TEXT: Written by Ben Counter, Bethany Culp, Stephen Michael DiPesa, Jess Hartley, 
  Martin Henley, David Hill, Filamena Hill, Howard Wood Ingham, John Kennedy, 
  Matthew McFarland, John Newman, Alex Scokel, Travis Stout, Eddy Webb  
  Developed by Eddy Webb     Audio produced by Michael Read     Edited by Genevieve Podleski  
  Layout by Jessica Mullins     Art by Aaron Acevedo, Sam Araya, Avery Butterworth, 
  Nicole Cardiff, Kari Christensen, Jim Dibartolo, dugnation, Costas Harritas, 
  Phil Hilliker, Vince Locke, Ken Meyer Jr, Jim Pavelec, Juan Serrano, Brad 
  Williams, Cathy Wilkins 
  Special thanks to our voice actors for giving up a Saturday to help us out: 
  Anna Albano, Nathan Binder, David Bounds, Natasha Bryant-Raible, Priscilla 
  Kim, Vincent Lombardo, Orrin Loria, Weston Reid, Rich Thomas, Michelle Webb
  A Storytelling Adventure System 
  anthology for Hunter: The Vigil
  White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
  2075 West Park Place 
  Blvd Suite G
  Stone Mountain, GA 30087
  The apartment still reeks of burning carpet and melted plastic, even a year after the fire. 
  People don’t go in there any more, not since the Andropov boy snuck in on a dare and came 
  out sick. No one will buy the building, and so it squats on its corner lot, decaying, rotting 
  like a corpse left in the sun.
  No one goes there any more, and people cross the street rather than pass under its 
  yawning windows—and yet, sometimes, if you glance at the right window at the right time of 
  day, you might just catch a glimpse of an old man, sallow and sunken-cheeked, in a once-
  white lab coat marred with soot and scorch marks. He’s only there for a moment, and if you 
  blink you might think you imagined him.
  There’s something in his face though. Like he’s keeping watch for something. Something he’s 
  absolutely terrified of.
  
  © 2009 CCP hf. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of 
  reviews, and one printed copy which may be reproduced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire and World of Darkness are registered trademarks 
  of CCP hf. All rights reserved. Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage the Awakening, Promethean the Created, Changeling the Lost, Hunter 
  the Vigil, Storytelling System and Collection of Horrors are trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are 
  copyrighted by CCP hf. CCP North America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCP hf. The mention of or reference to any company or product in these 
  pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and 
  supernatural elements are fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.
  Check out White Wolf online at http://www.white-wolf.com
  White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
  2075 West Park Place 
  Blvd Suite G
  Stone Mountain, GA 30087
  Written by Ben Counter, Bethany Culp, Stephen Michael DiPesa, Jess Hartley, 
  Martin Henley, David Hill, Filamena Hill, Howard Wood Ingham, John Kennedy, 
  Matthew McFarland, John Newman, Alex Scokel, Travis Stout, Eddy Webb  
  Developed by Eddy Webb     Audio produced by Michael Read     Edited by Genevieve Podleski  
  Layout by Jessica Mullins     Art by Aaron Acevedo, Sam Araya, Avery Butterworth, 
  Nicole Cardiff, Kari Christensen, Jim Dibartolo, dugnation, Costas Harritas, 
  Phil Hilliker, Vince Locke, Ken Meyer Jr, Jim Pavelec, Juan Serrano, Brad 
  Williams, Cathy Wilkins 
  Special thanks to our voice actors for giving up a Saturday to help us out: 
  Anna Albano, Nathan Binder, David Bounds, Natasha Bryant-Raible, Priscilla 
  Kim, Vincent Lombardo, Orrin Loria, Weston Reid, Rich Thomas, Michelle Webb
  A Storytelling Adventure System  
  anthology for Hunter: The Vigil
  The apartment still reeks of burning carpet and melted plastic, even a year after the fire. 
  People don’t go in there any more, not since the Andropov boy snuck in on a dare and came 
  out sick. No one will buy the building, and so it squats on its corner lot, decaying, rotting 
  like a corpse left in the sun.
  No one goes there any more, and people cross the street rather than pass under its 
  yawning windows—and yet, sometimes, if you glance at the right window at the right time of 
  day, you might just catch a glimpse of an old man, sallow and sunken-cheeked, in a once-
  white lab coat marred with soot and scorch marks. He’s only there for a moment, and if you 
  blink you might think you imagined him.
  There’s something in his face though. Like he’s keeping watch for something. Something he’s 
  absolutely terrified of.
  
