The lord of worms and his family…

In 1985 a forty-year old travelling salesman arrived home on a Monday morning as he usually did after a week on the road. The house was quiet and somewhere a breakfast television show piped a smarmy comment and the audience chuckled listlessly.

When he opened the door to the basement entertainment room, he noticed the sweet and acrid waft of burnt petrol. He panicked and went down stairs. Indeed the last thing he saw was the television because there was something swarming over the bodies of his wife and children. But the dim movement was gone when he turned on the lights.

The autopsy confirmed the suicide note that arrived by post a few days later. In a paroxysm of loneliness, depression and anxienty about the imminent nuclear war with the USSR, Augustine Jeppe fed a pipe from the exhaust of her running car and fed it through the tiny window of their basement.

She turned the car on, gave her two children barbiturate-laced milkshakes and hot chocolates and when they had fallen asleep, slugged back the rest of the brandy and pills and lay down next to them as their favourite videos played on until the cassette ejected from the player. And they stayed very still in the flicker of a television station.

Eventually the car chugged out of fuel and went quiet.

Except when things would come out in the one-second darkness between adverts, risking the bright glare and fiddle with jointed legs and feelers and taste the dead bodies.

The autopsy said the tiny marks were probably from rats. But there were no rats, Wallace Jeppe thought, just these black roach things.

Jeppe never went back to work. It was work that kept him away from home when his wife needed him or that made it easier to find women in bars or that made him drink a little too much when times were bad or bitch about how his family tied him down.

He sat in the basement with the three stains of his family at his feet. Eventually the sun went down and Jeppe started drinking. He awoke a little later with something trailing a pencil across his face. It felt like a pencil. Clicks and scratches were in the corner of the room.

At his feet there was a rustle and things scattered when he moved his foot. The pencil moved across his face again. And he remembered crying and the tears running. Something was licking the salt streaks.

He grabbed it and it writhed and scratched and sometimes the corners of the room chittered and scurried. But he held on until the thing stopped flexing and he stroked it. He called it Caroline after his dead daughter. And it lay serpentine in his lap as he stroked it. She is still shaped like a snake with a wide tooth-filled mouth.

Wallace Jeppe’s secret “daughter” has grown to about eight feet.

He met Zanzibar about three weeks later. He was tussling Caroline over a bit of sausage he brought for her. Zanzibar is about six feet long. Zanzibar has long jointed legs and a smoothly bulbous head.

Six months ago he started feeding another brave little fellow he has called Isaiah. Isaiah feels like a chrome cricket.

When Jeppe occasionally goes out during the day they somehow manage to coil around his arms and legs and torso, sometimes wriggling his thick clothes. He buys chum from the local butcher to feed his kids. They are still uninterested in cat pellets, which they sniff or taste but end up spraying everywhere. That just brings in the ants.

Wallace Jeppe has since started his own successful hardware store and is reputation as a salesman has allowed him to start a little, but equally successful, parts distribution network. His manager (who runs both) is putting up a little web sites for the businesses. Jeppe is waiting a few years before he sells full ownership to his manager. He finds he has become quite a night owl and prefers the solitude of his house in the small hours.

Jeppe has also learned a few things from the things. He can pick up a small one and “milk” it for black watery substance he calls ink. It is liquid and almost frictionless, never mixes with any other liquid and evaporates in light. If fact his neighbours have started chiding Wallace for dyeing his hair black – this is probably from exposure from the ink.

At night Jeppe sits on his computer and posts to bulletin boards. But so far his hints haven’t elicited a response from anyone. He is intensely curious about what creatures make up his second family.

But sometimes when Jeppe sadly remembers his dead family he goes down stairs and his other family comes and comforts him in the dark.

Wallace Jeppe (The Lord of Worms)
Wallace lost a fair bit of weight after the murder-suicide of his family. He has taken to eating healthy and limiting his drinking. He somehow hides his age well except in bright light. In gloomy light he looks twenty years younger and healthier. He hair has turned from dark brown and greying to jet black. It looks a little severe but everyone says it suits his new attitude.

