyman
  Skills, except for Language: English at the two to three point level.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Disorganized Schizophrenia (Very
  Common, Strong), Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Frequently, Greatly),
  Distinctive Features (Psychosomatic): Incessant, Disconnected Speech (Not Con-
  cealable, Major), Distinctive Features: Obese (Not Concealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: An obese white male in his late teens, with straight brown hair and a
  balloon-like face. He talks constantly, either to himself or to other patients on the
  ward; most patients and staff seem to ignore him and his incessant nasal drone out
  of habit. He is dressed in a standard green patient uniform.
  Notes: Neil is twenty years old and has been in the Asylum for close to two years.
  The staff frequently isolates him from the rest of the patients on the ward, either
  placing him in his room or in seclusion. As mentioned in his Appearance section,
  above, he talks incessantly in an unenunciated torrent of words... his train of
  thought is impossible to follow. If by chance, he should hit on a coherent topic, he
  will jump to another, usually three or more times in the same sentence until he
  once again makes no sense. The tension and circumstance under which he speaks
  usually seems to have a bearing on the frequency and incoherency of the words...
  when frightened or confused, Neil’s voice will rise or drop in pitch until he is
  screeching out words or mumbling piteously.
  
  Lantern Jack
                 [WARD 8J]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with 12 STR, 12 CON, 9 INT, 8 EGO, 24 END and 22 STUN.]
  Jack has +1” Running (7” Total) and +1” Superleap (3” Forward, 2” Upwards).
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged when spots a “criminal” (Common) 11-, 14-, Enraged if called
  a “Hobgoblin clone” (Uncommon) 14-, 8-, Psychological Limitation: Grandiose Delusional
  Disorder (“I am Jack O’ Lantern!” Very Common, Total), Distinctive Features: Moves by
  Leaps and Bounds (Not Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: An overweight white male in his late thirties with sparse, brown hair and
  thick glasses. His patient uniform is rumpled, and the top of his uniform usually rises
  above his belly, which jiggles when he moves. He can usually be seen jumping through the
  ward like a demented frog, pulling sheets from the beds of other patients and swirling
  them around him like a cape. He occasionally strikes a pose in front of others, smiling
  triumphantly.
  Notes: Lantern Jack spends most of his time capering around the ward, jumping
  from bed to bed and chasing “criminals.” He will attack anyone acting suspiciously
  (i.e., anyone who fits his loose definition of a criminal), pummeling them with his
  fists until the “criminal” is properly subdued. If the criminal fights back, Jack will
  jump on the nearest bed and bounce to freedom so he can fight another day. He
  has to be tranquilized during Halloween or else he starts throwing pumpkins at
  people. Jack is only one of the many examples of “Jack O’ Lanterns” (JNL, p. 44)
  that fill the Asylum, and he has been placed in seclusion so many times the staff
  has lost count.
  Quote: “HA! Didn’t expect to see ME here, did you, criminal scum?!”
  Leon
    [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with 5 INT, 5 EGO.] Lenny is illiterate and can do little
  more than feed and clean himself. He has no Everyman Skills except Climbing at
  an 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Moderate Mental
  Retardation, Frequently, Greatly), Distinctive Features: Retarded, Childish Behav-
  ior (Not Concealable, Major), Age: 40+
  Appearance: A pleasant black man in his late fifties, with an average height and
  build, dressed neatly in hospital clothes. His movements and facial expressions
  have a certain childishness about them.
  Notes: Leon (“Lenny”) is a pleasant, 51 year old Black Male who has been at the
  Asylum for almost twenty years. Prior to his years in the Asylum, he was living at
  home and would act in a childish manner, biting his palms, throwing tantrums,
  and so on. His behavior finally culminated on an attack on his mother, after which
  he was sent to the Asylum for treatment. Lenny enjoys attention, and he spends
  much of his time shadowing orderlies and nurses; if a character approaches him,
  he will speak to them in garbled words and nonsensical phrases and then follow
  them around, hoping for more attention. Lenny cannot identify items, and he can-
  not read or write. Although Lenny acts at an early childhood level, the staff gener-
  ally ignore him and let him walk around freely, as he can care for his own cleanli-
  ness, and requires little supervision in eating or dressing. He is no longer prone to
  violent behavior, although he will respond childishly to threats, either running
  away and sulking or fighting back by shoving his “attacker.”
  
  Marrow
              [NO WARD]
  Skills: [Normal with 11 STR, 13 DEX and 11 CON.] +1 to Hearing PER Rolls,
  Contortionist 12-, Shadowing 12-, Stealth 12-, PS: Escape Artist 12-, AK: Asylum
  11-, AK: Asylum Crawl Spaces and Ventilation Subsystems on a 13 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Paranoid Schizophrenia (The CIA
  is after him, Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behavior, Dis-
  organized Speech and Appearance (Not Concealable, Major), Distinctive Features:
  Feral Appearance (Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: It is almost impossible to see this man beneath the grime and dirt
  that covers his body; only the whites of his eyes can be seen clearly in darkness. A
  white male in his early thirties, this patient (?) wears a tattered green uniform,
  shred and frayed in several places. He has a long beard and a tangled mass of curly
  blond hair on his head, filled with dirt, lice, and dead insects.
  Notes: Marrow looks feral, but he is soft-spoken and polite, even if his word choice tends to be a little
  odd. He was admitted to the Asylum in restraints after being arrested for disturbing the peace in Fell’s
  Point Harbor five years ago. On the day he arrived, the intern escorting Marrow left him alone for a
  few minutes, long enough for Marrow to vanish from the locked waiting room without a trace. Mar-
  row has lived a hermitic existence within the Asylum walls, floors and ceilings. He comes and goes as
  he pleases, stealing food and materials from the Asylum staff and patients, and has completely fur-
  nished some of the shafts and crawl spaces in the Asylum, making an impressive spread of “rooms”
  and hallways within the walls. It is better furnished than some houses.
  Assuming they knew he was there, it would take the Asylum maintenance crew weeks to creep
  through the hospital’s ventilation system (there are many unnecessary shafts and branchings, due to
  the odd architecture of the building), to map out Marrow’s home in the walls.
  During the course of the campaign, PCs should occasionally hear staff members complaining
  of losing or misplacing objects... this is usually due to Marrow’s raids. Marrow can be used as a deux ex
  machina for the GM. Marrow may develop a crush on a female PC (attractive or not) in one of the
  wards, making himself known to her and offering to help her escape.
  D. Neumont
    [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Powers and Skills: [Senior Citizen.] Although not superpowered, David has a sense
  of underlying plots and dramatics. He has +1 to All PER Rolls, the full selection of
  Everyman Skills, and KS: Underworld Enemies on a 13 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Delusional Disorder (Grandiose,
  Believes he is Crusader, Common, Strong), Age: 60+
  Appearance: A small, shifty-eyed man in his late sixties with unkempt dull gray
  hair. He wanders the ward as if lost, dressed in a rumpled patient uniform. A thick
  “C” has been scrawled on the left breast of the uniform in black magic marker,
  and he has taped a small paper plate onto his left forearm like a shield. A crude
  five-pointed star, composed of unsteady lines, has been scribbled on the paper
  plate. The space outside the star has been filled in with what looks like blue and
  black finger-paint.
  Notes: Daniel befriended Crusader when the vigilante was imprisoned in the Asylum many years ago
  and has never forgotten him. When he heard that Sam had died, he took up “the uniform and shield”
  and claimed he was the reincarnation of Crusader. The staff view his actions and his frequent postur-
  ing with mild amusement. Daniel can attend to his own hygiene and causes little trouble in the wards
  and so is allowed to move about as he pleases.
  Daniel claims he knows what happened when Crusader was killed and repeats it to anyone
  who comes to the ward, in a clear, steady voice. He claims Crusader, near-sighted and old, was the
  personification of “old school” Golden Age heroics, and his death symbolized the end of the Golden
  Age. He points out that Crusade is the latest chapter in a continuing cycle of violence... just as Cru-
  sader murdered the elderly member of the RAVEN assassination bureau (UE, p. 8), the aging Cru-
  sader himself was murdered many years later by another assassin (Crusade and his training, UE, p.
  95, second column), and so on. In the framework of Underworld Enemies and Asylum, if Sally does
  not give into revenge (personified by the Purge armor, UE, p. 81), the cycle of violence will end and
  her life can continue. If asked what is transpiring in Asylum, David will shrug his shoulders and tell
  characters to talk to a “Madame Sosostris,” presumably some character in a future book.
  
  Noah
  [WARD 6]
  Skills: [Use the Incompetent or Skilled Normal template, depending on whether Noah is having a
  Depressive or a Manic Episode.] Noah has the full range of Everyman Skills (plus KS: Bible 11-),
  although when he is having a Major Depressive Episode, he must make an EGO Roll in order to use
  any of his skills or to defend himself.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Variable Common Trigger, only when having a Manic Episode; this is
  usually in effect by the end of a normal day) 11-, 8-, Psychological Limitation: Bipolar I Mood Disor-
  der with Religious Hallucinations (Hearing the voice of God, Very Common, Total), Distinctive Fea-
  tures: Disconnected Speech (Not Concealable, Major), Distinctive Features: See Appearance, below
  (Not Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: A wild-eyed white male, extremely tall and broad with dark, matted hair. A smell ema-
  nates from his rumpled patient uniform like something has crawled in there and died. He usually has
  a worn Bible clutched in his large hands (his hands are red, as if sunburned). He stares into the dis-
  tance silently, his cheek muscles twitching, then paces in circles around the ward, mumbling and shak-
  ing his Bible. He often clears his throat, as if about to say something.
  Notes: Noah is a Catholic preacher who was picked up for brawling with a pimp in the Fell’s Point
  Harbor. His speech is disconnected and inappropriate, switching from religion to random thoughts
  on white rats and bugs. If he is stopped and asked a question while he is speaking, his expression will
  shift wildly, and he may begin to shout, throw a punch at the character, or start to cry. He often tells
  patients that he is in the Asylum because he masturbated too much and it kept him from being a good
  Christian. He warns them that they will share his fate (disfavor) if they don’t repent their evil ways.
  Noah also claims he can hear God calling his name (auditory hallucinations) and when the hallucina-
  tion are particularly intense, he will grab other patients, shouting “I have the Spirit now! I have the
  Spirit!”
  In the mornings, Noah is sullen, but this fades as the day goes on (i.e., he is having a Mixed
  Mood Episode... he will wake up with a Major Depressive Episode, and it will change into a Manic
  Episode by the end of the day). By the time the evening comes around, he zips through the ward
  preaching about the Holy Spirit and writing religious songs to show his therapist. He is frequently put
  in seclusion because he screams at the other patients to repent and throws his Bible at those who are
  “not living up to his expectations.”
  Raymond
                  [WARD 4]
  Skills: [Normal with 13 STR, 11 BODY, 5 INT, and 7 EGO.] Limited Everyman
  Skills. PS: Cargo Mover at Avery Foods Grocery Store, 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with
  auditory and visual hallucinations (Raymond claims to see “other people” walking
  around the wards; Very Common, Strong), Psychological Limitation: Scared of
  the Dark (Nyctophobia, Common, Strong), Physical Limitation: Limited Everyman
  Skills (Moderate Mental Retardation, Infrequently, Slightly), Distinctive Features
  (Psychosomatic): Bizarre and Disturbed Speech (Not Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: A white male in his thirties, with a strong build and a slight gut.
  While neatly dressed, his green patient uniform seems much too small for him. He
  is bald, and has a slack expression.
  Notes: Raymond is 31. He was transferred from Holmesberg prison in Fell’s Point
  over eight years ago after he was found incompetent to stand trial on charges of
  burglary, terrorist threats, assault and recklessly endangering another person. He
  has had a life-long history of mental retardation due to birth trauma; when he was
  seven years old, he apparently suffered further brain damage when he fell from the
  roof of his father’s house. Before his arrest, he worked as a cargo mover at an Avery
  Foods Grocery Store in Fell’s Point (see Corpor-ations for a description of Avery
  Foods).
  Raymond’s speech is difficult to understand, as much of thinking is loosely
  associated and bizarre. He frequently claims to see ghosts and “people” created by
  the lights in the Asylum and often stares at light fixtures and bulbs. He will not go
  into shadowy area in the Asylum, and he is afraid of the dark. At night, it is difficult
  for him to go to sleep, and he murmurs and whimpers to himself when the lights
  are turned out.
  