  1
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  Frankenstein’s 
  Mobster
  MENTAL •• 
  PHYSICAL •• 
  SOCIAL ••• 
  Overview
  Professor Vissarion Yudenich accomplished something only a handful of 
  men throughout history have done: out of death, he created life. In the wake 
  of the Chernobyl disaster in April of 1986, Yudenich blended atomic science 
  with bizarre alchemical formulae and harnessed the power of ultimate an-
  nihilation to imbue a human corpse with a semblance of life. Perhaps there 
  was a flaw in his methods, or perhaps it was in his procedure, but the creature 
  born of Yudenich’s experiment was not the “new Soviet man” he had hoped 
  for, but a grinning cadaver that leaked poison from its very soul.
  Shocked and dismayed by what he perceived as his failure, Yudenich 
  fled, abandoning his creation in the cellar of an abandoned house in 
  Pripyat, Ukraine. The professor assumed his creation would soon starve 
  to death or be consumed by the lingering radiation from Chernobyl, 
  but he underestimated the creature’s durability and will to live. Some 
  twenty-odd years after the Chernobyl incident, Yudenich received a 
  letter from a man calling himself Oleg Chernenko. The letter explained 
  how Oleg had finally tracked down his “father” after so many years, told 
  how he had become a powerful and influential man—and asked that 
  Yudenich share the knowledge that had brought him into the world.
  Yudenich’s response was both brief and final (and can be found on pp. 
  35-48 of the Horror Recognition Guide). There was only one reason 
  Oleg might want to know how he was created, and Yudenich wanted no 
  part of it. Three days after sending his response, Yudenich died in a freak 
  gas explosion. Three days after that, a high-level lieutenant of Mafiya boss 
  Oleg Chernenko was found dead in the Moskva River. (Yudenich’s death 
  was supposed to look like a natural expiration; the lieutenant opened 
  the gas lines to smother the old man, not realizing Yudenich was a chain 
  smoker.) The explosion destroyed any notes Yudenich might have kept 
  on the creation of Chernenko—or so the mobster believed.
  The characters might enter into this scene in a variety of ways. Chernenko 
  himself is ideally suited to being a long-term antagonist for a hunter cell, so 
  the characters might already have motivation to be researching Oleg. Said 
  research might lead to the gas line explosion that claimed the life of Professor 
  Yudenich—a story also linked to local reports of a haunted apartment block 
  and a child contracting a sudden case of radiation sickness after sneaking 
  into the place. Alternately, Chernenko himself might hire the characters 
  (likely through an intermediary), particularly if they have developed a 
  reputation for dealing with ghosts, to see if they can recover any informa-
  tion from the shade that supposedly haunts the building. It’s also entirely 
  possible that the characters have never even heard of Chernenko before, 
  and are just investigating what they think is a routine haunted house.
  This scene is set in Moscow, in the burned-out ruin of Yudenich’s apartment 
  building. If you don’t want to send the characters to the other side of the 
  world (assuming your chronicle isn’t set in Moscow), it’s easy enough to say 
  Yudenich emigrated to wherever the characters call home sometime in the 
  90s, or mailed his secret notes to a colleague in another city where Yudenich’s 
  ghost appeared upon his death, with the notes serving as its anchor.
  Description
  The crumbling shell of the apartment building 
  rises three squat, ugly stories off of the street. 
  The upper walls are blackened with soot, and the 
  windowpanes, long since blown out by the fire, are 
  covered with plastic tarps. In place of doors, the 
  entrance is blocked by several boards, crudely 
  nailed across the gaping doorways and half-rotted 
  by exposure. A crumpled notice on grimy yellow 
  paper is stapled to one of the boards, informing 
  you in no uncertain terms that the building is 
  condemned by order of the civic authorities.
  The first-floor windows have been shattered and 
  were never covered, but a quick glance inside shows 
  no sign of recent habitation – no used needles, no 
  discarded food wrappers, not even used condoms. 
  Making your way inside, you feel a chill in the 
  air that is horribly separate from the usual 
  Muscovite weather. The light scarcely penetrates 
  beyond the windows, casting the entire scene in 
  an eerie half-light. Sometimes, when the traffic 
  noises outside lull for a moment, you can hear a 
  faint, distant clicking, like the sound of a Geiger 
  counter registering a high level of radiation.
  frankenstein’s Mobster
  
