Nostradamus

by Mark Diaz Truman

THIS IS THE MABUS. I AM THE KILLER OF THE TWO BOYS FOUND BY PIKES MARKET LAST NOVEmBER. THE AMMOS WAS BRAND NAME SUPER X. I ShoT THEM IN THE HEAD AND CARVED A SYMBEL IN THEIR HANDS. THE POLICE HAVE NOT RELEASED THIS INFORMATION.

DO YOU KNOW WHY I KILLED THEM? THEI WERE fATED TO DIE LONG BEFORE EITHER OF THEM WAS BORN. DIRTY FILTHY BROKEN AND LOST. I WORE A CROWn OF PLENTTY AND GAVE THEM DESTINY. IN PARADISE I WILL SeE THEM AGAIN. THEY WILL SERVE ME. FOREVER.

I HAVE NOT FORGGOTTEN ABOUT MY CIPHER. PUBLISH IT OR PEOPLE DIE. ITS UP TO YOU.

—The Nostradamus killer, from a letter to the Seattle Gazette, May 12th, 1972

Seattle, October 1972

The Pacific Northwest was a hotbed of cultural and social change throughout the 1960s; the burgeoning environmental movement, a steady influx of new residents and development, and an economic boom all contributed to the collective consensus that the “Puget Sound promise”—economic prosperity and inclusion for all throughout the region—was close to being fulfilled. But as the ‘70s dawned, Seattleites were reminded that nothing lasts forever. Puget Sound, like the rest of America, soon found that the idyllic dreams of the ‘60s gave way to a waking world of unemployment, high oil prices, and public malaise. And that’s when the murders started...

The Pike’s Place Murders

In November of 1971, Seattle residents were stunned by the kidnapping and murder of two local teens, Hiro Hamasaki and Rolando Diaz. The two boys, walking home from West Seattle High one late fall afternoon, vanished without a trace. Two weeks later, three days before Thanksgiving, a local homeless man found their bodies near Pike’s Place Market. The discovery made front page headlines across the country, almost derailing attempts to preserve the market region as a historical site.

Worse yet, the Seattle police were unable to gather any concrete leads about the murders; a few months into the investigation, the police were forced to admit that the trail had gone cold. Conspiracies continued to abound about the exact nature of their deaths, but the police refused to release autopsies, crime scene photos, or interviews with key witnesses, claiming that the “ongoing nature of the case” prohibited them from sharing what they knew.

The Mabus Letters

The Pike’s Place Murders were once again thrust into the spotlight six months later in May of 1972 when the Seattle Gazette published a three part series of letters, which included a lengthy cipher consisting of non-alphanumeric characters, allegedly delivered to the paper over a period of seven weeks. The letters—written by someone called Mabus or The Mabus—contained previously unreleased information about the murder of the two teens...and similar information about three murders of Seattle residents since 1969, all victims who had been shot by a similar weapon while hiking or exploring areas around Seattle. The writer of the letters claimed to have committed all the murders described, and offered vivid accounts of specific details of each killing.

The Mabus letters, as the Gazette called them, were an instant classic; Seattle residents snapped up all the initial issues of the Gazette’s print run, prompting a reprint almost immediately. The Gazette claimed to have verified the information provided through police sources, but the Seattle police force declined to comment.

The Fifty-Sixth Quatrain

A few days after the Mabus letters were published by the Gazette, a cryptology professor named Dr. Erica Tyska solved the cipher, discovering the following message:

ALL THAT MATTERS IS THAT WHICH YOU SHOULD KNOW BUT IGNORE THE MABUS WILL TELL YOU BECAUSE YOUR DEATHS SHOULD NOT BE IN VAIN <BREAK> SOONER AND LATER YOU WILL SEE GREAT CHANGES MADE <BREAK> DREADFUL HORRORS AND VENGEANCES <BREAK> FOR AS THE MOON IS THUS LED BY ITS ANGEL <BREAK> THE HEAVENS DRAW NEAR TO THE BALANCE <BREAK> WISE MEN HEED MABUS AND DESPAIR FOOLS SUFFER ALONE

Dr. Tyska solved the cipher by recognizing the text of the middle stanzas as belonging to prophecies of Nostradamus (Century 1, Quatrain 56); she explained later that the killer’s pseudonym, Mabus, was an obvious tip off, a reference to Nostradamus’s work that immediately gave her a database of words from which to work. Tyska also discovered several instances of language from other quatrains in several of the Mabus letters, indicating to her that the relationship between the killer and Nostradamus was more than coincidental.