  Robertson
                  [WARD 4]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with a 7 INT and 7 EGO.] Robertson has limited
  Everyman Skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Berserk when a sharp object is pointed at him (Common),
  14-, 8-, Psychological Limitation: Antisocial Personality Disorder (“Antisocial Ten-
  dencies,” Common, Moderate), Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizo-
  phrenia with delusions (Chronic, Very Common, Strong), Physical Limitation:
  Limited Everyman Skills (Mild Mental Retardation, Infrequently, Slightly), Dis-
  tinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behavior (Not Concealable, Major)
  Appearance: A tall, stocky, middle-aged white man with rumpled, dark brown
  hair and a jutting chin dotted with gray stubble. He has an unkempt appearance, a
  slight hunch in his upper back, and moves his legs stiffly, like a robot.
  Notes: Robertson (“Rob”) is 37 years old and has a long history of psychiatric
  hospitalization and criminal activity, primarily larceny (petty theft). While he has
  a tenth grade education, his INT has been deteriorating ever since the onset of his
  Schizophrenia. He occasionally repeats brief phrases (“in my head, in my head, in
  my head”), seemingly unrelated to anything that is occurring around him. When
  nervous, he trembles and laughs loudly. He was admitted thirteen years ago after
  arrested in the Fell’s Point Harbor for breaking car windows and stealing items
  from parked cars.
  Robertson has had episodes of violence at the Asylum, and will attack any-
  one who sneaks up on him or surprises him. The sight of a knife, syringe or sharp
  object being pointed at him will cause him to go berserk (the staff is aware of this
  and exercise caution when giving him medical check-ups).
  Michael Tibbet
                  [WARD 3]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with a 9 INT and 8 EGO.] +1 to Sight PER Rolls and
  the Talent: Lightsleep. Otherwise, Michael has only the normal range of Everyman
  Skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Paranoid Schizophrenia with So-
  matic Delusions (Very Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Disheveled Ap-
  pearance (Concealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: A white male in his early twenties, with a neat and clean appearance.
  He is of average height and build, with curly black hair and slight sideburns. He
  avoids eye contact and always glances tentatively around him.
  Notes: Michael is much older than he appears (he is 29). Although he seems neat
  and clean, orderlies have to supervise his personal hygiene daily in order to keep
  him looking presentable; when they cannot take the time to attend to him during
  the course of the day, Michael’s appearance unravels, with stubble growing quickly
  at the corners of his chin and neck, his hair becoming tangled, and he picks at (and
  dries his hands on) his patient uniform until it is rumpled and dirty. On the ward,
  Michael makes constant trips to the water fountain and to the bathroom, though
  he is quick to leave if anyone is standing behind him at the fountain or if anyone
  else is in the bathroom. His responses to any PCs who approach him will be tenta-
  tive, cautious and fearful, and he will attempt to get away as quickly as possible. If
  cornered, he may scream for help and press himself against a wall or floor in order
  to keep distance between himself and the PC. He has frequent somatic complaints
  (mostly related to his intestines, and the feeling that his insides are drying out),
  and he has a tendency to move his foot around or smoke in an agitated manner.
  
  Harold Weinstein
                 [WARD 6]
  Skills: [Normal with 9 STR and 9 CON.] He has all Everyman Skills, with AK:
  Fell’s Point Chelsea District 8- and PS: Manager of Shakey’s Pizza Parlor on an 11
  or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Common, Variable Trigger) 11-, 8-, Physical Limi-
  tation: Undiagnosed Brain Condition (Frequently, Greatly), Distinctive Features:
  Shaking Right Hand (Not Concealable, Noticed).
  Appearance: This man looks to be in his late forties, with white, spiky hair. He is
  dressed in a standard sickly green patient uniform. His right hand is constantly
  shaking, and his tiny, bead-like eyes are almost hidden beneath his thick white
  eyebrows. His speech is flat, and his face is expressionless.
  Notes: Harold (“Harry, please”) Weinstein is 33 and married, with one son who is
  currently enrolled in the Fell’s Point Community College. Until two weeks ago, he
  was manager of a local Shakey’s but was forced to seek treatment after he bashed
  one of his waitresses with a napkin dispenser after she refused to restock the nap-
  kins. Extremely sorry for what he did, he has only offered the explanation that “it
  seems the ol’ ticker [his brain, not his heart] isn’t working right.” Weinstein loses
  his temper easily, can’t remember things and is having trouble with simple math
  and spelling. Alternately confused and angry by his memory loss, he suspects his
  difficulties might be due to some tranquilizers that were prescribed for him a month
  ago, but the physicians suspect that his recent memory difficulty and behavior
  might be due to a brain tumor, so they are preparing an organic work-up for him
  (EEG, brainscan, psych-testing and a neurological exam).
  Victoria “Vicki” Atkins
                   [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] Vicki has the normal selection of Everyman Skills except for
  AK and TF (she does not have a driver’s license).
  25+ Disadvantages: Vulnerability (Psychosomatic) x2 Effect vs. Mind Control At-
  tacks, Psychological Limitation: Paranoid Schizophrenia with Delusions of Perse-
  cution (Common, Strong)
  Appearance: A young white female, about 5’ 8” with an average build, short black
  hair in a bowl cut, and light green eyes. She is well-groomed, clean and wears a
  standard patient uniform. She fidgets a great deal, and her eyes flicker, as if watch-
  ing something out of the corner of her eye.
  Notes: “Vicki” is barely fifteen years old, but her Schizophrenia is maturing rapidly. She has informed
  her therapist that her father has set up radios throughout the Asylum (according to Vicki, he per-
  formed this feat during his first visit) that tune in to her brain waves and control her thoughts.
  Vicki’s therapist believes she has nailed down the reason for Vicki’s disorder and the distress
  and delusions that accompany it. The problems started a year ago, when Vicki’s father became ex-
  tremely upset when he learned that she had gone on a date without telling him. The reason for his
  distress is believed to be that he was worried that some boy would take advantage of her and get her
  pregnant. (This had happened to Vicki’s older sister during her teens.) In order to keep tabs on her
  social life, her father took to questioning Vicki about every place she went when she left the house,
  sometimes even going so far as to follow her in the car. He listened in on her telephone conversations
  with friends, secretly went through her things and often grounded her without a good reason so he
  could keep her out of “trouble.” As these incidents became more common, Vicki began to have delu-
  sions about “radios” in the house that reflected her distress at her father’s invasion of her privacy. She
  is on medication, but it is not clear if she will recover enough so that she can leave the Asylum and
  return to her father.
  
  Rhetta Bourne
                  [MEDICAL WARD]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] Due to her condition, Rhetta cannot run (Max 2”) nor can
  she use her Everyman skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with
  Depressive Features (Common, Total), Physical Limitation: Burns and constant
  pain (All the Time, Greatly), Distinctive Features: See Appearance (Not Conceal-
  able, Major), Hunted by Ashtray Art (Mo Pow) 11-, 2D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A thin black female of indeterminate age with pockets of burned and
  blistering flesh across her body. The hair has been razed from her scalp, her right
  ear is gone, and her right eye is a milky white pustule, lined with red and black scar
  tissue. Her face has been burned so badly it is impossible to get a clear idea of what
  she looked like before she was burned. She is dressed in a white, loose-fitting gown,
  and rarely moves or speaks.
  Notes: Rhetta, thirty-one years old, is a Southern black woman with Schizophre-
  nia and depressive features who has been a fixture at the Asylum for the past fif-
  teen years. Several months ago, Ashtray Art (UE, p. 52) asked Rhetta if she would
  be willing to be one of his masterpieces, and she agreed, thinking he was going to
  paint her portrait. After the blackened gas-soaked gown was peeled from her burned
  flesh, she was taken to the Fell’s Point Municipal Hospital and treated. Since her
  return to the Asylum, Rhetta refuses to eat and now will only be tube-fed.  Her
  current antidepressant might as well be a children’s vitamin pill for all the good it
  does her; she desperately wishes to die, but she is almost immobile from pain and
  the staff has been instructed to watch her carefully.
  Art cannot understand why “his” Rhetta is being kept from him and why the
  staff won’t let him see her... he is anxious to see how she turned out.
  Charlotte Brisk
              [WARD 8A]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] +1” Running (6” Total), Everyman Skills, Contact: Male Staff Member (GM:
  Choose at Random) 11-, and Seduction on an 8 or less (Charlotte’s still getting the hang of it).
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Borderline Personality Disorder (Common, Moder-
  ate), Psychological Limitation: Histrionic Personality Disorder (Common, Strong), Psychological
  Limitation: Obsequious (Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: “Seductive” Appearance (Easily
  Concealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: A young white female, barely twenty years old, with cinnamon-colored hair and large
  brown eyes framed by thick, square-framed glasses. She is dressed in a standard green patient uni-
  form, but it somehow tends to fall open in the front, allowing the viewer to see the curve of her
  breasts. While not unattractive, her face is oddly rounded and her head looks too big for her small
  body. She tends to remain in her room and avoid everyone else on the ward.
  Notes: Charlotte, 19, was admitted to the Asylum shortly after she sliced her wrists
  when she learned her “boyfriend” was seeing other girls. (Whenever she speaks
  about “him” and his infidelity, she speaks as if she had known him for years, rather
  than two weeks.) Behind her immaturity there is an unhappy, lonely person, and
  her feelings are deeply suppressed. She tends toward selfishness and putting her
  feelings above those of others, often trying to gather pity and attention to her
  problems. Charlotte tends to handle criticism and rejection like a child (e.g., run-
  ning away, refusing to talk, sulking in a corner or throwing a tantrum and stamp-
  ing her feet).
  