  2
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  frankenstein’s Mobster
  Storyteller Goals
  This scene is primarily intended to give the characters informa-
  tion about the Ukrainian mobster Oleg “Wormwood” Chernenko. 
  Although there is an element of danger to dealing with the ghost of 
  Vissarion Yudenich and claiming his notes on the creation of Oleg, this 
  scene should give the players a sense of accomplishment. They have 
  (presumably) done the work of discovering the link between Yudenich 
  and Chernenko, and now they deserve to be rewarded for that work.
  Depending on how the characters interact with Yudenich’s ghost, 
  this scene might also establish the shade as a potential contact or even 
  ally, especially if the characters are working to thwart some plan of 
  Chernenko’s. The ghost retains only patches of its former memories 
  and personality, but it might be able to help in translating the encoded 
  notes that serve as its last remaining anchor. Obviously, if the charac-
  ters exorcise or destroy the ghost, this option is not available.
  If you are instead using this scene to introduce Chernenko as a 
  plot element, feel free to increase Yudenich’s overall level of hostility 
  toward intruders. Run it more like a traditional haunted house story, 
  and once the characters have laid Yudenich to rest, let them find his 
  coded notes detailing the creation of life out of the death and destruc-
  tion of Chernobyl.
  Character Goals
  Depending on how the Storyteller has used Oleg Chernenko thus 
  far in the chronicle, this scene can have a few different goals. If the 
  characters have already encountered Chernenko in the course of the 
  chronicle, they probably have at least an idea that he’s more than a 
  simple mobster, and they might even know how damn hard to kill he 
  really is. (Chernenko is one of the Reanimated, an artificial being born 
  of corpses and atomic fire, and he has uncanny preternatural resilience.) 
  In that case, the goal is to find some evidence of a weakness that can be 
  exploited. What form that weakness might take is likely not obvious, 
  since the characters have probably never encountered something like 
  Chernenko before; even if they have faced the Reanimated before, 
  Chernenko belongs to an extremely new type.
  If the characters know about Chernenko, but don’t know what he 
  is (or how tough he is), they’re likely investigating in the hopes of 
  learning more about him. They might be aware that things aren’t quite 
  right with him, or even that he is a monster in a rather more literal 
  sense than the usual Mafiya boss, but they’re probably going in with 
  a less-defined idea of what they’re looking for. If the characters have 
  never even heard of Oleg Chernenko, they might just be looking to 
  clear a haunted house.
  There is some element of physical danger to the characters, espe-
  cially if they fail to placate Yudenich’s ghost. Tier one and tier two 
  hunters will probably be in more danger than tier three hunters, since 
  the latter are more likely to have access to equipment and abilities to 
  deal with the ethereal.
  Actions
  Although you should feel free to set a mood of eerie anticipation with 
  ghostly phenomena (and possibly even the occasional poltergeist attack 
  with a piece of wood or a loose chunk of masonry), the real action of 
  this scene begins when the characters reach the ruins of Yudenich’s 
  third-floor apartment. At that point, Yudenich’s ghost manifests, jab-
  bering in Russian about prodigal sons and the Divine Atom and other 
  phrases that make even less sense. He is initially hostile and will use his 
  Numina to try to drive the characters away, but if they persist he will 
  escalate to lethal measures. The entire time he attacks, he repeatedly 
  cries that Chernenko will never have the secrets of his own creation 
  and that “one abomination in this world is enough.”
  Even ordinary hunters have no shortage of options for dealing with 
  ghosts (as described on pp. 212-214 of the World of Darkness Rule-
  book), and tier three hunters have several more. While abjuring or ex-
  orcising the ghost of Vissarion Yudenich are entirely valid approaches, 
  the characters might also try to reason with Yudenich and convince 
  him that they want to help him. Particularly if they know of Oleg and 
  assure him that they are working against the gangster, they might have 
  a shot at calming him down and getting some help from him.
  Reasoning with Vissarion Yudenich
  Dice Pool: Presence + Expression or Manipulation + Subterfuge vs. 
  Resistance (dice pool 8)
  Action: Extended and contested; each roll represents one turn of 
  trying to break through the ghost’s wrath.
  This action works a little bit differently than most social interactions, 
  as Yudenich’s ghost is anything but a rational being. Rather than the 
  character trying to persuade the ghost to come around to her point of 
  view, she is attempting to punch through the ghost’s single-minded 
  