The media immediately grabbed onto the Nostradamus angle, and references to “Mabus” dried up overnight. Local tabloids harped on “the Nostradamus killer,” looking for references to the murders in other quatrains and plastering images of a bloody Nostradamus across the front pages of every newspaper in the city. For three months, the city was held rapt by the tabloid coverage of the murders...but their attention gave way by the time University of Washington students resumed their studies in the fall. Many Seattle residents even came to believe the entire case was a fraud perpetrated by the Gazette to sell papers as the economy slowed.

The Marymoor Park Survivor

Whatever hopes Seattleites had for escaping further murders at the hands of the Nostradamus killer were shattered when a young couple was attacked while picnicking on the banks of Lake Sammamish in Marymoor Park in late September 1972. Eric Wells and Caitlyn Ortega, students at University of Washington, were interrupted by a man wearing a hoodie, large antlers, and a mask, holding a revolver and demanding that they both lie down on the ground. Once the students were prone, the man shot Eric Wells five times in the head and neck, then turned to Ortega and shot her once directly in the back, then reloaded and shot her six more times. After securing several pieces of paper to their bodies, the killer left the scene.

Wells was pronounced dead at the scene, but the tourist who found the two victims was able to save Ortega’s life. Ortega was later able to provide details on the killer—a white male, approximately 5’ 11”, 200-250 lbs, dressed in a strange outfit—but did not notice any identifying marks. No one reported seeing the man with antlers, nor were police able to recover any meaningful physical evidence from the scene of the crime.

The Gazette reported a few weeks later—despite protestations from the police—that the paper the Nostradamus killer attached to the victims’ bodies contained stanzas of Century VIII, Quatrain 41, scrawled in charcoal on small slips of newspaper:

a fox will be elected without speaking one word,

appearing saintly in public living on barley bread,

afterwards he will suddenly become a tyrant

putting his foot on the throats of the greatest men.

Terror in Jet City

By the time October of 1972 hits Seattle, full on terror grips the city; many people talk about the next Nostradamus kills as a certainty, as if there’s no question that he will kill again before he’s caught. The police claim that they’re making headway into the case, but no arrests have been made; the Gazette claims they have more letters, but the Marymoor killings have convinced them that publishing more ciphers does nothing to keep people safe.

Rumors have also started to swirl that the Nostradamus killer is fond of The Zombie’s 1969 hit “Time of the Season,” and young people out late at night play the song regularly as a sort of protection charm, turning the pop hit into the unintentional theme song of the Nostradamus killer. Anyone walking out after dark, in the gloomy rain and cold of Seattle in October, is sure to hear the song echoing out of an open car window or cracked door, a haunting reminder that until he is caught, the city still belongs to the Nostradamus killer.

Setting Creation

As a Quick Start Adventure, Nostradamus 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 the Pike’s Place Murders, the Mabus Letters, the Fifty-Sixth Quatrain, The Marymoor Park Survivor, and Terror in Jet City so everyone is on the same page. Given the graphic nature of this Quick Start’s mystery, it’s also worth having a brief discussion about safety mechanisms (see Sarah Richardson’s Feminine Horror piece for safety resources).

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 Nostradamus Killings. These additional characters will provide plot hooks and twists that deepen the mystery of the Nostradamus killer and develop conflicts in the backdrop of the terror that grips Seattle. Character write-ups for the existing faces attached to the current issue are provided, as those characters are likely to be central to the story.

After explaining the current issue, ask your players to choose from one of the two available impending issues: The Boeing Bust or Pike Place Preservation. This impending issue will act as a central point of contact for the characters, a location or problem around which the characters’ relationships will circle before they get involved with the killer. Have the players 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 Nostradamus Killings

The murders claimed by the man calling himself Mabus have chilled Seattle to the core; no one is sure when he will strike again or who will be his next victim, given that none of the existing victims appear to have anything in common. Since efforts by local law enforcement have been utterly ineffective at discovering his identity (or stopping the murders), the very foundation of civic order in the city is starting to unravel. Many residents are convinced that the killer is a harbinger of the future of the city, an early omen of the urban decay that threatens to undermine the Puget Sound promise, and the populace is a powder keg of fear and unease ready for a match.

