Innocence Lost

by André La Roche

“There can be a certain kind of mercy in keeping secrets. Secrets can hide powerful and frightfully maddening truths from those who are incapable of handling them. Those secrets allow the rest of us to carry on with our lives. But there are others out there who hold the burden of this knowledge. They have seen the true face of the dark. They know its intimate caress, and are changed by it. It’s time for the rest of us to learn these secrets, to carry our own fair share of the burden.”

—Mia Pine’s Blog

A Dark World

Most people go about their lives without ever knowing the true nature of this world. They never have to deal with the strange or unexplainable, the horrors that prowl in the night. These are considered the stuff of legend, fairytale, and old folk tales. In the eyes of most people, monsters and the occult belong in a darker, more ignorant era. Modernity has banished these beasts and burdens as surely as it banished polio and tuberculosis.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Every story you have heard is real; every folk tale, every urban legend, every ghost story and fairy tale has its roots in the truth. Vampires, werewolves, fairies, goblins, and other alien monsters—these are things that go bump in the night and prey upon the innocent.

They once roamed freely and openly during ages of antiquity—the very reason we have stories chronicling their existence. But something happened—humanity grew bolder, more organized, more disciplined. The Renaissance occurred, and from there came the Enlightenment. They fought back and developed weapons capable of fighting off the night terrors. Licking their collective wounds, the supernatural entities sulked back into the darkness, biding their time and waiting to rise again.

Those Who Fight the Darkness

Over the centuries that humanity warred against monsters, organized groups emerged to carry forward the flame into the darkness. Originally during the Holy Roman Empire, and later the Dark and Middle Ages, humanity created Esoteric Fraternal Orders and Sisterhoods, sects of the Church, secret societies, and many others. As the monsters retreated to the shadows, so too did these noble institutions, fading from our collective memory, erasing their tracks to keep us safe.

Today, each of these groups recruits the most spiritually aware individuals, teaching them their traditions and educating them about how the world really works. Members of these groups are tasked with keeping humanity safe from the threats that nightly prey upon it while also hiding the truth.

The most famous and widespread of these organizations are the Scions of the Sun—an organization dating back to the year 1290 A.D. The Scions have long fought supernatural forces while pretending to be mere business leaders or members of society. In this day and age, the Scions are still present, and most think of them as a mere fraternal charitable organization engaged in fundraisers and civic service. However, the inner circle of the Scions are still intimately involved in defending humanity’s interests against encroachment by the supernatural.

Those Who Live in the Darkness

While groups like the Scions battle to keep us safe, some humans have always succumbed to the influence of the darkness, losing their humanity to become something…other. Whether these people have become sorcerers, vampires, werewolves, or demonic servants, they now belong to forces few could understand. Some are completely lost to the monstrous parts of their souls; others, clinging to the last vestiges of their humanity, fight to hold back the darkness even as they must slake inhuman appetites.

The Struggle

Presently, the conflicts among the supernatural and humanity resemble a free-for-all rather than an organized war. Supernatural factions are just as likely to squabble and fight one another as they are to try and gain a foothold against humanity in the world. The disorganization of the forces of darkness gives humanity’s defenders an advantage; their cause unites them against our enemies. Yet as humanity itself pushes deeper into the shadows—exploring what few places have thus far gone unexplored—it is only a matter of time before humanity is once again made aware of the cousin spirits who inhabit the world.

Setting Creation

As a Quick Start Adventure for Fate Core, Innocence Lost has everything you need to jump right into your first session. Before you start, discuss the broader setting with your group, perhaps even reading aloud the descriptions of A Dark World, Those Who Fight the Darkness, Those Who Live in the Darkness, and The Struggle so everyone is on the same page.

At the start of play, explain the current issue to your players and ask them to fill in one or two additional faces associated with The Children Are Missing. These additional characters will provide new plot hooks and twists that will tie your players more deeply to the current mystic happenings.

Then ask your players to choose from one of the two available impending issues: Supernatural Serial Killer, or A Convergence Is Occurring. Have them fill in one or two additional faces for their chosen impending issue as well, rounding out the larger cast of characters with their suggestions.