  Carol
                  [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] Carol has the normal selection of Everyman Skills (including AK: Fell’s Point
  Southside 8-, PS: Housewife 11-), but she must make an EGO Roll in order to use any of her skills
  while she is having a Major Depressive Episode.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Major Depressive Disorder with Guilt and Somatic
  Delusions (Very Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Cesarean Scar (Easily Concealable, Noticed),
  DNPC: Husband (Normal) and Children (Incompetent) 11- and 2D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: A slender young woman, not more than twenty, with long wavy black hair, a thin face
  with light brown eyes, small breasts and narrow hips. She does not wear a patient uniform; instead,
  she is usually dressed in matching light green sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt as if about to go out
  for a jog. She is usually found sitting slumped in a chair or against the wall of a ward, crying silently
  as her shoulders make small, shuddering movements. Her eyeliner makes its way down her cheeks in
  two tear-soaked streams.
  Notes: Carol is twenty-five years old (she appears much younger than she actually
  is). She has had four children, two of whom have already died. She believes that
  she somehow caused the death of her two children, even though both were crib
  deaths. Over the past few months, she has developed several somatic complaints,
  including asthma and chronic stomach pains. Although she has repeatedly visited
  a general-practice clinic in Fell’s Point and has had numerous tests and medica-
  tions, no explanation has been found for her sickness and she has not improved.
  She is afraid to discipline her other two children at all, and is having difficulties
  relating to her husband, who is abusive and considers her “pathetic.” She was ad-
  mitted to the Asylum only recently, but she may be in for a long stay.
  Clarisse
    [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with a 9 INT and 11 EGO.]
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged if someone comes too close to her “without permis-
  sion” (Very Common) 8-. 14-, Psychological Limitation: Paranoid Schizophrenia
  with Grandiose Delusions and Auditory Hallucinations (Very Common, Strong),
  Physical Limitation: Alcoholic (Frequently, Slightly).
  Appearance: A thin, formal-looking black female in her late fifties. The heavy lines
  on her forehead and around her mouth make her face look like a dried prune. She
  prefers to rest in chairs in the ward rather than move around and sits in a corner
  far away from everyone else. She occasionally can be heard humming to herself.
  Notes: Clarisse (real name Clarrisa) is a 57 year old, Baptist widower. Speaking to
  her can be frustrating; she stiffens when anyone approaches her without permis-
  sion and will make threatening gestures until they go away (she sees almost every-
  one as the enemy). If she allows a character to approach, she will either ignore him
  completely or else nod her head slowly and respond to questions in thick, slurred
  speech that is difficult to understand (her word choice also tends to be peculiar).
  She is convinced that people are out to get her and her family, but these suspicions
  usually surface only when she is drinking. She has two children (although she
  claims that both of them died). Her husband was “killed” five years ago; he trav-
  eled a great deal and was unfaithful to her. Her delusion is that “they bumped him
  off when he was making his way home to me.”
  
  Jennifer Dorsey
           [ADMISSIONS WARD]
  Skills: [Normal with an 11 INT.] Jennifer has all the Everyman Skills plus AK:
  Fell’s Point Northside 8-, AK: Fell’s Point Chelsea District 11-, CK: Hudson City
  8- and SC: Business and Finance on an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
  (“Takes a half-hour to walk through doors,” Very Common, Strong), Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: Meticulously Neat (Common, Moderate), Physical Limitation:
  Near-Sighted (Infrequently, Slightly), Distinctive Features (Psychosomatic): Ob-
  sessive-Compulsive Ritual (See below, Not Concealable, Recognizable).
  Appearance: A slightly overweight white female in her early twenties with wire-
  frame glasses. Her shoulder-length black hair is neatly combed, and her clothes
  are always clean and well-pressed. She never wears a patient uniform. She appears
  quite lucid and friendly, though she seems uncomfortable in the ward.
  Notes: Jennifer’s problem is that it takes her a half-hour to walk through a door. Whenever she tries to
  do so, she stops and repeats the following ritual: first, she taps each side of the door frame seven times,
  closes her eyes and mouths something to herself, as if praying. Then she taps the door frame again in
  exactly the same spots with exactly the same fingers, and then begins the ritual again until she has
  completed it seven times... if she does any part of this ritual incorrectly (which happens often), she
  will begin to hyperventilate, stare around frantically, then start again from the beginning. The small-
  est distraction from the ritual (e.g., if someone speaks to her or if she has a random thought while
  performing the ritual), she must start over again, even if she was performing the ritual correctly be-
  fore the distraction.
  Jennifer is twenty-five and earned her Business Degree from the Fell’s Point Community Col-
  lege less than a year ago. Shortly after graduation (about the time when she was experiencing stress
  hunting for a job), she began to manifest her Obsessive-Compulsive behavior. (It is believed that
  Jennifer had the foundations of the disorder well before coming to the Asylum, but it recently became
  worse due to stress.) She was admitted to the Asylum only a week ago, and wants to leave as soon as
  possible... she finds the institution oppressive and evil, and it only fuels her disorder rather than ame-
  liorating it.
  Alisha Downs
                [WARD 7B]
  Skills: [Incompetent with a 7 INT and 7 EGO.] She has the Contact: The Baby Man 11-,
  Concealment 8-, Streetwise 8-, Language: Gang Slang (Borough) and WF: Syringes.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Alcoholism (Common, Moderate), Psycho-
  logical Limitation: Psychotic Disorder with Delusions and Hallucinations, Linked to Heroin
  Addiction (-1/2) (Common, Strong), Physical Limitation: Heroin Addiction, Strong (Greatly
  Impairing; see I4I, p. 45), Distinctive Features: Track marks on arms (Easily Concealable,
  Recognizable).
  Appearance: A short black woman of average height and scrawny build who looks to be in
  her late twenties. Despite her youth, she carries herself as if bearing a heavy weight, and her
  rail thin body is afflicted with tremors. Her appearance is haggard, and she looks hungry,
  gazing with a pleading eye at anyone around her, as if expecting a hand out. A patient
  uniform is draped limply over her body.
  Notes: Alisha is actually thirty-two years old. She drinks a great deal, and has been
  a heroin addict for the past eleven years. Her judgment and attention span tends
  to be lacking, and she pays little attention to others around her unless they have
  heroin or alcohol or can get access to it. She has a dim view toward men for many
  reasons: her father was not present for most of her childhood, she had a disap-
  pointing marriage (they are now separated but not divorced), and most heroin
  dealers she dealt with in the Borough were men. All of these factors led her to
  have a shallow, dependent ambivalence on men. If PCs speak with her, she may
  tell them that she needs money in order to buy her daughter back from the Baby
  Man, a dealer in the Borough who purchases children from young mothers, using
  offering drugs in exchange for the infants. If the PCs refuse, she will make ob-
  scene gestures at them and say she doesn’t need them anyway because “her boy,
  Clarence” is working with the crime lord Big Money in the Borough and will
  come after the PCs and “kill ALL their family” if she gives the word.
  
  Ellen
  [WARD 3]
  Skills: [Incompetent with 6 INT and 6 EGO.] Ellen has no Everyman Skills except for Language: En-
  glish at the 2 point level (Ellen’s Language Skill, however, has a 14 or less “Activation roll”... if Ellen
  makes the roll, she can communicate coherently... if she fails the roll, she babbles a stream of discon-
  nected words).
  25+ Disadvantages:  Catatonic (Epilepsy, Uncommon) 14-, 8-, Psychological Limitation: Undifferen-
  tiated Schizophrenia with Delusions and Hallucinations (Common, Strong), Physical Limitation: No
  Everyman Skills (Mental Retardation, Frequently, Greatly), Distinctive Features (Psychosomatic): Child-
  ish, Schizophrenic Behavior (Not Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: A slightly overweight black female in her late thirties who rarely makes eye contact with
  anyone else in the ward. She has disproportionately large breasts and thighs, and long, disheveled
  black hair that she falls across her face. Despite her obvious maturity, there is something childish in
  her movements and expressions, and she often giggles inappropriately. A sloppy dresser, her patient
  uniform is often stained with food and excrement and has been torn and stitched back together in
  several places.
  Notes: Ellen is 37 but acts like a five-year old. She prefers to speak in whispers, and
  if a character asks her to speak louder, she will either become silent or shout at the
  top of her lungs, all the while interrupting with stuttering, inappropriate laughter.
  She was voluntarily committed three years ago, and claims to have five children,
  two of whom were born during past hospitalizations, one in the Asylum and an-
  other in a local hospital on the peninsula. [1] Ellen has a long history of mental
  retardation and was unable to complete school past the third grade. In addition to
  her schizophrenic hallucinations (auditory only), bizarre thought processes, she
  also has epilepsy.
  Esther
                 [WARD 5]
  15  STR[2]13   DEX
  13   CON
  15   BODY
  8     INT
  15  EGO 10   PRE
  10   COM 6     PD
  6     ED
  3    SPD
  6     REC
  30   END
  25   STUN
  Powers and Skills: Esther has no superhuman powers but any character with psionic pow-
  ers will notice something “odd” about her psyche, as if some of her memories were re-
  corded from someone else’s perspective. Her skills include PS: Seamstress 11-, KS: Sewing
  11-, KS: The Bible 13-, and WF with Knives and Straight Razors. She has +2 to Hearing
  PER Rolls.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Pathological Sinner (Common, Strong),
  Psychological Limitation: Nosy and Curious (Common, Moderate).
  Appearance: A white female in her forties with a disheveled appearance. She sullenly watches
  everyone in the ward, from the patients to the orderlies, and frequently can be found lean-
  ing forward and listening in on other people’s conversations.
  Notes: Esther has been incarcerated in the Asylum for slashing her husband and
  children to death with a straight razor. A devout churchgoer her entire life, Esther
  seems possessed with a manic desire to commit sins, whether lustful or violent
  (though she is disposed to the later). Her psychiatrist is having difficulty finding
  the reason for her sinful urges. She does not meet many of the criteria for an
  Antisocial Personality Disorder.
  
  Georgina
                  [WARD 3]
  Skills: [Incompetent.] Georgina has all Everyman Skills, including PS: Housewife,
  8- and WF: Knives, but she will not be able to use any of her skills when she is
  having a Major Depressive Episode.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Alcoholic (Common, Strong), Psy-
  chological Limitation: Borderline Personality Disorder (Common, Strong), Psy-
  chological Limitation: Dysthymic Disorder [3] with a superimposed Major De-
  pressive Disorder (Very Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Scars on wrists
  (Concealable, Noticed).
  Appearance: A dull black woman in her early thirties with an average build and
  height, a thick, flat nose, and short black hair cut almost to the scalp. She appears
  slow and passive, and is neatly dressed in a patient uniform.
  Notes: Georgina, a 23 year old Baptist from the Fell’s Point Borough, was referred
  to the Asylum for a court case evaluation. She had a habit of setting fires when she
  was young, was sentenced to a Youth Development Center in Fell’s Point when she
  was seven. Five years later, she was charged with disorderly conduct, and three
  years after that, she was charged with Prostitution and Arson with Aggravated
  Assault and Battery. Recently she has been arrested for Voluntary Manslaughter
  after she stabbed her cousin to death while drunk. After the murder of her cousin,
  she tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists but was found by the police
  before she bled to death.
  Eliza Grant
                  [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Normal with an 8 INT and 11 EGO.] It is not known whether Eliza has
  Everyman Skills or not.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Common Variable Trigger) 11-, 14-, Psychological
  Limitation: Borderline Personality Disorder (Common, Strong)
  Appearance: A small black female in her early thirties with a slightly unkempt
  appearance. She has dark black skin and large, bright eyes. She tends to rush around
  the ward talking loudly to herself in disconnected sentences.
  Notes: Eliza (pronounced “Uh-lee-zuh”) is 29 years old. She is anxious to leave the
  Asylum as soon as possible because she feels it’s “a hideous, ugly place, an’ I don’t
  belong here.” A bundle of emotions, she acts immature most of the time and is
  alternately depressed, reactionary, hypersensitive, dependent and uses suicidal ges-
  tures as a dramatic means of getting attention. She has had several outbursts of
  violence (three) since her arrival in the Asylum a few months ago. She is extremely
  sensitive to any situation where someone appears to be taking advantage of her
  and may lash out with violence in order to “protect herself.”
  