Faces:

• Detective Mark Montgomery, the lead homicide detective assigned to the murder of Eric Wells
• Caitlin Ortega, the sole survivor of the Nostradamus attack that killed Eric Wells

Impending Issues

In addition to The Nostradamus Killings that have gripped the city, there are a number of other impending issues that residents of Seattle are grappling with in the early 1970s:

The Boeing Bust

After World War II, Seattle underwent an economic transformation fueled by investments in education and infrastructure, a growing population, and the success of the largest local employer, Boeing. Yet as the space program ground to a halt in the late ‘60s and fuel prices spiked, Boeing’s fortunes took a turn for the worse: the airline giant laid off 70% of their Seattle workforce, an economic catastrophe that echoed throughout the city. In 1972, unemployment in Seattle has reached double digits (12%) and local political leaders see few options for turning things around quickly. Many young people in Seattle are contemplating leaving for greener pastures, and a new billboard has gone up near the airport:

Faces:

• Carla Powdrell, an established African-American community organizer in Seattle
• Wesley C. Ulhman, the young mayor of Seattle, elected in 1969 by an optimistic youth movement

Pike’s Place Preservation

The local recession may have crippled local businesses, but local community groups secured a major victory in preserving the historic Pike’s Place Market for public development in late 1971. Pike’s Place Market—a multi-block open air market and famous Seattle landmark—was scheduled to be torn down in the early 1970s by private developers, but community efforts to protect the location caused the city council to pass an initiative that established the market as a historic landmark and returned the market to public ownership. As construction begins to restore the original space into a modern market, the renovations offer unique opportunities for developers, organizers, and merchants, all of whom want to secure their own vision for the Pike’s Place Market project.

Faces:

• Betty Bowen, journalist and philanthropist instrumental in saving Pike’s Place Market from redevelopment
• Michael Matsumodo, a local developer and consultant to the Pike’s Place Market Preservation and Development Authority

Character Creation

In Nostradamus, players take on the role of ordinary people caught up in the dangerous mystery of the Nostradamus killer, drawn deeper into a case that threatens to destroy their families and identities even if they emerge with their lives.

Unlike the detectives of a more traditional police procedural, the characters in Nostradamus are not police officers assigned to a particular case (see Impending Issues later in this section for more on Mark Montgomery, the homicide detective assigned to the Nostradamus case). Instead they are curious onlookers who become embroiled in the case even as people tell them to mind their own business and let the police do their job.

In order to give their relationships some structure, each character should tie into the impending issue selected at the start of the session (either The Boeing Bust or Pike’s Place Preservation) in addition to their other relationship aspects. These characters don’t have to be good friends—a labor organizer working at Boeing, a mechanic who is out of work because of layoffs, and a Boeing executive all tie into The Boeing Bust without necessarily being close companions before the start of the story.

In general, Nostradamus works best with Fate Core characters, since the different investigators can bring different skills to bear on the mystery. Fate Accelerated approaches don’t permit players to make characters that are substantially different from each other in capacity and talents. Characters only receive one stunt and two refresh in this Quick Start.

Aspects

Characters in Nostradamus start by selecting a high concept and trouble. Since the characters are ordinary people, players should select high concepts that put them in contact with the killer’s messages and victims—Prize Journalist for the Gazette, Underpaid Public Servant, Dedicated Labor Organizer, etc.—and focus on trouble aspects that might push them toward the mystery—Failing Marriage, Nosy and Nervous, Drawn to Death.

In addition to their high concept and trouble, players should also select a connection aspect to explain how they are connected to the Nostradamus killer and two investigator aspects to create relationships among the PCs. These aspects are essentially a modified phase trio, but tell the PCs to focus on regular connections and involved relationships that require consistent contact; the mystery will require their characters to push on through danger and disappointment, and they will want to earn compels from their aspects to do so. See the Sample Characters for examples of strong connection and relationship aspects.