  3
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  focus on keeping Chernenko from acquiring the secrets of his own 
  “birth.” To that end, the player must accumulate a number of successes 
  equal to Yudenich’s Resistance, but you (rolling for Yudenich) must 
  simply exceed the player’s current number of successes to win. 
  Hindrances: Character mentions Chernenko in a neutral fashion 
  (-1), character mentions Chernenko in a positive fashion (-3), char-
  acter expresses interest in learning how Chernenko was created (-2), 
  character has been exposed to radiation within the past 24 hours (-1). 
  Each of these hindrances applies to a single roll only.
  Help: Character repudiates Chernenko or makes it clear they don’t 
  work for him (+1), character indicates a desire to destroy Chernenko 
  (+3), character mentions positive aspect of Yudenich’s mortal life 
  (wife, children, his humanitarian work with nuclear containment and 
  cleanup, +1), character can prove that he has fought Chernenko in the 
  past (+2). Each of these benefits can apply to a single roll only.
  Roll Results
  Dramatic Failure: If you roll a dramatic failure for Yudenich’s ghost, 
  its anger drains away almost visibly, leaving the spirit little more than 
  a translucent afterimage of a frail, elderly man. Nothing the characters 
  say at that point can incite the ghost to violence again.
  If the player rolls a dramatic failure, the shade’s resolve crumbles 
  completely. Instead of trying to frighten the characters away, it becomes 
  convinced that the characters are Chernenko’s minions and tries to 
  kill them with every weapon at its disposal. No other character can 
  attempt to calm the spirit down during this scene. At that point, the 
  characters might implement a more drastic solution, or they can come 
  back another day; Yudenich’s ghost has little concept of memory or 
  time, allowing the players to try again with a fresh slate.
  Failure: No successes are accumulated toward the total.
  Success: Successes are accumulated toward the total. If the player 
  wins the contest, Yudenich’s spirit calms down and becomes willing 
  to listen (but see “Consequences” for further possibilities). Should 
  the ghost win, it cannot be calmed down by that character and will 
  continue to rage and bluster against the characters until they leave or 
  are killed, or the ghost itself is destroyed or abjured. Another character 
  may attempt to calm the spirit where the first character fails, but each 
  subsequent attempt suffers a cumulative -2 penalty to all rolls.
  Exceptional Success: Tremendous progress is made toward the goal. 
  If the player wins the contested action with five or more extra successes, 
  the spirit willingly gives up its anchor (the notes on Oleg’s creation) 
  and can help with the translation of the code. If you succeed with five 
  or more extra successes for Yudenich, the ghost’s wrath focuses on the 
  character trying to soothe it: the ghost gains a +2 bonus on any attacks 
  against that character for the rest of the scene.
  Consequences
  If the characters succeed in calming Yudenich, they can attempt to 
  ply the ghost for information using the normal rules for social skills. 
  Apply the Hindrances and Help listed above as modifiers to any actions, 
  and if any player rolls a dramatic failure, the ghost becomes enraged 
  again. Assuming the ghost can be communicated with, it can provide 
  rough, disjointed accounts of Chernenko’s “birth” which are more 
  metaphor than fact, and can provide help translating the notes.
  If the characters destroy or banish the ghost, a search of the room 
  reveals an old fireproof safe amidst the burned-out rubble, inside which 
  is a cracked, battered leather binder full of grimy, hand-scrawled notes 
  in a bizarre, alchemical cipher. Without Yudenich’s guidance, they 
  must translate it themselves.
  If the characters let it get around that they have these notes, within 
  a week Oleg will attempt to acquire them for himself. If his relation-
  ship with the characters is neutral (or if they are unknown to him) 
  he will offer to buy them for an exorbitant sum; if he has clashed with 
  the characters before, it’s time for the mobsters and shambling hordes 
  of the walking dead.
  frankenstein’s Mobster
  Oleg ChernenkO
  Chernenko himself does not feature directly in this scene, 
  but he makes an excellent antagonist nonetheless. If you have 
  access to Saturnine night for Promethean: The Created, 
  you’ll find Oleg on pp. 95-96. If not, you can use the stats for 
  a gangbanger as found on p. 205 of the World of Darkness 
  rulebook. Add the Merits Strong Lungs, Iron Stomach and 
  Iron Stamina •••, up the Status rating to 3, and give him the 
  Dread Powers Agonize •••, Balefire ••, Fury •• and Terrify ••. 
  Finally, he has all of the abilities described under “Powers of 
  the Reanimated” on p. 311 of Hunter: The Vigil.
  