  Ivana
     [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Skills: [Senior Citizen with a 5 INT and 5 EGO.] Ivana has no Everyman Skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological/Physical Limitation: Advanced Dementia (Very
  Common, Total), Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Frequently, Greatly),
  Age: 60+
  Appearance: This tiny, elderly white woman wanders silently around the ward.
  She wears a thin brown button-up sweater over a patient uniform that appears
  much too big for her and sags in many places. Her face is relatively smooth of
  wrinkles, but her ghostly white hair and emaciated appearance betrays her age...
  her legs and arms are like gnarled sticks. She moves slowly and shows little or no
  reaction to anything going on around her.
  Notes: A daughter of Russian immigrants, Ivana was born in Fell’s Point in 1924
  and was committed in 1952. She was diagnosed as psychotic and mentally defi-
  cient when she first arrived at the Asylum, but has become mute and withdrawn
  over the decades. Prior to her admission to the hospital she was experiencing peri-
  ods of depression and disorientation and on several occasions had wandered away
  from home with no destination. From all reports, she was developing normally
  until age three, when she was thrown down a flight of stairs and seriously injured
  the front of her head.
  Her psychotic symptoms and her wanderings away from home apparently
  began after the death of her parents. She has shown no improvement since coming
  to the Asylum; Ivana can no longer care for herself and needs almost constant
  supervision. While she was capable of talking when admitted, she is presently to-
  tally mute. It is unclear whether she is deaf, partially blind, or simply unrespon-
  sive.
  Jami “J.J.” Jackson
                  [WARD 4]
  Powers and Skills: [Incompetent.] Jami has +1 Sight PER Rolls, all Everyman Skills
  (except Deduction) including PS: Hotel Maid and Waitress on an 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged if she feels “threatened” by a character (Common)
  14-, 8-, Psychological Limitation: Paranoid Schizophrenia with Delusions (Very
  Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Suspicious and Hostile (Not Concealable,
  Major)
  Appearance: A black woman, maybe in her mid-thirties, dressed in baggy street
  clothes. Her hair is long and flares out in a halo around her head, and her ears are
  large. She appears guarded and suspicious, and she glares at everyone on the ward
  with barely-restrained hostility... any PC matching her gaze will hear her murmur
  what sounds like a threat under her breath.
  Notes: Jami (pronounced as “Jamie”) is a 33 year old divorcee from the Borough
  with a criminal record of Assault, Harassment, and Trespassing. Suspicious,
  guarded and hostile, she is quick to say that she’s not a Fell’s Point native, that she
  lived in Hudson City Northside for a year and owns a house there. Her delusions
  and persecution complex tends to revolve around “people” who took her house
  and her life away from her. If she feels threatened by a character (GM’s discre-
  tion), she will try to ambush them in one of the shadowy corridors of the Asylum.
  During the attack she will kick the character repeatedly, then try and claw out the
  character’s eyes with her fingernails. While attacking she will hiss under her breath,
  “ain’t gonna get my house THIS time,” followed by a stream of disconnected words.
  
  Jo Anne
                [WARD 2]
  Powers and Skills: [Incompetent, with a 9 INT.] Jo has +1” Running (6” Total)
  and has the standard range of Everyman Skills, including AK: Asylum 8-, CK:
  Fell’s Point 8-, and PS: Cook on an 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Pyromania (Common, Strong), Psy-
  chological Limitation: Schizophrenia (Common, Strong, but currently in remis-
  sion due to medication... it is now Common, Moderate), Distinctive Features:
  Mild Schizophrenic Behavior (Concealable, Noticed).
  Appearance: A pale white female in her twenties, this patient is tall and thin, with
  straight whitish blond hair, blue eyes and a “willowy” appearance. She appears
  clean, neat and alert to her surroundings.
  Notes: Jo is 22 years old and single. She lived with her two brothers until she was
  abandoned by her mother when she was three and the three of them were sent to
  the Fell’s Point Orphanage. From there, she was shuttled from the foster home to
  foster home in a cycle for eight years (living in five different homes during this
  period). She first displayed signs of her pyromania when she was eleven and burned
  down the fourth foster home she stayed at, badly burning the family that had
  taken her in. She remained at the fifth and last foster home until she was sixteen,
  at which point she dropped out of school, and took a job as a meat-cutter in a
  Fell’s Point deli in the Southside. Jo has a tendency to collapse under stress, and
  once attempted suicide because of her Pyromania. She is believed to have prob-
  lems with sex in general, and turns to fire-setting for sexual gratification.
  Katie, The Birdiladi
                  [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent with a 7 INT and 7 EGO.] Katie has no Everyman skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia (Common,
  Strong), Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Frequently, Greatly), Distinctive Fea-
  tures (Psychosomatic): Schizophrenic Behavior (Not Concealable, Major), Distinctive Fea-
  tures: Heavy make-up (Concealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: This patient is small white female in her early twenties, with long, straight
  black hair that hangs in tangles from her head. It is possible that one of her parents were
  Oriental, for her eyes are dark, almost like ink, and there are slight epicanthic folds at the
  corners of her eyes. Her dark eyes are made more striking by thick blue eyeliner, and rouge
  has been applied to her cheeks so heavily that it makes her appear like a life-size Raggedy
  Ann doll. Despite the care she has taken with her appearance, she shrinks from others on
  the ward, and behaves oddly, slapping herself occasionally and making chirping noises.
  Notes: Katie is twenty-one and single. Despite her odd behavior, she tries to keep herself in “control,”
  especially during therapy sessions because she desperately wants to be discharged. Unfortunately, her
  psychotic symptoms are likely to prevent this from ever happening: Katie has auditory hallucinations
  and believes there is a bird in her head that communicates to her through whistles and chirps... when
  the bird becomes restless and flaps around in her skull, she slaps her head violently to make it calm
  down.
  Katie is extremely defensive and sexually immature, with no idea how to react around men.
  Her appearance reflects this immaturity... she wants men, but she doesn’t know how to behave to get
  one. Her uncertainty is evident if a male PC approaches her; she will shrink back violently and at-
  tempt to walk away as fast as possible. When she lived in Fell’s Point with her mother (a Korean; her
  father is dead), she would often create problems by making advances to males by staring at them
  intently, being highly made up, and walking unescorted through dangerous parts of the city.
  A doctor examining Katie will be able to tell that she has been pregnant in the past. What
  happened to her child, however, is unknown. If asked about it, Katie will give a strange, drugged smile
  and chirp, flapping her hands.
  
  Lauren
                 [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Use the Skilled Normal template for Lauren’s Manic Episode and the Incompetent template
  for her Depressive Phase.] Lauren has the full range of Everyman Skills (plus PS: Nurse 11-, Para-
  medic 11-, AK: Local Hospital 11- and WF: Syringes), although when she is in the Depressive Epi-
  sode of her Bipolar Disorder, she must make an EGO Roll in order to use any of her skills or to
  defend herself.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Bipolar I Mood Disorder (Common, Strong). While
  having a Manic Episode, Lauren has the following Disadvantages: Enraged (Variable Trigger, Com-
  mon, GM’s discretion), 8-, 8- and Distinctive Features: Manic (Not Concealable, Major). In her De-
  pressive Phase, she has Distinctive Features: Depressed (Concealable, Recognized).
  Appearance: An extremely thin woman, perhaps in her early twenties, this patient has curly blond
  hair (tied in a ponytail) that reaches down past her shoulder. She wears a slightly disheveled green
  uniform and moves fitfully, like a bird.
  Notes: Lauren, 23, was once a registered nurse at a local hospital, but she lost her
  job after a psychotic episode where she anesthetized several patients and deliv-
  ered them to the wrong operations. A month after losing her job, she tried to kill
  herself and was admitted to the Asylum for an evaluation. She has been in the
  Asylum for a year and has not shown any signs of recovery. She has been known
  to attack staff and patients during her manic phases.
  Louisa
              [WARD 7B]
  Skills: [Normal with 12 STR, 7 INT, 7 EGO.] She has a limited range of Everyman Skills (Conceal-
  ment, Shadowing, Stealth 8-), plus Survival [Urban] 8-, AK: Fell’s Point Borough 8-, and 2 points of
  Language (English). She is illiterate and can only write her own name. She cannot do simple math
  (3+3).
  25+ Disadvantages: At times, Louisa can become hostile and threatening. This should be treated as
  the Enraged Disadvantage (8-, 14-) with a variable, Uncommon trigger. She also has the Psychologi-
  cal Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with Delusions and Hallucinations (Common, Strong),
  Physical Limitation: Limited Everyman Skills (Infrequently, Slightly), Distinctive Features (Psycho-
  somatic): Retarded Schizophrenic (Not Concealable, Major), Distinctive Features (Psychosomatic):
  Echopraxia (mimics motions of others around her, Not Concealable, Major), Distinctive Features:
  Scars on wrists and neck (Concealable, Noticed).
  Appearance: This patient is a black female in her thirties. Her features are unfocused and slack, sug-
  gesting a certain level of retardation, and she moves stiffly (her left leg is held straight when she
  moves, making her walk as if she has a peg-leg). She wears a ragged patient uniform and has a dishev-
  eled appearance. Occasionally, she mimics the motions of others near her (echopraxia).
  Notes: Louisa is a 34 year old, single female. She has been admitted to the Asylum
  six times (when not in the Asylum, she lives on the streets of the Fell’s Point Bor-
  ough). She has a criminal record and has been incarcerated in the Fell’s Point
  House of Corrections for Robbery, Theft, Assault and Aggravated Assault. Extremely
  delusional and occasionally violent, she does not understand (or care) that she
  has committed crimes and is more concerned with making sure the staff  and
  patients know that she is pregnant with six children (who are already talking to
  her: auditory hallucinations) and that some of the other patients on the ward are
  stealing her money. She has a history of numerous suicide attempts and assaultive
  behavior on staff and patients. When answering a question, her speech tends to be
  long and confusing.
  
  Maria
               [WARD 3]
  Skills: [Incompetent with a 6 INT and 6 EGO.] No Everyman Skills except for
  Language (3 Points). She is illiterate.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia
  with Auditory Hallucinations (Common Strong), Physical Limitation: No
  Everyman Skills (Moderate Mental Retardation, Frequently, Greatly), Distinc-
  tive Features: Schizophrenic, child-like behavior (Not Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: A white female in her early twenties who speaks in an excited, child-
  like manner. She is clean, neat and wears bright dresses on the wards, favoring
  yellow and pink over other colors.
  Notes: Maria is 26 years old and mildly retarded. She has auditory hallucinations of her mother’s
  voice telling her to hurt herself, and can become angry when “bossed around or told what to do.”
  (She has never become violent during one of these infrequent displays of anger; it is more like a
  pique.) Maria prefers to talk about herself and gets extremely excited about clothes (she hates the
  green patient uniforms, and is glad that she “has clothes of her own”). Her sense of time and place is
  not good, and she is frequently confused about the year, date and the time of day.
  Maria’s family situation is something of a mystery. Some records indicate that she has a fa-
  ther and a brother... others insist that she was raised in the Fell’s Point Orphanage. One record even
  goes so far as to mention that Maria has a daughter (which the record claims she gave birth to in the
  Asylum). If the subject of her “daughter” is brought up, Maria becomes visibly agitated, shaking her
  head, stuttering, and scratching at her upper right arm, as if trying to remove something. After a few
  minutes of this (and a slow disintegration in coherency of her speech and mannerisms), she will
  burst into tears and scream repeatedly that “she doesn’t want to smile anymore.” The Asylum staff
  will quickly usher her into the Medical Ward, and after a few days of recovery, Maria will return,
  behaving normally.
  Mary Jane
                 [WARD 5]
  Skills: [Normal with 6 INT and 7 EGO.] Mary Jane has a limited range of Everyman
  Skills, including Climbing, Stealth (both at 8 or less) and Language: English at the
  three point level. She also has WF: Knives.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Paranoid Schizophrenia (Common,
  Strong), Psychological Limitation: Mixed Personality Disorder (Common, Mod-
  erate), Psychological Limitation: Drug Addiction, Weak (Various Drugs, especially
  alcohol, cocaine and heroin), Physical Limitation: Limited Everyman Skills (In-
  frequently, Slightly), 2D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: An emaciated, white female in her mid to late thirties dressed in
  standard patient “greens.” She has long brown hair, a tense face, and light brown
  eyes that dart across the ward as if looking for something.
  Notes: Mary Jane (33) tends to be sullen and expresses occasional irritation and anxiety, including
  chewing her tongue. She reacts badly to criticism, is excessively sensitive and defensive and believes
  that other people (staff and patients) know more about her than they claim to. When confronted
  with a difficult situation, she tends to withdraw, either physically or emotionally (usually whichever
  one is easier... or both if the circumstance is extremely distressing).
  Mary Jane has a long history of drug abuse, mostly amphetamines and cocaine. She has a
  criminal record: one charge of Assault involving a young boy in her neighborhood (the details are
  unclear and not listed in her file), and she was sent to the Fell’s Point Municipal Hospital after an
  accidental drug overdose which left her in a coma for four days.
  Mary Jane was admitted to the Asylum ten years ago after she threatened to roast her niece in
  the oven; even before this incident, however, her family was forced to lock Mary Jane in her room at
  night and hide all the kitchen knives in the house. Since her arrival at the Asylum, Mary Jane has
  expressed several murderous thoughts against her family and some against the patients and staff as
  well.
  