Skill List

Nostradamus uses a modified Fate Core skill list that has been recontextualized to better fit a 1970s murder mystery. Most skills remain unchanged (Contacts, Empathy, Investigate, Provoke, Rapport, Resources, Will), but others have been removed completely (Athletics, Burglary, Crafts, Deceive, Drive, Fight, Notice, Shoot, and Stealth) and many that stayed have undergone some substantial revisions. In addition, Nostradamus features a new skill that can be added to any campaign: Command.

Evasion

Nostradamus combines elements of Deceive and Stealth into Evasion, the art of avoiding conflicts and problems physically and socially. Whenever a character tries to weasel out of a situation, they roll Evasion to determine if they can avoid or undermine a conflict instead of facing it head on. Characters with low Evasion tend to stumble into conflicts, requiring them to engage instead of avoid problems.

Cryptography (Lore)

Rather than offer Lore for information about serial killers—an incredibly specific field of knowledge—or the city of Seattle—a broad set of information that may or may not be useful, Nostradamus features Cryptography, the study of the codes and ciphers that happen to play a central role in the killings. Characters can use Cryptography to learn more about the ciphers, evaluate what the killer must know to construct the ciphers, or crack the ciphers directly (with enough time).

Physique

Nostradamus combines all the physical skills—Athletics, Fight, Shoot, and Physique—into a single skill. Characters with a high Physique might be ex-cops or soldiers returning from Vietnam, people who have some broad physical training in a setting where most people probably don’t know how to handle themselves in a fight or shoot a gun effectively.

Survival

Nostradamus uses the Survival skill developed by Ryan Macklin in The Fate Codex, Volume 1, Issue 2. Investigators use Survival to navigate the wilderness surrounding the city, to discover crucial resources and escape routes in tense situations, and for determining who acts first in a physical conflict.

Limited Skill Pyramid

In addition to the modified skill list, characters begin with a reduced skill pyramid that tops out at Good (+3) instead of Great (+4). Note that this has two important effects: fate dice and fate points now matter more relative to the character’s skills, and traditional difficulties—Fair (+2)—are slightly harder than normal. Both of these changes are subtle ways of upping the horror quotient in Fate; look to Richard Bellingham’s article Sustaining Dread on page 4 for more ideas to make Nostradamus truly terrifying.

Damaged Aspects

As stated above, Nostradamus uses damaged aspects from Brendan Conway’s Damaged Aspects piece instead of traditional stress tracks. There’s no way to earn additional stress boxes through Physique or Will, and you may want to reduce the number of stress boxes per aspect from five to three if you want to play a short game.

New Extra: Suspects

Rather than force the GM to create a fixed mystery that the characters must explore, Nostradamus leaves the question of the killer’s identity open. Over the course of several scenes, the players provide input through the use of suspects—NPCs flagged as potential murderers by the players before the story begins.

Creating Suspects

After creating their characters, each player creates a suspect for the player to their right, an NPC that the target player’s character believes might be the Nostradamus killer. The suspect creator details three things: the character’s name, their relationship to the target PC, and an evidence aspect that captures why the target PC has grown suspicious. By default, these characters must all be white men, approximately twenty to forty years of age, and familiar with firearms and codes. Anyone else is not a believable suspect, and the characters must believe deeply that the suspect they are connected to might really be the killer.

Sean is sitting to the left of Kendyl, so he starts to create a suspect for her when he’s done with his own character. Since Kendyl’s character, Aisho, is the Owner of a Pike’s Place Stall, he decides to create a regular customer, Isaac, who buys fish from her once a week, after he gets off his shift as a longshoreman. He tells her that Isaac fits the profile, and that she knows that he served in Vietnam in the late 1960s, returning to Seattle after his tour as a communications officer. He finishes off the suspect with the evidence aspect Missing Weeks and tells Kendyl that Isaac only missed picking up his fish two weeks out of the last two years—the same two weeks that Aisho’s son and Rolando Diaz were missing before they were found dead.

Once all of the suspects have been created, the GM secretly adds a suspect stress track to each one. The length of the suspect track should correspond with the length of the game; a multi-session game might have five to six boxes, while a short game may just have two to three.