  4
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  Morality
  Aspect
  Rank
  Size
  Speed
  Defense
  Initiative Mod
  Power 
  Finesse 
  Resistance
  Notes         
  Name: 
  Virtue: 
  Concept: 
  Vice: 
    
   
  Corpus
  skills
  iNflueNCe
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  WillpoWer
  o o o o o o o o o o
  o o o o o o o o o o
  esseNCe
  NumiNa
  Dice Pool
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  o
  Vissarion Yudenich, 
  Restless Demiurge
  Quotes: “Mistake! Abomination! 
  Never again!”
  “The prodigal son, no, no brothers, 
  no sons for the prodigal son!”
  “The Red Star was born a child 
  in a manger in Pripyat. Oh god, the 
  fire! The words of the angel!”
  Virtue: Charity. Yudenich be-
  lieved throughout his life that it 
  was the duty of the gifted to help 
  those less fortunate than himself.
  Vice: Pride. Yudenich, espe-
  cially in his youth, was possessed of 
  the kind of arrogance that would lead a man to scorn the laws of man 
  and God alike in his effort to create a new form of life.
  Background: Vissarion Yudenich was a brilliant Soviet nuclear 
  physicist, born in Ukraine and educated at the Soviet Academy of Sci-
  ences. In the 1950s, he was stationed at the top-secret “science city” of 
  Seversk, where his theories on nuclear containment were alternately 
  considered brilliant or insane (often both at once). At some point 
  during this phase of his career, he came into possession of a journal 
  reputedly belonging to Victor Frankenstein, detailing his creation of 
  life through the use of a force he called “Pyros.” 
  Yudenich at first scoffed at the idea, but upon reading the notes he 
  realized that, though Frankenstein’s science was crude, with a modern 
  understanding of nuclear containment it just might work.
  He got his chance to try in April 1986, while working to help con-
  tain the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. Stealing the body of a victim 
  of the radiation, he enacted his experiment—and created something 
  wholly new and wholly monstrous. Horrified at the creature he had 
  “birthed,” Yudenich fled while the thing remained insensate, and 
  quietly retired shortly thereafter. It was nearly 20 years later before 
  the creature contacted its creator, hoping to learn how to make more 
        Vissarion Yudenich 
      Charity 
          Restless Demiurge         
   Pride  
           6
       
    
  5
    20 (species factor 10)
         5  
   
     13
  Radioactive Blast: The ghost spends a point of Willpower and rolls Power + Finesse 
  minus the target’s Stamina. Each success inflicts one point of bashing damage. On an 
  exceptional success, the damage is lethal.
  Ghost Sign 
  10
  Magnetic Disruption N/A
  Radioactive Blast 
  10
  Telekinesis 
  10
  
  5
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  like itself. When Yudenich refused, the creature had him killed. Now 
  his ghost haunts the burned out ruin of his Moscow apartment block, 
  anchored to the last surviving copy of the notes he used to create his 
  abomination.
  Description: The ghost of Vissarion Yudenich appears much as the 
  man himself did in life: a small, sickly-thin man with sallow skin and 
  a few wisps of stringy, black hair still remaining. He appears dressed in 
  a conservative, 1950s-era suit and wears thick, horn-rimmed glasses.
  When roused to anger, his appearance becomes a horrific caricature 
  of himself: the glasses merge with his face, becoming great, bulging 
  white eyes, and his skin becomes red and parchment-like, resembling 
  that of a man exposed to intense radiation. 
  Storytelling Hints: Yudenich’s only remaining goal is to prevent the 
  creation of more creatures like Oleg Chernenko. His spirit attempts to 
  scare off or kill anyone who comes close to finding his notes—which 
  has included several of Chernenko’s goons. Due perhaps to the linger-
  ing energy of Chernenko’s creation, the ghost has some power over 
  radiation, and can use it as a potent weapon.
  Prop
  ProP
  ...the power of the atom is the key to 
  his life. Denied this, the creature 
  cannot live, and yet with an abundance 
  it might  
   
  once again. 
  Only total dissolution
  I think.
  Curious that fire seems to wreak havoc 
  on the containment of the Divine Atom. 
  Cannot isolate the cause, but sufficient 
   fatally disrupt the matrix.
  Translated Cypher
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Storyteller [multi]/World of Darkness (WoD) [multi]/CofD/Hunter - The Vigil/Collection of Horrors/Collection of Horrors 03 - Frankenstein's Mobster.pdf