Current Issue: The Children Are Missing

Children across the city have begun to go missing without notice. They come from a diverse set of homes and circumstances, and the investigations surrounding their disappearances routinely clear parents and close family members of any wrongdoing. The current working theory that police are exploring is that a single kidnapper is behind the disappearances. However, at the scene of each disappearance are drawings made by each child that point to a unifying supernatural element. In actuality, the children are being called by a powerful ancient artifact known as The Arch, and crossing through it to dimensions unknown. (For more information on The Arch, see The Fate Codex Issue 3, Vol. 4).

Faces:

• Austin Chang, Frightened Father
• Mia Pine, Conspiracy Theorist

Impending Issues

In addition to The Children Are Missing and the investigation around it, there are a number of other impending issues that are of concern to the player characters.

Supernatural Serial Killer

Over the past year, a serial killer has struck. Victims are brutally and savagely murdered, torn apart by something seemingly inhuman. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to when and where the victims are attacked, save that each attack occurs under cover of night. Sometimes the killer strikes multiple times in a single week; other times it won’t strike for months at a stretch. Again, for those with the sense for these things, the crimes seem to have a distinctly supernatural element to them.

Faces:

• Jacoby Hill, Newspaper Photographer
• Det. Elisa May, Dogged Law Woman

A Convergence Is Occurring

One thing that the supernatural community is in agreement on is that some sort of mystical convergence is about to occur. The stars are right, ley lines seem turbo-charged with power, signs and omens are appearing with increasing frequency. Something big is about to occur, and everyone wants a piece of the action. Esoteric factions are beginning to squabble and fight over the power, and their fights threaten to spill out into public.

Faces:

• Jamal Uribe, Occultist Extraordiniare
• Nyoko Hoshi, Spirit Enforcer<imgsrc="image/cards-2.png" alt="" />

Character Creation

Innocence Lost works best with Fate Core characters—the existence of the Fate Core skills lend themselves well to the street-level supernatural feel of an Innocence Lost game; you can use Fate Accelerated approaches instead of the more traditional skills if you prefer the simplicity of FAE.

In Innocence Lost, players take on the roles of supernatural investigators. Characters fall into one of two categories: awakened humans or supernatural entities. During character creation, each player chooses which category applies to their character. Members of each group possess abilities above and beyond the average human being, people who are uniquely suited to solve the supernatural problems besetting the city on all sides.

Awakened Humans

Awakened humans are human beings who have been inducted into the mysteries of the esoteric world. Some gained their awareness through formal education or induction, others by witnessing firsthand the horrors that stalk the night. Most awakened human beings have turned to the occult as a way of evening the odds with their opponents. They utilize spells, charms, and sigils, and seek out artifacts of power. Others instead decide to devote themselves to achieving peak physicality, reaching new levels of human excellence to defend humanity from the darkness.

Supernatural Entities

Supernatural entities used to be human. Through some trauma or inevitable transformation, they have become something different altogether. Characters can be any kind of supernatural entity that makes sense to the group and Gamemaster. Common kinds of supernatural entities for player characters are vampires, werewolves, ghosts, gargoyles, or reanimated corpses.

Character Creation

Players should create characters normally as per the Fate Core rules—including five core Aspects (High Concept, Trouble, etc.), traditional Fate Core Skills, and normal refresh—with one added twist: each player must randomly determine what supernatural touch has afflicted their character. This randomness represents the unasked-for fate of being drawn into the supernatural war.

Each player can either determine their character’s Supernatural Touch first, allowing them to build the rest of their character around this element, or they can roll it at the end of character creation. The first option allows players to create characters who are veterans in the supernatural war. The second option better represents someone who lived a normal life that was suddenly derailed by the supernatural.

The Supernatural Touch represents the basic abilities that each supernatural character gains. Feel free to create other supernatural stunts and extras at the game-table that bolster the themes and abilities of each character.

To use the Supernatural Touch tables, roll the four Fate dice. Starting in the top-left corner, move one column right for each +, and one row down for each -.

Awakened Human (Envoy)

You are a human who serves the supernatural world.