  Monica
                 [WARD 3]
  Skills: [Incompetent with an 11 STR and 10 BODY.] No Everyman Skills except
  for English Language (speaking only, 3 points) and Stealth 8- plus -1” Running
  and -1 to Hearing PER Rolls.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Dissociative Amnesia (Common,
  Strong), Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with Auditory
  Hallucinations (Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Overweight and Loud,
  Booming Voice (Not Concealable, Recognizable)
  Appearance: A large, overweight, well-groomed black woman in her late thirties.
  Her lower body looks disproportionally large compared to her upper half, and
  she speaks in a loud, booming voice when talking with others. When by herself,
  she laughs occasionally, as if listening to a private joke.
  Notes: Monica is 38 years old. She was admitted to the Asylum after she was picked
  up by the police in the Southside carrying a pistol without a license. While the
  police questioned her, she explained that she was often hearing things, such as
  people saying things to her “that made me laugh.” Shortly after she was picked up
  by the police, Monica was referred to the Asylum for diagnosis and treatment, and
  she has remained there for the past few months with no change in her condition.
  She still does not realize why she is hospitalized and just wants to “get off th’ medi-
  cine” and “get out of th’ hospital.” The Asylum psychiatrists have noticed that she
  has several gaps in her long term memory.
  Mustang Sally
               [WARD 8A]
  Skills: [Normal with 8 INT, 9 EGO, and 14 COM.] Standard Everyman Skills,
  Contact: Asylum Cook 11-, Persuasion 11- and Seduction at an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Dependent Personality Disorder
  (Common, Moderate), Psychological Limitation: Histrionic Personality Disorder
  (Very Common, Moderate), Psychological Limitation: Nymphomaniac (Common,
  Strong), Distinctive Features: Seductive (Concealable, Noticed).
  Appearance: A sexy, vibrant teenager with short, dirty blond hair and an attrac-
  tive figure. She always wears short dresses, with no panties or a bra, and often
  watches the male employees as they go about their duties.
  Notes: Sally is a sexy sixteen year old who loves to flirt. She acts shamelessly with the male staff,
  hanging on them and calling them “Daddy.” She carries on conversations easily, and she frequently
  talks about how she would like to leave the Asylum and get married. Characters who speak to her for
  any length of time will notice that she keeps bringing the conversation back around to the subject of
  dinnertime. Anyone who follows Sally’s daily routine will discover the reason for her preoccupa-
  tion: after dinner, the Asylum dietitian leaves the institution, and she goes into the kitchen and
  socializes with the male cooks. She is having an affair with one of them, and they have sex in his
  office just off the kitchen almost everyday. Afterwards, he usually gives her pastries, apples, pie and
  cake to take back to her cell late at night. Sally’s sexual escapades have become the subject of many
  cruel jokes around the Asylum.
  Sally is pregnant, although she does not know it yet... her lover has a wife and several chil-
  dren and will be fired if his involvement is discovered. As soon as the Asylum staff becomes aware
  that Sally is pregnant, PCs may notice that they begin to take an inordinate amount of interest in
  her.
  
  Norma Rae
               [WARD 8A]
  Skills: [Normal with 11 DEX and 8 EGO.] Paramedic 8-, Seduction 11- and Con-
  tact: Asylum Staff Member (Male) at an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Borderline Personality Disorder
  (Uncommon, Moderate), Psychological Limitation: Histrionic Personality Disor-
  der (Very Common, Moderate).
  Appearance: This woman is a slender Caucasian in her early twenties. She is neatly
  dressed, clean, and with curly blond hair and a perky cheerfulness about her. Her
  nose is tilted upward slightly, and it gives an attractive lift to her entire face.
  Notes: Norma Rae, 21 years old, was abandoned in the Asylum five years ago by her mother, who now
  lives in Hudson City. Bright and cheerful, Norma is treated almost like one of the attendants in her
  ward; sometimes when the staff nurses are short-handed, she helps take care of the mentally retarded
  patients and helps administer medications to the other patients. At first, Norma appears to be an ideal
  member to have in the ward, but any character who watches her for more than a few hours (male PCs
  may discover this immediately) will notice her unhealthy interest in the opposite sex. Norma is ex-
  tremely popular with men (both patients and staff), and if characters aren’t careful to keep away from
  her, they will find themselves in jealous entanglements with angry male staff members and patients.
  Norma finds these conflicts extremely exciting and often goes out of her way to feed the fires between
  characters vying for her attention.
  Norma is the source of many items smuggled into the Asylum. With her many contacts among
  the male staff, she often receives expensive gifts, including drugs and alcohol, and barters them for
  other favors. These items are occasionally turned into homemade weapons or are sold on the Asylum
  black market for other items.
  Margo Roche
                 [WARD 2]
  Skills: [Incompetent with a 9 INT, 12 PRE and 14 COM.] She has the standard range of Everyman
  Skills, both an Asylum Psychiatrist and an Asylum Orderly as Contacts (11-) and the Seduction skill
  at an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Psychological Limitation: Bipolar Mood Disorder (Common, Strong, currently
  approaching Manic episode), Psychological Limitation: Histrionic Personality Disorder (Common,
  Moderate...only when in Manic Phase), Psychological Limitation: Nymphomaniac (Common, Strong),
  Distinctive Features: See Appearance, below (Not Concealable, Major) and 2D6 Unluck.
  Appearance: This woman looks like a department store mannequin. A slender white female with an
  attractive nose, bright blue eyes and a beautiful face, she has forsaken the standard patient uniform
  and seems to prefer wearing bright, revealing clothes. Her hair is light brown, so light as to be almost
  blond, and a cloud of perfume wafts behind her when she moves.
  Notes: Margo is a desperately lonely woman. She admitted herself to the Asylum
  less than two weeks ago due to escalating problems in her personal life (her hus-
  band, away on a business trip, is unaware that she has checked herself into the
  Asylum). She has often entertained the thought of killing herself, which usually
  surfaces after one of her “binges,” including spending her husband’s money on
  vanities (clothes, a new car, and so on) as well as being unfaithful to him while he
  is on business trips. She regards all the psychiatrists in purely sexual terms, likes to
  moan for no reason during interview sessions, and does her best to be seductive.
  If rejected by a PC, she becomes sullen and cloudy, then tries a new approach the
  next day until she succeeds.
  
  Rosebelle
                 [WARD 4]
  Skills: [Incompetent with 6 INT and 6 EGO.] She has no Everyman Skills except
  for Language: English (2 points, comprehension; she is illiterate) and Stealth at an
  8 or less. Rosebelle will run away if attacked.
  25+ Disadvantages: Physical Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Severe Mental Re-
  tardation), Psychological Limitation:  Major Depressive Disorder with Hallucina-
  tions (Common, Strong), Distinctive Features (Psychosomatic): Obviously De-
  pressed (Not Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: A short, obese black woman who appears to be in her late thirties but
  acts like she is six or seven. Withdrawn and silent, she frequently picks at her pa-
  tient uniform or else sits in a corner of the ward, tearing up bits of trash. She looks
  as if she is sulking and ignores people who come close to her.
  Notes: Rosebelle is a single woman, 36, who was admitted to the Asylum twenty years ago. She suf-
  fered considerable physical and sexual abuse from her brother ever since she was ten, and there has
  been little or no change in her condition since she arrived at the Asylum: she is withdrawn, regressed,
  and sometimes remains mute for days. She hoards and tear up trash on the ward, then wads it into
  the toilets in soggy clumps (“to keep the foul water from gettin’ in,” she explains), and has occasional
  hallucinations (whose content is unspecified). If the GM is in doubt to how she would respond in a
  situation, she generally acts like a seven year old.
  Rosebelle sometimes pats her belly, smiling and murmuring “all gone now.” Records indicate
  that she gave birth to a son while at the Asylum almost ten years ago and that the child was turned
  over to her family in Fell’s Point. Characters who follow up on this information, however, will dis-
  cover that Rosebelle has no family in Fell’s Point (her brother died when she was twenty-three). If
  asked what happened to the child, Rosebelle will give a slow, wide smile (which looks forced) and
  then shrug, as if it is not important. The smile will remain on her face for several hours.
  Mary Smith
                  [WARD 2]
  Powers and Skills: [Incompetent with 7 INT, 7 EGO.] She has +2” Running (7” Total), but no Everyman
  Skills. She can only comprehend English at the 1 point Language level, although she frequently gives
  no sign of having heard the speaker and will not obey the commands of the staff.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged if someone comes within one foot of her (Very Common) 11-, 8-, Psy-
  chological Limitation: Schizophrenia with Delusions and Hallucinations (Very Common, Total), Physi-
  cal Limitation: No Everyman Skills (Frequently, Greatly), Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behav-
  ior (Not Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: A black girl in her late teens, this patient seems to spend most of her time in seclusion,
  getting into fights, or yelling at others on the ward. She often lies motionless, back flat against the
  wall, peering out fearfully from behind her fingers. She bristles when anyone walks by, and her eyes
  dart back and forth... if anyone comes within a foot of her, she screams. Once in a while she shields
  her face with her arms, as if warding off blows, and kicks her legs wildly while making choking sobs
  and screams.
  Notes: Mary Smith (18 yrs. old) used to live in one of the worst neighborhoods in
  the Borough. If she went outside, the boys would make her take off all her clothes
  and run around the street naked. If she refused or resisted, they would beat her.
  Raped once when she was thirteen and again when she fifteen, her mother, no
  longer able to protect her at home, had her admitted to the Asylum, where she has
  been for the past three years. Drugs have no effect on Mary’s condition. Calm at
  meals, she eats mechanically, and she never responds to anyone else on the ward.
  When someone comes too close, Mary cries out like a cornered animal and
  launches herself at the person, clawing, slapping and biting... if she can reach the
  character’s eyes, she will claw them out or wrap her arms around the character’s
  neck and squeeze as hard as she can. After incidents like these, the orderlies gener-
  ally subdue her and throw her in seclusion.
  
