GLOGtober 2023-3

So I've been kinda running a vampire game in my Mall Rats "setting" for a few months. We've only had three sessions, but still, I've put a lot of thought into Mall Vampire.

But rather than posting about how that Mall Vampire works, I'm going to create a new Mall Vampire.

My third GLOGtober prompt is Vampires by the way.

Two maps.

This one isn't keyed in case you want to use it in a VTT or something.

Vampires, or The Hot Topic Crawl

Hot Topic is a dungeon for Mall Rats (or any other similar GLOG or OSR system, or whatever else you feel like running it in (stats are such that 0 is "average")). It can be used as part of a larger mall, or it can be used on it's own (perhaps the rest of the mall it inhabits is benign).

Potential hooks to get the players to go to Hot Topic:

1: Local youths have been showing up dazed and disoriented after late night parties, slightly more than usual. This was no big deal, until several were found dead with bite marks on their necks. The youth rumor mill has only one lead - a weird guy keeps showing up to parties that no-one seems to know. He was seen entering the mall containing the Hot Topic.

2: A teen vanished, but their parents insist they wouldn't run away. Someone saw them wandering into the mall containing the Hot Topic. If using this hook, find them hypnotized in room 6. A very strong shock will clear their head.

3: The players hear rumors the Hot Topic has an extremely rare first-run tape of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness where the liner notes list the song, "There Is No Why". Such an item would be extremely valuable to a collector. Find the case in room 3 and the tape on a box in room 6.

Excluding room 4, Hot Topic is dark, too dark to see normally. From around midnight to about 10 AM, the album Mesh and Lace plays on repeat over the PA system.

Room 1 - The Register:

This room has walls covered in empty racks where clothes would be. The center is a cash register - empty. Immediately south of the register is a pit, 10 feet deep with long jagged spikes at the bottom. There is no room north of the register counter or south of the pit, so one must either climb over the counter or navigate across the pit.

At the bottom of the pit is a largely decomposed corpse along with a large backpack. The backpack has 4 large wooden stakes strapped to it for easy access, as well as a rubber mallet, several days worth of food, a derringer with 6 silver bullets (ranged weapon, 1d6 damage, -2 to hit), a braid of garlic, and $1. There is also a black pleather notebook describing various facts about poltergeists, werewolves, mothmen, bigfoots, and most of all vampires. There's a lot about the structure of old European vampire societies, but even a quick skim of the section will grant the reader two important details: Vampires can regenerate if their heart hasn't been pierced by a stake or burned by sunlight, and a vampire dies if the vampire that sired it dies.

Room 1 - The Hallway:

The racks on these walls contain a bit more clothing, although some of it is torn up, possibly by a large dog. A shelf in the south-west of the room can be moved aside to reveal a hidden passage to room 4. The faint sound of Mega Man 2 can be heard at nearly all times coming from that secret passage. Richie the Vampire feels too apathetic to find out what the sound is and doesn't know of the passage's existence.

Room 2 - The Bat Room:

This room contains bats, guano, some clothes racks, and a pile of bones - probably mostly animal, but there is at least one human skull. The racks still have clothes on them, but they are completely ruined. At night, the bats are mostly gone through a hole in the ceiling. One of the bats is much larger than the rest - about 4 feet tall - and can talk. It will question the players on their intentions here, warn them not to cross it's master, and attack them if they make it clear that they intend to do so.

Room 3 - The Music Room:

This room has the controls for the Hot Topic's PA system, which accepts cassettes. It also has a single metal chair, which Richie sits in while brooding. The cassette in the tape deck - Mesh and Lace - allows the person who hit play to create silent illusions in a 25 foot radius around the tape as long as it is playing. Richie uses it to view a scene of his parents, brother, and girlfriend sitting in a living room.

Room 4 - The Pack Rat's Nest:

This room contains most of the clothing that once occupied the shelves and racks of the store, now shredded up into bedding. It also contains many shiny baubles, and some cassettes with all the tape pulled out. A talking rat the size of a large cat - Jack the Pack Rat - sits in the bedding playing Mega Man 2 on a small TV. Jack is easily startled, but not particularly afraid as she thinks she can easily escape through air ducts - which she will attempt to do if things escalate to violence. Jack has a heart-shaped cookie tin wrapped in belts as the centerpiece of her nest. Jack doesn't know this, but the cookie tin contains the heart of the vampire that sired Richie. If this heart is pierced by a wooden stake or exposed to sunlight, both vampires will die.

Jack is fine with this, so long as she gets to keep the cookie tin. She rather dislikes Richie.

Room 5 - The Guard Dog's Room

A large, pitch-black doberman with glowing red eyes guards this room. The dog's edges fade and waver as if it were made of fog. It will growl at anyone attempting to enter the room, and attack anyone attempting to cross without Richie's permission. It is not immune to being distracted, however, and is very hungry. It likes meat.