Supernatural Liaison: You are a human liaison to the supernatural world. You gain a +2 bonus to Rapport rolls when dealing with supernatural entities.

Hidden Among Humanity: You gain a +2 to Hide rolls when attempting to create an advantage to pretend that you’re just a normal human being.

Awakened Human (Esoteric Agent)

You are a member of a powerful Esoteric Order.

Cell in Every City: You gain a +2 to Contacts rolls when attempting to find an Esoteric Order in a city.

Financial Backing: You gain a +2 to Resources rolls when calling for assistance from an Esoteric Order.

Awakened Human (Hunter)

You have sworn to ruthlessly hunt down those who threaten the human world.

Natural Tracker: You gain a +2 to Notice rolls when tracking supernatural entities.

Occult Fighter: You gain a +2 to Fight rolls when fighting against supernatural or occultic entities.

Awakened Human (Occultist)

You have been thoroughly inducted into the Dark World. You know it intimately well.

Spellcasting: You can cast occultic spells. Describe to the GM the effects you hope to achieve, and the GM will set a difficulty for you to beat when you overcome an obstacle by rolling Lore.

Arcane Knowledge: You gain a +2 to Lore rolls when attempting to identify supernatural influences.

Friend on the Other Side: You have one good supernatural friend who feeds you information. You gain a +2 to Rapport rolls when gleaning information from this friend.

Awakened Human (Spirit Walker)

You have learned to send your spirit out of your body.

Out of Body: Once per session, you can have your spirit present at a scene when your body is not present. You are visible to all present, and cannot physically interact with anything or anyone.

Numbed Pain: You are so used to detaching yourself from your body, that once per game session, you can ignore a successful Attack against you by spending a Fate Point.

Biomechanical Being

You have been changed by something from beyond. You’re part human, yet somehow machine-like.

Understanding from Beyond: You gain a +2 to all overcome or create advantage rolls when attempting to understand occultic items.

Fading Humanity: You no longer think like a human being. You gain a +2 bonus when rolling Empathy to defend against Mental attacks.

Divine-Touched

You are blessed by the divine.

Angelic Aura: You are able to exude a calming aura. Anyone within the same zone as you gains a +2 bonus when rolling Empathy to defend against Mental attacks.

Healing Touch: Once per scene, your touch can heal two stress boxes on yours or another’s stress track.

Fay-Blood

You are of the Fay—an elusive nature spirit.

Forest Child: Once per scene, a Fay-Blood can teleport through trees, entering into one tree and emerging from another up to three zones away.

Court Servant: Fay-Blood are bound to either the Light Court or the Dark Court at the time of character creation. They gain +2 to Contacts rolls when dealing with members of their chosen Court.

Iron Vulnerability: Anytime a Fay-Blood touches iron, they take one shift of stress. This stress occurs in addition to any other stress inflicted by an attack.

Gargoyle

You are a defender of the night.

Gliding: You have powerful wings that allow you to glide two zones horizontally for every zone you descend vertically. You cannot gain altitude unless finding an updraft by succeeding at a Good (+3) Athletics roll to overcome an obstacle.

Claws: +2 to Fight rolls when using your claws.

Stone Form: You become an Immobile Sleeping Statue during the day. Anyone attempting a smashing attack against you gains a free invoke on this.

Hyde

You have a dual nature—you have a second you that’s stronger and darker.

Dual Form: You have a second form that is physically stronger, and better than your normal one. You gain +2 to all Physique and Athletics rolls when in this second form.

Foggy Memory: You have a hazy memory of the actions you took in your alternate form. The difficulty for all rolls to recall the nights’ events is increased by +2.

Infernal-Touched

You are descended from demons and devils.

Fire Blast: Once per scene, you can shoot forth a blast of fire from your hands by using the Shoot skill.

Brimstone Love: You gain +2 to all Rapport rolls when attempting to seduce a mortal.

Holy Weakness: When touched by holy items (holy water, holy relics, holy texts) you take one shift of stress.

Living Zombie

You have become a zombie and must feed on brains or else wither away physically and mentally.