  Susan
              [WARD 7B]
  Skills: [Normal with 13 STR, 9 INT, 7 EGO, and 8 COM.] Susan has the standard
  range of Everyman Skills (AK: The Fell’s Point Borough 8-), but no other skills or
  talents.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged when under stress (i.e., when she gains a Stress Level
  or is hit with a Presence Attack; Common) 8-, 11-, Psychological Limitation: Bor-
  derline Personality Disorder (Common, Strong), Distinctive Features: Scars on
  wrists (Concealable, Noticed)
  Appearance: This tall black female looks to be in her early thirties, with thick
  arms and broad shoulders. She towers over many of the other females in the ward.
  Her face looks soft and passive, and she shows little expression or interest in her
  environment. She is neatly dressed in large sweaters, jeans and sneakers, and
  shuffles about the ward rather than walks.
  Notes: Susan is 32 years old and married. She had an emotionally troubled child-
  hood and spent most of her youth in the Fell’s Point Orphanage. In the past five
  years that she has been at the Asylum, she has made eight suicide attempts. When-
  ever she talks about her suicide attempts, she always describes them in strangely
  distant terms; she says that sometimes “things come over her,” which she can nei-
  ther describe or explain.
  Despite her passive appearance, Susan is extremely sensitive to her environ-
  ment and dependent on it. When she fails to receive positive support from other
  characters, she usually attempts to manipulate them through various attention-
  seeking behaviors, often becoming seductive, controlling, and demanding in so-
  cial situations (i.e., a Borderline Personality Disorder). Under stress, she can be-
  come extremely hostile, suspicious and depressed, and if she finds herself in a
  confusing situation, she must make an EGO Roll or else she will run away or at-
  tack what she considers to be the source of her confusion or distress.
  Angela Dross
                   [WARD 5]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with an 8 INT and an 11 EGO.] Angela is telepathically sensitive and has
  Mental Awareness, Activation 9- (-1 1/2), Clairsentience with Mental Awareness, Activation 9- (-1 1/
  2), along with Retrocognition [1] with Time as a Range Modifier (-1/2), Activation 9- (-1 1/2), but the
  Retrocognition provides vague information only (-1; see UM). Angela also possesses Images vs. Men-
  tal Awareness, 0 END (+1/2), No Range (-1/2), No Conscious Control [2] (-1). Angela has limited
  Everyman Skills plus AK: Southside and PS: Store Clerk at an 8 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Enraged (Variable Trigger, Uncommon to Common) 14-, 8-, Psychological Limi-
  tation: Depressive Symptoms (Uncommon, Moderate), Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia with Somatic Delusions and Auditory and Tactile Hallucinations [3] (Very Common,
  Strong), Psychological Limitation: Racist (this is irrespective of her disorder but factors into her para-
  noid ideas, Common, Moderate), Physical Limitation: Limited Everyman Skills (due to Schizophre-
  nia, Infrequently, Slightly), Distinctive Features: Disorganized Behavior (Not Concealable, Major).
  Appearance: A black woman in her mid-thirties. She is dressed in normal street clothes except for
  what looks like a sheet or white bandage wrapped around her head like a turban. She stands about 5’6”
  and is a little on the thin side. She appears well-groomed and neat.
  Notes: Angela is thirty-five years old and has been in and out of the Asylum for the past eleven years.
  She has a criminal record and was admitted to the Asylum five months ago.
  Angela’s sense of time is badly distorted (she will refer to the present in the future tense, and
  the past as “now”). This is often followed by a reminder to the listener that she’s not really ill; her
  problems actually revolve around the number of letters in her name, and that if she remarried, then it
  would all be “solved.” She occasionally talks about the “people with no arms and faces walking through
  the Asylum,” and can often be heard complaining about the roaches and bugs crawling in her head.
  She claims they wouldn’t be there if the Asylum was cleaned more often.
  Angela is a racist and distrusts all whites, who she claims are “all out to kill her.” If asked to
  elaborate, she will launch into a long diatribe about how white people have been hounding her and
  her family for years, and how they finally put an end to her husband and her two children “but that
  didn’t quiet them none, cause I can still hear them keep calling me bad names.” She can stop the voices
  by wrapping a wet sheet or towel around her head.
  She likes attention and becomes paranoid when ignored, blaming it on the staff members and
  their drugs. She gets angry easily and has attacked other patients in the past.
  
  Betty Pleasants
    [ROSS HOUSE: GERIATRIC WARD]
  Powers and Skills: [Senior Citizen with a 9 INT and 8 EGO.] Betty is telepathically sensitive and
  possesses Mental Awareness, 360 Degree Sensing (+10). [3] She has a limited selection of Everyman
  Skills, including TF: Automobiles (although she is a poor driver and forgets to stop at red lights),
  English (3 Points), AK: Fell’s Point Suburbs (Colonial Heights) 8-, PS: Knitting at an 11 or less.
  25+ Disadvantages: Vulnerability: x2 Effect from Psionic Powers [4] (Common), Psychological Limi-
  tation: Delusional Disorder (?) with Visual and Tactile Hallucinations (“Rays,” Very Common, Strong),
  Physical Limitation: Limited Everyman Skills (Infrequently, Slightly), Age: 40+, 1 Stress Level/Day
  Dependency (Psychosomatic) on Plastic-lined clothes, Distinctive Features: Plastic-lined clothes (Eas-
  ily Concealable, Noticed), 1D6 STUN Susceptibility from psionically saturated environments (i.e.,
  the Asylum).
  Appearance: A white female, around fifty or so, with a troubled face and round, silver-rimmed spec-
  tacles. She wears a black wide-brimmed hat (lined with what seems to be plastic), and a few small
  gray curls peek out from beneath its brim. She has a tendency to pace back and forth, and she wears
  a heavy floral dress that drapes down to her ankles.
  Notes: Betty is fifty-five and claims she is being irradiated through the ceiling of the Asylum. As Betty
  is quick to relate, the problem all started several years ago when the “rays” began to emanate from the
  roof of her house. The rays eventually became so bad that she had to sleep under long sheets of plastic
  at night to get away from “the pesky things.” She called the police several times about the problem, but
  whenever they came, the rays went away. She tried to move away from her home, but the “rays” came
  into her car and moved in with her. If any character does not appear to believe her, she will smile
  consolingly (she may pat the character’s hand reassuringly) and say that it’s all right, and not to trouble
  themselves humoring her... she is used to people not believing her. If PCs do seem to believe her, she
  will look relieved and pull up the sleeve of her dress and show them the burns she has received from
  the “rays” (it may be actual radiation or a psychosomatic reaction to what she is perceiving). The
  medical staff have explained away her burns as some form of allergic reaction.
  Betty was admitted to the Asylum about a month and a half ago and is able to take care of
  herself without much help from the staff. She becomes significantly distressed if anyone attempts to
  “wean” her of her plastic-lined hat or dress. If her plastic-lined clothes are removed, the psychosomatic
  burns will begin to carpet her body like a fungus.
  Gurney Wallace
  [WARD 6]
  Powers and Skills: [Normal with 9 STR, 5 INT and 5 EGO.] Gurney possesses Mental Awareness with
  an 11- Activation, and he can Push his STR to maniacal levels (+5) in order to free himself from straps
  or restraints. Gurney possesses no Everyman Skills.
  25+ Disadvantages: Vulnerability: x2 Effect from all Psionic Powers (Gurney is a “user-friendly” Schizo-
  phrenic Psychic), Psychological Limitation: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia (Very Common, Total),
  Distinctive Features: Scars on Forehead and Broken Nose (Concealable, Major) and Distinctive Fea-
  tures: Schizophrenic Behavior (Smashes head against walls, Not Concealable, Extreme)
  Appearance: A short, wiry Caucasian man in his early thirties. He has curly red hair, a crooked nose,
  bloodshot eyes and heavy scarring on his forehead and wrists. He is usually dressed in a pair of faded
  green pajamas, torn at the knees and arms, and they are so loose in places that they look like they are
  almost falling off of him. When strapped down, he screams incessantly, breaking into shrieking sobs
  and howls and tearing at the straps that hold him in place. When freed, he will run to the nearest wall
  and smash his forehead into it as fast and as hard as he can.
  Notes: Gurney no longer makes any sense to the staff or to himself. Picked up from a homeless shelter
  in Fell’s Point, Gurney has no identification, no medical history, and is incapable of any sort of speech
  other than babbling incoherently. Whenever he is left alone and unrestrained, he runs at the nearest
  wall and begins to pound his head against it. Usually Gurney is placed in a locked padded seclusion
  room for his own safety, and even then, he has to be strapped down to a bare mattress so that he will
  not smash his head against the wire mesh window in the room. When strapped down, he screams at
  the top of his lungs, sweats profusely and rolls around, straining against his restraints.
  Gurney is a former Army volunteer who was injected with a series of experimental hallucino-
  gens by the CIA (he was considered one of the project’s “less receptive” subjects and abandoned). The
  hallucinogens gave Gurney the power to perceive the use of Mental Powers, but it also gave him an
  undetectable neurological condition that makes him feel as if a colony of fire ants are nesting in his
  brain. It is unlikely there is a cure for his condition.
  Gurney is a “user-friendly” schizophrenic psychic (see Schizophrenic Psychics, above). He can
  be used as a drone (i.e., operated from a distance with Mind Control) and used as a human time
  bomb. While Mind Controlled, the pain of Gurney’s neurological condition can be dampened to give
  him the appearance of normalcy.
  
  236
  236
  FUZION™
  Information
  This section contains FUZION™ write-ups for the
  various characters mentioned in this book, as well as
  conversion notes for the various Powers and Compli-
  cations. This information is arranged in the same or-
  der that it appears in New Bedlam Asylum.
  Chapter Zero: Preludez
  Sally Robinson
  INT
  5
  WILL 5
  PRE 4
  TECH 4
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Contacts (The Idiot King  1; The Poet 2;
  Investigative Reporter 2; Dr. Shreiver 1); Bureacratices 3;
  Criminology 3; Deduction 3; Latin 6; Oratory 3; Persausion
  3; Expert (Law) 2; Expert (Library Research) 2; Expert (Un-
  derworld Enemies) 2; Professional (Defense Attorney) 2;
  Science (Computer Science) 2
  Important Complications: Dependant (Carol Robinson,
  Mother), Hunted by Crusade; Near-Sighted (Must wear
  glasses), Psych Lim: Living in the Past; Psych Lim: Obses-
  sion with the Asylum; Public ID; Watched by the Asylum;
  Watched by the CIA
  Chapter One: Asylum Grounds
  The Poet
  INT
  3
  WILL 5
  PRE 4
  TECH 3
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Hand-to-Hand 3; Hand-to-Hand Evade
  3; Ranged Evade 3; Danger Sense (Detect Any Attack) 10;
  Contortionist 3; Criminology 3; Deduction 3; Local Expert
  (Asylum) 4; Expert (Asylum Subculture) 1; Expert (Box-
  ing) 2; Paramedic 3; Sleight of Hand 3; Streetwise 1
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Code vs. Killing;
  Psych Lim: Persona Personality Disorder; Watched by the
  Asylum; Mysterty ID (J. Hess Curtis)
  Sharon Ferry
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 6
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  2
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Gnarled Cane: +1 DC to STR attacks;
  Mental Defense 10; Power Defense 10; Enraged Strength:
  +1 STR; +5 SD, +5 ED (Only when Enraged, -2 PP); Stealth
  3; Shadowing 5
  Important Complications: Vulnerability (2x Effect from
  Mind Control and Hypnosis); Vulnerability (2x STUN to
  any attack aimed at her legs); Berserker (Enraged if Char-
  acters try to force their way past her); Psych Lim: Gandiose
  Delusional Disorder with Religious, Somatic and Delusions
  of Reference; Psych Lim: Pain Disorder; Distinctive Features:
  Obvious limp and pain in her movements; Watched by the
  Asylum; Mystery ID
  Chapter Two: Staff
  Physicians
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Hand-to-Hand: 3; Bureaucratics 1; Para-
  medic 3; Local Expert (Asylum) 2; Expert (Asylum Patients
  in their Ward) 2; Expert (Personal Hobby or Interest) 2
  Psychiatrist: Add License (Psychiatrist); Conversation 3;
  Persuasion 3; Professional (Psychiatrist); Science (Psychol-
  ogy) 3
  Doctor: Add License (Doctor); Science (General Medicine) 3
  Administrator: As per Psychiatrist or Doctor above, plus
  Bureaucratics 3
  Important Complications: As per the GM's choice
  