Using Suspects for Scenes

Each scene of Nostradamus revolves around one of the suspects created by the players, either as direct investigations of the mystery surrounding the men that might be responsible or scenes that play out the consequences of the PCs’ investigations in their personal lives. It’s crucial that these scenes be tightly constructed in order to maximize the tension; it’s hard to stay in a horror mindset if every other scene is about something completely unrelated to the Nostradamus killer.

At the start of each scene, the GM helps to facilitate scene setting by asking the group which suspect seems most interesting at that point in the story. Once the group decides on a suspect, the GM frames the scene with multiple characters, entangling several different threads to keep any one character from getting too focused on one and only one suspect.

For the first scene, the group agreed that it would be interesting to focus on Aisho’s suspect, Isaac. Since Brendan is GMing, he says, “Great. Let’s have a few of you trailing him home to get a look at his place. Aisho, how did you get Oscar to help you out here? Why did he agree to come with you to trail Isaac? Was it because he’s a reporter who Needs to Get the Story?”

After that scene is resolved, the group agrees that the next scene should focus around Emily’s boss, Alexander. Brendan frames that scene as well: “Okay, I think we’ll have a scene between Emily, Oscar, and Alexander’s wife, June. You’re all at a party for the firm and she starts asking questions about her husband. Emily, what do you think she knows about the book?”

Resolving Suspects

For each scene that concerns a suspect, the GM marks one of the stress boxes associated with that character, even if the suspect is only discussed and not directly engaged in the scene. Once all the stress boxes have been filled, the GM has to make a decision about the character: what is this person hiding? Is this the killer? The GM doesn’t share this decision, but from that point forward, everything the character does is in line with that new reality. It’s possible that none of the suspects is the killer or that there are multiple killers, but nothing is decided until the stress tracks have been filled.

After a few scenes, Brendan marks all the stress boxes on Isaac’s suspect track. He decides, based on what they’ve found already, that Isaac is not the killer. In fact, Brendan decides that Isaac actually spent those missing two weeks looking for the boys, deeply concerned about Aisho and her family. All further evidence that the PCs discover will confirm this fact, and Brendan now only has two suspects left who could possibly be the Nostradamus killer.

Plot Hooks and Further Mysteries

The players may have solved the mystery of the Nostradamus killer—or wisely decided to let the case go and go back to their lives...but that’s not the end of the mysteries that abound in Jet City. Here are a few plot hooks and further mysteries to keep the investigators looking for bodies:

Once More, With Feeling

Weeks after the capture (or death) of the Nostradamus killer, another body is discovered, murdered in a similar style: same kind of gun, same attached note, etc. Another letter arrives at the Seattle Gazette demanding that a cipher be published so that “the great game can continue.” But the correspondence and many details at the scene don’t match the original letters, and the police suspect that a copycat killer is on the loose. Who is copying the Nostradamus killer? Are they committed to his mad plan or simply using the original murders to throw the police off their scent?

Five Years Forward

Years after the resolution of the case, the PCs find themselves the subjects of a newly-released, hard-hitting documentary film called Mabus that claims the PCs interfered with the police investigation and allowed the Nostradamus killer to pursue his murderous plans. Yet as public reaction to the movie swells, the PCs begin to receive late-night phone calls and strange packages, all filled with whispers and notes about “the real Nostradamus killer.” Can they stay away from getting involved again? Or will they be drawn back to the case when the spotlight shines so bright upon them?

Experts of a Sort

The emergence of a serial killer in Portland—the “Ink Man” kidnaps his victims, tattoos every inch of their body with strange symbols, and then dumps them near public art installations—leads the Seattle police department to invite the PCs into a multi-state task force. But after the initial media circus subsides, a trusted friend within the department reveals the offer sets them up as scapegoats if the investigation goes south. Who can the PCs trust? Will they walk away from the investigation or allow themselves to be drawn back into the orbit of a murderous monster?

Sample Characters

Here are a few characters created just for this Quick Start, ready to pursue the Nostradamus killer into the dark shadows of Seattle. These characters assume that the group has chosen Pike’s Place Preservation as their impending issue.