Hunger for Brains: For each week you go without consuming a brain take a consequence representing the deterioration of body and mind. You can only erase these consequences once you’ve consumed a human brain. If you can’t take any more consequences, your high concept is changed to Mindless Rotting Zombie.

You Are What You Eat: You can temporarily call on the memories belonging to the last brain you ate. You gain a +2 to Lore rolls when attempting to learn a fact known only by the brain’s owner.

The Resurrected

You died. But then, somehow, you got better. The experience has left you…changed.

Touch of Death: You brought back a bit of the nether world with you when you came back to life. Your touch deals one extra shift of stress when you attack someone using your bare hands by rolling Fight.

Fire Vulnerability: For whatever reason, you have become susceptible to fire since your resurrection. Anytime you are injured by fire, you take one additional shift of stress.

Vampire

You have become the undead, forced to stalk the night and drink the blood of the living.

Thirst for Blood: You have a thirst for blood, and must drink blood at least once every 72 hours.

Uncanny Strength: You gain a +2 to all Fight and Athletics rolls when attempting feats of raw strength by night. You lose this strength if you have not drunk blood within the last 72 hours.

Daylight Weakness: During the daytime you not only lose your Uncanny Strength, but roll all actions at -2. If you have not had any blood to drink, this penalty increases to -4.

Werewolf

You were bitten by a werewolf, or born as one. You change into a wolf around the full moon.

Wolf Form: You transform into a wolf form on the night of a full moon as well as the nights immediately before and after. When in this form, you gain a +2 to all Athletics, and Fight rolls.

Foggy Memory: You have a hazy memory of the actions you took in your wolf form. The difficulty for all rolls designed to recall the night’s events is increased by +2.

Running Innocence Lost as an Improvisational Mystery

This same issue of the Fate Codex provides rules and guidelines for running mystery games that are improvisational in nature. (See Improvisational Mysteries by Felipe Real). The scenes described in this Quick Start provide you with the basic outlines of the information necessary to run this scenario. Using those rules, when the PCs investigate, have them roll Notice to create an advantage. As described more fully in Felipe’s article, each advantage created represents a clue that they found at the scene.

To make full use of those rules, flesh out the NPCs more to make them potential suspects in this mystery. Or, instead of suspects, have each clue lead the PCs to eventually discovering the truth about the Arch.

The ultimate question for you as a GM, though, is how far do you follow the improvisational nature of the mystery? Do you tie it back in to the plotline articulated here, or do you follow the theories and thoughts of the players, no matter how far afield from the written scenes in this Quick Start? This is something to think about as you prepare for the game session, and is likely a judgment call that you will have to—ironically—improvise at the table.

Opening Scene: The Scene of the Crime

The player characters are granted a chance to investigate the most recent child disappearance. The players were expressly sought out for their expertise in the occult. They were contacted directly by Austin Chang, the father of the missing child, who is desperate to get his five-year-old daughter Alice back—so desperate that he’s willing to entertain the possibility of supernatural explanations for his daughter’s disappearance. Austin was referred to the PCs by Mia Pine, a local conspiracy theorist blogger who suspects the PCs’ connection to the occult.

When the PCs show up at the Chang household, Mia is present, and Austin and his husband are arguing about consulting occultists in finding their daughter. Eventually, Austin’s husband relents and they allow the PCs to enter their house and begin to investigate for clues surrounding their daughter’s disappearance.

Their daughter’s room is filled with toys, and shows no sign of a struggle. If the PCs are diligent, they eventually find a sketchpad that the little girl uses for drawings. The first third of the book contains childish drawings of her, her family, friends, and television characters. After a third way through the sketchbook, the drawings take on a more sinister tone. She began to draw pictures of quadrupedal eyeless monsters and a doorway that appears to be covered in bones. In all the pictures, there is running water—likely indicating that the drawing occurred near the river that runs through the city.

The PCs can attempt to reach out to parents of the other children who have gone missing. In all cases, they can discover nearly identical drawings at those households. Whatever happens, Mia insists on tagging along with the PCs so that she can write about the investigation for her blog. If the PCs refuse to allow her to join them, she concedes to their wishes, but trails them in secret, using a video recorder to document their actions.