  237
  237
  Dr. Masters
  INT
  7
  WILL 7
  PRE 7
  TECH 6
  REF
  5
  DEX 5
  CON
  4
  STR
  4
  BODY 10 Mov
  4
  SD
  8
  ED
  8
  SPD 4
  Stun
  50 Hits
  50
  Powers & Skills: Hand-to-Hand 4; Firearms 2; Hand-to-
  Hand Evade 4; Ranged Evade 2; Damage Reduction: Physi-
  cal and Energy Attacks; Armor: 20 SD; 20 ED (Must be aware
  of the attack); Mental Defense 10; Presence Defense (+10
  Resistance); Pseudopathy: 8d6 Telepathy, 0 END, Ineffec-
  tive against characters with no human mannerisms (-1 PP);
  Ambidexterity; Blind Fighting; Danger Sense 10; Find
  Weakness (All Attacks) 12; Lucky 3d6; License (Psychiatrist);
  Acting 5; Bureaucratics 3; Conversation 6; Criminology 5;
  Deduction 5; Disguise 5; Forensic Medicine 3; Forgery 5;
  Paramedic 3; Persuasion 6; Seduction 3; Shadowing 5;
  Stealth 6; Tactics 5; Local Expert (Asylum) 3; Expert (Asy-
  lum) 2; Expert (Asylum Subculture) 3; Expert (Asylum
  Files) 2; Professional (Psychiatrist) 6;  Science (Pharmacol-
  ogy) 4; Science (Psychology) 4; +4 Power Points to spend
  as the GM sees fit.
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Quiet Sociopath;
  Distinctive Features: Asylum Doctor
  Nurses
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Hand-to-Hand: 3; License (Nurse); Para-
  medic 3; Local Expert (Asylum) 1; Expert (Asylum Patients
  in their Ward) 2; Expert (Personal Hobby or Interest) 2
  Important Complications: As per the GM's choice
  Orderlies
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  3
  STR
  4
  BODY 5
  Mov
  4
  SD
  6
  ED
  6
  SPD 3
  Stun
  25 Hits
  25
  Powers & Skills: Hand-to-Hand: 4; Hand-to-Hand Evade
  3; Martial Arts (Wrestling);  Local Expert (Asylum) 2; Pro-
  fessional (Orderly) 2; Expert (Asylum Patients in their
  Ward) 2; Expert (Personal Hobby or Interest) 2; Paramedic
  3
  Important Complications: As per the GM's choice
  Domestic Staff
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Local Expert (Asylum) 2; Local Expert
  (Asylum Subsystems) 1; Professional (Janitor)  2; Expert
  (Asylum Subculture) 1
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Social Phobia (the
  "Asylum on th' outside")
  Escape Equipment
  Syringe
  4D6 STUN Drain, Recover 5 pts. per Hour, Focus
  (Grabbable), Fragile (-1 PP), 1 Charge. Cost: 1 PP
  Basic Tranquilizer Gun
  4D6 Ranged STUN Drain, Recover 5 pts. per Hour,
  Focus (Grabbable), 4 Charges. Cost: 7 PP
  Advanced Tranquilizer Gun
  6D6 Energy Blast, AVLD (Power Defense), Focus
  (Grabbable),  4 Charges. Cost: 4 PP
  Net
  Entangle (4D6, KD & EKD 12), Area Effect (2m Radius),
  Focus (Grabbable), 1 Charge. Cost: 1 PP
  Dr. Shreiver
  INT
  5
  WILL 5
  PRE 5
  TECH 4
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  15 Hits
  15
  Powers & Skills: Hypnosis: 8d6 Mind Control, 0 END, DV
  0 when in use, Extra Time: 5 Minutes, Requires a Science
  (Hypnosis) Skill Check of 18 (-1 PP), Incantations (Dr.
  Shreiver must talk to her target, -1 PP); Presence Defense
  (+10 Resistance); Mental Defense 5; Membership (Direc-
  tor of the Asylum), Licenses (Medical Doctor & Psychia-
  trist), Bureaucratics 1; Local Expert (Asylum) 3; Expert
  (Asylum) 3; Expert (Asylum Subculture) 2; Paramedic 3;
  Expert (Cerebellic Mutation) 1; Expert (Contemporary
  Psychiatric Research) 3; Expert (Psychiatric Subculture) 2;
  Professional (Psychiatrist) 5; Science (General Medicine)
  3; Science (Hypnosis) 3; Science (Psychiatry) 5; Science
  (Pharmacology) 5; Professional (College Profession) 3; Pro-
  fessional (Journal Editor) 3; Expert (Greek & Roman
  Myths) 3; Russian (6); Greek (6); Latin (6)
  Important Complications: Physical Limitation: Far-
  Sighted; Psych Lim: A bitter, determined and hostile au-
  thoritarian; Psych Lim: Fear of Spiders; Public ID; Reputa-
  tion: Director of the Asylum; Reputation: Dangerous Psy-
  chiatrist; Watched by the Heretic; Watched by Dr. Morrow
  and the CIA
  Chapter Three: Patientz
  Babyface James
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  5
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Contacts (Pickett, a Fell's Point Fence 1);
  Lockpicking 3; Sleight of Hand 3; Stealth 3; Streetwise 3;
  Local Expert (The Fell's Point Borough) 2
  Important Complications: Reputation: Two-Bit Thief
  Glenn Beckman
  INT
  4
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 3
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Danger Sense (Any Attack) 11; Science
  (Computer Science) 1; Electronics 1; Mechanics 1; Tactics
  1; Professional (High School Counselor) 3; Science (Psy-
  chology) 3
  Important Complications: Vulnerability: 2x STUN from
  Mental Attacks; Berserker: Enraged if contacted Telepathi-
  cally; Psych Lim: Paranoid Schizophrenia; Unlucky;
  Distinctinve Features: Scar on Forehead.
  AVLD (Attack vs.
  Limited Defense):
  An Attack with this
  Adder is affected by
  only limited or
  unusual Defenses.
  Such an attack may
  be directed against
  Mental Defense,
  Power Defense, or
  Flash Defense. This
  Defense must be
  defined when the
  Power is purchased.
  For example, a
  character may buy a
  AVLD vs. Power
  Defense. When the
  Attack is used, the
  dice are rolled, but
  the target's Power
  Defense is used as the
  Defense instead of
  SD or ED. The AVLD
  applies to Energy
  Blasts only.
  AVLD is a +6 PP Adder.
  
  238
  238
  William "Iron Bill" Billings
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 4
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  15 Hits
  15
  Powers & Skills: Local Expert (Fell's Point Penitenitary) 1
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Hostile; Psych Lim:
  Occasional Depressive Symptoms; Psych Lim: Undifferen-
  tiated Schizophrnia; Distinctive Features: Tattoo on Left
  Forearm; Unlucky
  ("Bad") Brian
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note.
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged if Attacked
  or approached in a "father-like" manner; Psych Lim: Bipo-
  lar I Disorder with Psychotic Delusions; Phys Lim: Herion
  Addiction; Phys Lim: Near-Sighted
  Bailey Burr
  INT
  2
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 3
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None, including Everyman Skills
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia with Auditory Halucinations; Psych Lim:
  Borderline Personality Disorder; Phys Lim: No Everyman
  Skills; Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behavior; Dis-
  tinctive Features: Mangled Hands
  "Charlie"
  INT
  3
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Professional (Factory Worker) 2
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia with Paranoid Features and Religious Delu-
  sions; Psych Lim: Alcoholism; Phys Lim: No Everyman
  Skills; Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behavior
  Mr. Clockwork
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged when he feels
  his "timing" has been disrupted; Psych Lim: Bipolar I Mood
  Disorder with Somatic and Persecutory Delusions; Unlucky
  Crease
  INT
  3
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Contortionist 4; Ambidexterity; Local Ex-
  pert (Asylum Crawl Spaces) 1
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Delusional Disor-
  der; Distinctive Features (Psychosomatic): Folding Mental-
  ity
  Isiah Dent
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills; Shadowing 1; Stealth
  1; English 8
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia with Psychotic Symptoms and Delusions of
  Reference; Distinctive Features: Disheveled Appearance
  Jimmy Disel
  INT
  3
  WILL 2
  PRE 4
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  3
  STR
  4
  BODY 6
  Mov
  4
  SD
  6
  ED
  6
  SPD 2
  Stun
  30 Hits
  30
  Powers & Skills: Hand-to-Hand 4; Hand-to-Hand Evade
  4; Professional (Truck Driver) 2
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged when loses
  temper; Psych Lim: Psychotic Episodes; Distinctive Features:
  See Appearance Notes on Page 71.
  Martin Finch, The Handyman
  INT
  4
  WILL 4
  PRE 4
  TECH 4
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  3
  STR
  3
  BODY 5
  Mov
  4
  SD
  6
  ED
  6
  SPD 3
  Stun
  25 Hits
  25
  Powers & Skills: Climbing 1; Shadowing 1; Sleight of Hand 1
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged if accused
  of stealing an item; Psych Lim: Kleptomania; Psych Lim:
  Undifferentiated Schizophrenia; Distinctive Features:
  Slightly Disorganized Speech and Behavior
  Gough Godfrey
  INT
  2
  WILL 1
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  15 Hits
  15
  Powers & Skills: None of note.
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia; Distinctive Features: Disorganized Behav-
  ior; DF: Missing Left Ear; Watched by Asylum Staff; Mys-
  tery ID: Michaelis Saietta
  Juan Guatarez
  INT
  4
  WILL 4
  PRE 4
  TECH 4
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  3
  STR
  3
  BODY 5
  Mov
  4
  SD
  6
  ED
  6
  SPD 3
  Stun
  25 Hits
  25
  Powers & Skills: Shiv: 2D6 Hand-to-Hand Killing Attack, 0
  END, Focus (Grabbable); Hand-to-Hand 3; Melee Weapons
  1; Hand-to Hand Evade 1; Martial Arts (Streetfighting); Con-
  cealment 3; Lockpicking 3; Stealth 3; Streetwise 1; Expert
  (Fell's Point Underworld 1; Professional (Drug Dealer) 2
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Mild Paranoia;
  Hunted by Guamangan assassins
  