Room 6 - Richie's Bedroom

This room contains many small cardboard boxes, a single metal chair, a few empty clothes racks, and a large cardboard box that used to contain a mattress. The box is filled with leather pants and band t-shirts forming a cushion. This is where Richie sleeps from 10 AM to dusk. A pile of rotting pop tarts sits in the corner, each with a single bite taken out of them. A smaller pile of rotting spat-out bites of pop tart sits next to it.

RICHIE THE VAMPIRE

From 10 AM to dusk, Richie is asleep in room 6. From dusk until around midnight, he is out hunting. The rest of the time is spent brooding in room 3. If Richie encounters the PCs he will pretend to be looking for a friend who went missing - emphasizing how scared he is to be in such a dangerous place - trying to lower the PCs' guards and hypnotize as many as he can before his ruse is discovered. If he is declared to be a vampire - or some similar accusation - he will admit this, and attempt to use his vampire powers and any hypnotized PCs to leverage a deal: the party can leave with his +1 Studded Jacket of Darkness if they find an item for him. If he is attacked, he will fight back while pushing for that deal. The item in question he describes as a heart-shaped tin with belts wrapped around it. He says it is sentimental, a memory of someone he lost long ago.

If he is given this tin, he will honor his end of the deal.

Richie can force anyone who talks with him for a few minutes to make a TN 14 MIND check or be hypnotized until Richie dies. Someone hypnotized by Richie has their eyes turn bloodshot and must make a TN 16 MIND check to disobey any of his orders. They do not immediately know they are hypnotized, and may act normally so long as they are not defying an order. If they are strongly physically or mentally shocked, they may make a TN 14 MIND check to shake off the hypnosis.

LEVEL 6

HP: 16 (Uses Death Dice)

STR: 4, DEX: 4, MIND: -6

ATTACK: 5

DEFENSE: 5

ITEM SLOTS: 6

STEALTH: 2

MOVE: 4

Abilities:

Claws - 1d6 damage, 2 attacks.

Hypnotize - Explained above.

+1 Studded Jacket of Darkness - Gives +1 DEFENSE. Wearer may create a shadowy object no larger than a toaster oven that lasts until you create another object, it breaks, or you dismiss it.

Regenerate - Heals any damage, injury, and Death Die recieved after one minute, even if dead. Can be stopped if Richie or his sire are staked through the heart.

RICHIE'S SIRE

If the tin containing Richie's sire is opened, he will quickly regenerate - wrong. All his parts will be present, but not in the right places. He cannot move. If he is staked, he will wither and burn to ash.

JACK THE PACK RAT

A dark brown rat the size of a cat that wears a backwards blue baseball hat. Jack also wears a vest with a bunch of pockets on it. She is in possession of Richie's sire's heart, as the cookie tin it rests in is quite shiny and pleasingly shaped. She doesn't want to trade it unless offered something extremely shiny and pleasingly shaped (or a really cool game), and if someone moves to take it she will try to escape with it into the air ducts where she will wait until she thinks the threats have left her nest.

She is not opposed to letting someone remove whatever is inside the cookie tin, but still requires some sort of assurance that they won't take it and run.

LEVEL 2

HP: 8 (Uses Death Dice)

STR: -4, DEX: 4, MIND: 0

ATTACK: 2

DEFENSE: 4

ITEM SLOTS: 8

STEALTH: 4

MOVE: 5

Abilities:

Bite - 1d4 damage

BIG BAT

The big bat in room 2 doesn't have a name. If someone begins to fight Richie, it will make its way over to help the vampire out, taking 2 turns per room it has to move through. It doesn't care much that you're here, but it doesn't rather like the idea of you killing Richie as it will vanish when Richie dies. It eats people, very occasionally, but isn't hungry enough to try to eat the party.

LEVEL 4

HP: 16 (Uses Death Dice)

STR: 4, DEX: -6, MIND: 2

ATTACK: 5

DEFENSE: 3

ITEM SLOTS: 0

STEALTH: -4

MOVE: 4

Abilities:

Can Bite or Screech once per turn 

Bite - 1d6 damage

Screech - Everyone other than Big Bat can't hear until the end of the next round and must make a TN 12 MIND check or become dizzy and have -4 to any checks that would be affected by being dizzy. At the end of each round, anyone who is dizzy makes another TN 12 MIND check, no longer being dizzy on a success. This MIND check is not affected by the -4 penalty from being dizzy. 

Fly - Big Bat can fly.

BIG DOG

This shadowy dog will not leave room 5 no matter what. If someone attempts to drag or push it out, it stops as if there are invisible walls in the doorways. It likes meat and other doggy distractions, but will attack anyone passing through room 5 so long as it can focus and Richie hasn't given permission to be there.

LEVEL 3

HP: 18 (Does not use Death Dice)

STR: 8, DEX: -6, MIND: -4

ATTACK: 3

DEFENSE: 1

ITEM SLOTS: 0

STEALTH: -2

MOVE: 4

Abilities:

Bite - 1d10