Middle Scene: A Creature Prowls

The PCs followup on the drawings contained in the Changs’ house and can investigate the river that their daughter drew. Along the riverbanks, there are the signs of some kind of animal lairing there—the corpses of small animals, raccoons, dogs, cats, but no human remains.

As the PCs investigate, eventually they are attacked by a ghastly and unnatural creature: an archspawn. The archspawn is a quadruped roughly the size of a large dog with black rubbery skin, razor-sharp teeth and claws, and no eyes. It has a long wiry tail and moves with the grace and ease of a jungle predator. If the PCs begin to gain the edge, the archspawn will concede the fight, running away from the PCs, leaving a clear trail for the PCs to track the creature back to where it originally came from.

Final Scene: Enter The Arch

The PCs can follow the creature back to an empty warehouse along the riverfront. They see it enter the warehouse, but it is in hiding if they follow it inside. The warehouse contains a powerful eldritch artifact known as The Arch. Strewn all over the floor of the warehouse are children’s toys and drawings much like those found at the Chang’s household.

The Arch is a powerful gateway that connects locations across time and space. Characters who are occult-trained can attempt to roll Lore to overcome a Superb (+5) obstacle. Succeeding allows the character to recognize The Arch as an item written of in rumored tones. The character knows that the Arch calls out subtly to the weak and vulnerable in society, hypnotically enticing them to walk through the gate. Those who enter The Arch are never heard from again.

As the PCs investigate the area, The Arch flares to life, and one more archspawn as well as a greater archspawn emerge from it. The original archspawn chooses this time to emerge from hiding and join up with the new arrivals to attack the PCs. After these new creatures arrive, The Arch flashes in a blinding display of light and disappears from the warehouse.

If Mia Pine is still following the PCs at this point, she makes her presence known after witnessing the battle, and seeing The Arch disappear. She’s insistent that she’s going to blog all about it and expose the truth of the Dark World to all of humanity. The players are left with the sinking feeling that Alice Chang and the other children are gone from this world forever—something they must now tell Austin and his husband. Sometimes being a hero sucks.

Plot Hooks and Adventure Seeds

The adventures of the PCs can continue beyond this scenario! The players may be determined to find the children—even if the search puts them in grave danger—or they may now find their hands full with Mia’s threat to expose the supernatural world to the public at large.

Charting the Arch’s Next Appearance

The PCs can consult occultic tomes to learn as much as they can about The Arch. If they’re persistent, they can learn that there is an obscure and rare tome that claims to contain vast amounts of information about The Arch. Among its rumored contents is a means for charting The Arch’s next appearance, or summoning it altogether. The PCs can try to track down this tome, facing opposition and challenges along the way. Once they procure the tome, how accurate is it really? And will its information provide them with any measure of control over The Arch?

Keeping Mia Quiet

Mia Pine now has video proof that the world contains dark terrors. She believes that for the good of the public, this information must come to light. However, this insistence on exposure flies in the face of the global esoteric consensus that such matters are not for public consumption. What will the PCs do about Mia? Will they aid her in exposing the truth? Or will they go to extreme lengths to silence her?

The Children’s Crusade

A month after The Arch disappears, people begin to report sightings of the vanished children, including Alice Chang. Sightings report that they see the children in public, appearing translucent and weeping. Attempts to communicate with and console the children are ignored, and the children vanish in front of the witness’s eyes. What’s going on? Is there a chance that the missing children can still be found? Or is this some cruel after-image produced by The Arch?

Austin Chang, Man on a Mission

Grief is a powerful emotion that can cloud the mind. If the PCs report to Austin and his husband that Alice is gone forever, Austin blames the group for his daughter’s disappearance. He accuses them of offering his family false hope and swears that he will go to any length possible to make the PCs feel the pain and loss that he feels. As a powerful banker in the city, he has the means to do it and reaches out to the PCs landlords and employers, doing anything he can to get them evicted or fired. These are only the first steps in his quest to completely ruin them. How will the PCs deal with this powerful but mundane threat to their lives while juggling their investigations of supernatural activities?