  239
  239
  Old Scott Heller
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  5
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills; +1 STR when En-
  raged
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged (see his
  write-up on Page 73); Psych Lim: Undifferentiated  Schizo-
  phrenia with Auditory Hallucinations; Phys Lim: No
  Everyman Skills; Distinctive Features: Screaming
  Cyril "C-Dog" Hooks
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  5
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Contact (Drug Dealer 1); Local Expert
  (Fell's Point Borough) 1
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Alcoholism; Psych
  Lim: Delusional Disorder, Somatic; Psych Lim: Pathologi-
  cal Liar; Phys Lim: Syphilis
  The Invisible Man
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  3
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  15 Hits
  15
  Powers & Skills: Stealth 3
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Delusional Disor-
  der; Distinctive Features: "Naked as a Jaybird"
  Joseph
  INT
  1
  WILL 1
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  15 Hits
  15
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills save English 2
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Dependent Person-
  ality Disorder; Phys Lim: No Everyman Skills
  Neil Kearns
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills save English 5
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Disorganized
  Schizophrenia; Phys Lim: No Everyman Skills; Distinctive
  Features: Incessant, Disconnected Speech; DF: Obese
  Lantern Jack
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  3
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  5
  SD
  6
  ED
  6
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Superleap: +5 m/y
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged when he
  spots a "criminal"; Berserker: Enraged if called a "Hobgob-
  lin Clone"; Psych Lim: Grandiose Delusional Disorder;; Dis-
  tinctive Features: Moves by leaps and bounds
  Leon
  INT
  1
  WILL 1
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  15 Hits
  15
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills; Climbing 1
  Important Complications: Phys Lim: No Everyman Skills;
  Distinctive Features: Retarded. Childish Behavior
  Marrow
  INT
  3
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Perception 3; Contortionist 3; Shadowing
  3; Stealth 3; Professional (Escape Artist) 3; Local Expert
  (Asylum) 2; Local Expert (Asylum Crawl Spaces and Venti-
  lation Subsystems) 5
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Paranoid Schizo-
  phrenia (Believes the CIA is after him); Distinctive Features:
  Schizophrenic Behavior, Disorganized Speech and Behav-
  ior; DF: Feral Appearance
  D. Neumont
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  15 Hits
  15
  Powers & Skills: Perception 3; Expert (Underworld Enemies) 4
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Delusional Disor-
  der
  Noah
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Expert (The Bible) 2
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Bipolar I Mood Dis-
  order with Religious Hallucinations; Distinctive Features:
  Disconnected Speech; DF: See Appearance on Page 77
  Raymond
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 3
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Professional (Cargo Mover) 2
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia with Auditory and Visual Hallucinations;
  Psych Lim: Scared of the Dark; Phys Lim: Limited Everyman
  Skills; Distinctive Features: Bizarre and Disturbed Speech
  Robertson
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Berserker when a sharp object
  is pointed at him; Psych Lim: Antisocial Personality Disor-
  der; Psych Lim: Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with De-
  lusions; Phys Lim: Limited Everyman Skills; Distinctive Fea-
  tures: Schizophrenic Behavior
  
  240
  240
  Michael Tibbet
  INT
  3
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Perception 3
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Paranoid Schizo-
  phrenia with Somatic Delusions; Distinctive Features: Di-
  sheveled Features
  Harold Weinstin
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Local Expert (Fell's Point Chelsea District)
  1; Professional (Pizza Parlor Manager) 2
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged (see Notes
  on page 79); Phys Lim: Undiagnosed Brain Condition; Dis-
  tinctive Features: Shaking Right Hand
  Victoria "Vicki" Atkins
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Vulnerability: 2x Effect from
  Mind Control; Psych Lim: Paranoid Schizophrenia with
  Delusions of Persecution
  Rhetta Bourne
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  2
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia with Depressive Features; Phys Lim: Burns
  and constant pain; Distinctive Features: See Appearance,
  page 80; Hunted by Ashtry Art; Unlucky
  Charlotte Brisk
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  5
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Contact (Male Staff Member 1); Seduc-
  tion 1
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Borderline Person-
  ality Disorder; Psych Lim: Histronic Personality Disorder;
  Psych Lim: Obsequious; Distinctive Features: "Seductive"
  Features
  Carol
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Major Depressive
  Disorder with Guilt and Somatic Delusions; Dependents:
  Husband and Children; Unlucky
  Clarisse
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  3
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  15 Hits
  15
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged if someone
  comes too close to her "without permission"; Psych Lim:
  Paranoid Schizophrenia with Grandious Delusions and
  Auditory Hallucinations; Phys Lim: Alcoholism
  Jennifer Dorsey
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Local Expert (Fell's Point Northside) 1;
  Local Expert (Fell's Point Chelsea District) 2; Local Expert
  (Hudson City) 1; Business 2
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Obsessive-Compul-
  sive Disorder; Psych Lim: Meticlously Neat; Phys Lim: Near-
  Sighted; Distinctive Features: Obsessive-Compulsive Ritual
  Alisha Downs
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Contact (The Baby Man 1); Concealment
  1; Streetwise 1; Expert (Gang Slang) 3
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Psychotic Disorder
  with Delusions and Hallucinations; Psych Lim: Alcoholism;
  Phys Lim: Heroin Addiction; Distinctive Features: Track
  Marks on Arm
  Ellen
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  3
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills save English 4
  Important Complications: Phys Lim: Catatonic; Psych Lim:
  Undifferentiated  Schizophrenia with Delusions and Hal-
  lucinations;  Phys Lim: No Everyman Skills; Distinctive Fea-
  tures: Childish, Schizophrenic Behavior
  Esther
  INT
  3
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Professional (Seamstress) 2; Expert (Sew-
  ing) 2; Expert (The Bible) 5; Perception 4
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Pathological Sinner;
  Psych Lim: Nosy and Curious
  
  241
  241
  Georgina
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Borderline Person-
  ality Disorder; Psych Lim: Alcoholism; Psych Lim: Dysthy-
  mic Disorder with a superimposed Major Despressive Dis-
  order; Distinctive Features: Scars on Wrists
  Eliza Grant
  INT
  2
  WILL 4
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged (see Notes
  on Page 94); Psych Lim: Borderline Personality Disorder
  Ivana
  INT
  1
  WILL 1
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 3
  Mov
  3
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  15 Hits
  15
  Powers & Skills: None
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Advanced Demen-
  tia; Phys Lim: No Everyman Skills
  Jami "J.J." Jackson
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Perception 2; Professional (Maid) 1
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged if she feels
  "threatened" by a character; Psych Lim: Paranoid Schizo-
  phrenia with Delusions; Distinctive Features: Suspicious
  and Hostile
  Jo Anne
  INT
  3
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  5
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Schizophrenia; Psych
  Lim: Pyromaniac; Distinctive Features: Mild Schizophrenic
  Behavior
  Katie, The Birdiladi
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia; Phys Lim: No Everyman Skills; Distinctive
  Features: Schizophrenic Behavior; DF: Heavy Make-Up
  Lauren
  INT
  4
  WILL 4
  PRE 4
  TECH 4
  REF
  5
  DEX 5
  CON
  4
  STR 4
  BODY 6
  Mov
  4
  SD
  8
  ED
  8
  SPD 3
  Stun
  30 Hits
  30
  Powers & Skills: Professional (Nurse) 2; Paramedic 3; Lo-
  cal Expert (Local Hospital) 2
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Bipolar I Mood Dis-
  order
  Louisa
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 3
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Survival (Urban) 1; Local Expert (Fell's
  Point Borough) 1; English 4
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia with Delusions and Hallucinations; Phys
  Lim: Limited Everyman Skills; Distinctive Features: Re-
  tarded; DF: Exhopraxia; DF: Scars on Wrists
  Maria
  INT
  1
  WILL 1
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None except English 3
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Undifferentiated
  Schizophrenia with Auditory Hallucinations;  Phys Lim: No
  Everyman Skills; Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic, child-
  like behavior
  Mary Jane
  INT
  1
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Professional (Factory Worker) 2
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Paranoid Schizo-
  phrenia; Psych Lim: Mixed Personality Disorder; Phys Lim:
  Drug Addiction; Phys Lim: Limited Everyman Skills; Un-
  lucky
  Monica
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  3
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills save Stealth 1 and
  English 6
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Dissociative Amne-
  sia; Psych Lim: Undifferentiated  Schizophrenia with Audi-
  tory Hallucinations; Phys Lim: Limited Everyman Skills;
  Distinctive Features: Overweight and Loud, Booming Voice
  
  242
  242
  Mustang Sally
  INT
  2
  WILL 3
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Contact (Asylum Cook 1); Persuasion 3;
  Seduction 3; Beautiful
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Dependent Person-
  ality Disorder; Psych Lim: Histronic Personality Disorder;
  Psych Lim: Nymphomaniac; Distinctive Features: Seductive
  Norma Rae
  INT
  3
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Paramedic 1; Contact (Asylum Staff Mem-
  ber 2); Seduction 3
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Borderline Person-
  ality Disorder; Psych Lim: Histronic Personality Disorder
  Margo Roche
  INT
  3
  WILL 2
  PRE 4
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Contacts (Asylum Psychiatrist 2; Asylum
  Orderly 2); Seduction 3; Beautiful
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Biopolar Mood Dis-
  order; Psych Lim: Histronic Personality Disorder; Psych
  Lim: Nymphomaniac; Distinctive Features: See Appearance
  on Page 88; Unlucky
  Margo Roche
  INT
  1
  WILL 1
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills; English 4; Stealth 1
  Important Complications: Psych Lim: Major Depressive
  Disorder with Hallucinations; Phys Lim: No Everyman
  Skills; Distinctive Features: Obviously Depressed
  Mary Smith
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR 2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  6
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: No Everyman Skills; English 2
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged if someone
  comes within one foot of her; Psych Lim: Schizophrenia
  with Delusions and Hallucinations; Phys Lim: No Everyman
  Skills; Distinctive Features: Schizophrenic Behavior
  Susan
  INT
  3
  WILL 2
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  3
  STR 3
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: None of note
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged when un-
  der stress; Psych Lim: Borderline Personality Disorder; Dis-
  tinctive Features: Scars on wrists
  Chapter Six: Heresies
  Dr. Adolph Gans
  INT
  6
  WILL 5
  PRE 4
  TECH 5
  REF
  4
  DEX 4
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 5
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  25 Hits
  25
  Powers & Skills: License (Medical Doctor, Psychiatrist);
  Conversation 1; Persuasion 1; Professional (Psychiatrist) 3;
  Science (General Medicine) 2; Science (Psychology) 5;
  Membership (Medical Superintendent of the Asylum);
  Contacts (See page 148); Bureaucratics 3; Local Expert (The
  Asylum) 3; Expert (The Asylum) 3; Expert (Psychiatric
  Subculture) 2; Expert (Research of Dr. Sebastian Poe) 1;
  Science (Cerebellic Mutations) 1; Expert (English Gram-
  mar) 3; Professional (College Profession) 2; Professional
  (Editor) 2
  Important Complications: Dependant (Dr. Shreiver), Psych
  Lim: Authoritarian; Psych Lim: Fear of Death; Reputation:
  Medical Superintendent of the Asylum; Rival: Dr. Shreiver
  Angela Dross
  INT
  2
  WILL 4
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  3
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Mental Awarness, Activation 13+;
  Clarisentience, Activation 13+; 12D6 Mental Illusions, Ac-
  tivation 13+, Only Affects People with Mental Powers or
  Mental Awareness, No Range
  Important Complications: Berserker: Enraged (see Note on
  Page 157); Psych Lim: Depressive Symptoms; Psych Lim:
  Undifferentiated Schizophrenia with Somatic Delusions and
  Auditory and Tactile Hallucinations; Psych Lim: Racist; Phys
  Lim: Limited Everyman Skills; Distinctive Features: Disor-
  ganized Behavior
  Betty Pleasants
  INT
  2
  WILL 2
  PRE 2
  TECH 2
  REF
  2
  DEX 2
  CON
  2
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Mental Awarness, 360-Degree Sense
  Important Complications: Vulnerabilty: 2x Effect from
  Psionic Powers; Psych Lim: Delusional Disorder with Vi-
  sual and Tactile Hallucinations; Phys Lim: Limited
  Everyman Skills; Distinctive Features: Plastic-Lined Clothes
  Gurney Wallace
  INT
  1
  WILL 1
  PRE 3
  TECH 3
  REF
  3
  DEX 3
  CON
  3
  STR
  2
  BODY 4
  Mov
  4
  SD
  4
  ED
  4
  SPD 2
  Stun
  20 Hits
  20
  Powers & Skills: Mental Awarness, Activation 10+
  Important Complications: Vulnerability: 2x Effect from
  Psionic Powers; Psych Lim: Undifferentiated Schizophre-
  nia; Phys Lim: No Everyman Skills; Distinctive Features:
  Scars on Forehead and Broken Nose; DF: Schizophrenic
  Behavior
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Hero Games/4th Edition (Remastered)/New Bedlam Asylum.pdf