Ten strange items in the crap that people have in cabinets…
Roll a d10 or choose.
1 ACCORDIAN ROAD MAP
A map of the United States with the Interstate Zero very carefully pencilled in across the country. The road map is dated 1993. The pencilled road overlaps multiple roads; state borders, and even runs over empty land, or through towns. Along the way are little explanation boxes filled with TLA codes and three-number groups – like radio calling signs and channel frequencies. There is no legend for the boxes.
2 SHEAF OF LINED PAGES
The pile of hand written pages has a big red TOP SECRET stamped on the cover page. In pen is written – Lee Harvey Oswald, My Part: An autobiography
3 LARGE SEALED GLASS BEAKER
Floating in the formaldehyde is a two-headed cockroach.
4 FUZZY TEDDY BEAR
A plush teddy bear that squishes when squeezed. If cut open it spills out used wedding confetti. If sewn back up the bear refills itself.
5 A PLATINUM VISA CARD
It is for the first bank of Raleigh Pacifica made out to A. P. M. Simmons. The bank doesn’t exist but the card works.
6 AN OLD PINCHED NECK BOTTLE
Those really old medicinal bottles – with the marble between the pinches – with an unbroken, thick, waxy seal that stops the clear, viscous liquid from escaping. The bottle doesn’t have a paper label but has been embossed. The embossing reads DOC MUNNY’S PURE GENUINE SNAKE OIL – DANGER UNDILUTED
7. A BOOK OF SUBURBAN PROPHECIES
Written in ballpoint pen the 285 prophecies are numbered in order of appearance (in pen by someone else). The prophecies are bland and unexciting: “Avoid the corner or 5th and Cherry Orchard on the 5th of May 1993” or “the fabulous fire tree shall halt Backers’ flame-decal auto.”
8. A LARGE JAR
The Jar is filled with pickled human eyes a rather cloudy white wine vinegar (says something about its age). Rank Three – Violence check to look into the jar.
9. A VIDEO CASSETTE
The VCR tape is marked TEXAS 1998 and is played features a woman giving birth in a modern, high tech hospital room. The camera is tripod mounted and the woman is in the corner of the room (and the picture. She is in stirrups and huffing and straining. When her contractions cycle down she screams for some one to please come help her. Although garbled intercom sounds occur no one comes to help her. Just before the four minutes are up, the woman starts sobbing: “Please, someone help. I think something’s wrong! Please help me! There’s something wrong with my baby!” Then the recording stops.
10. A GIVEAWAY PROMOTION
A promotional glossy pamphlet for the Carbonari Diner: features the best in Sicilian foods. The full-colour flyer gives three phone numbers and a nearby address. All the cutlery in the pamphlet’s photograph features Templar Crucifixes and Illuminati Eye-Pyramids everywhere.
For number 5: how much money can you get this way? I smell a Plutomancer’s loophole.
Its works on credit only not on cash. Trying to draw money from the counter or an ATM without a PIN is going to get the card swallowed.
That’s if any banks in the world accept Raleigh Pacifica.
Yeah, but you could buy something and then sell it for cash.
Can do the same trick with a bad check; one good forgery can net you a few VCRs, DVD players, PS2s, whatever.
This is, what I figure, the ‘bad-check’ equivalency for credit cards.
Try not to use it to stay in a hotel for more than a few days; when the billing goes through, it may have some oddities to it, y’know?
I’d let them get away with a few sig charges before it starts coming up overdrawn. If the players kvetch, just point out that they’re using a card from a bank that doesn’t exist. Then let the matter drop.
At least until a few sessions down the road, when our plutomancer’s leafing through his fat wallet and notices that the name on his driver’s license is now A. P. M. Simmons…
Wonder what kind of creditors work for The Bank That Doesn’t Exist?