Wallace Jeppe looks good for someone hitting his sixties.

Obsession: his new family. Although his old family has left a hole in his heart, he spoils his new family with the love and attention he didn’t give the last.

Rage: Dishonesty. Wallace is old school – your word is as good as a signature on paper. Although Wallace has done some shameful things that he finds guilt in, he is as hard on himself as anyone else.

Fear: His family. Wallace is terrified of losing his new family. He is desperate to find out all he can about his new family. He never, ever dreamed they’d be so obscure. He is worried that someone will think his new kids are freaks and take them away.

Noble: Affection. Seeing young couples stealing kisses, seeing the warmth in anniversaries and doting parents with loving children. All these things make Wallace feel that there is still right with the world.

BODY 55 (lanky, well kept with just a little bulge)
General Athletics 10
College Boxing 10

SPEED 60 (loose joints and tight sinews)
Dodge 30
Drive 25
Initiative 40

MIND 50
Other kinds of Education 20
Hide 40
Notice things in the Dark 50

Other kinds of Education allows Wallace to tend to his kids and make sure they are well. He also discovered how to milk the things although he still has no idea of what the ink actually does.

Notice things in the Dark allows Wallace a sort of radar sense in pitch blackness. He will never consciously stub his toe when he can’t see. He is aware of people there with him but not what they’re wearing.

SOUL 40
Sell Ice to Alaskans 40
Soldiering On 25
Family Resemblance 100

Selling ice to Alaskans is Wallace’s phenomenal selling ability. He will only sell things he himself believes in though.

Soldiering On gives Wallace the impression (and rightly so) that he still grieves for his original family and he is remarkably friendly and sociable, but there are deep, personal scars that everyone understands.

Family Resemblance gives Wallace a +10% shift to all his stats and skills when he is in total darkness. It also allows his kids to recognise him and bond with him.

Sanity Gauge Fail/Hard
Violence 2/1
Unnatural 0/2
Helplessness 3/0
Isolation 0/4
Self 2/3

Caroline (a huge tenebrae)
Despite her size, caroline and her two siblings are able to fit comfortably under Wallace’s clothes when he takes them out. They sometimes squirm and jostle for position that can be noticed. Caroline adds +10 to all stats and skills when she’s in total darkness.

Obsession: Daddy’s happiness

Passions:
Rage: Daddy’s scared
Fear: Daddy’s not happy
Noble: Daddy’s happy

BODY: 75 (Black muscle with a huge mouth)
Worm Athletics 25%
Coils of Muscle: 75%
Bite: 60% (H2H +6 damage)
Worm Athletics functions as General Athletics for Caroline.
Coils of Muscle allows Caroline to wrap around a body and squeeze. If the Coils of Muscle is successful, Caroline rolls H2H damage automatically each round as she crushes the victim.

SPEED: 45
Dodge: 60%
Initiative: 60%

MIND: 20
Hide: 15%
Seek: 15%
Seek allows Caroline to track someone. Since she doesn’t seem to breathe, it may be the shape of the person’s shadow…

SOUL: 20
Daddy’s Girl 100%
Daddy’s Girl is her attachment to Wallace. She is fiercely protective of him and her two siblings, although she does chastise them if they rough house too much.

Zanzibar (a big tenebrae)
Remember to add +10 to all stats and skills when Zanzibar’s in total darkness.

Obsession: Be noticed.

Passions
Rage: Not getting food.
Fear: Getting big sister angry with him.
Noble: All of the family together.

BODY 45
Worm Athletics: 35%
Wriggle and Scratch: 60 (H2H+6)

Worm Athletics is the same as his sisters.
Wriggle and Scratch is a combination of struggle and claw.

SPEED 50
Dodge 60%
Duck and Cover: 15%
Initiative 15%
Duck and Cover is how Zanzibar’s learned how to deal with focused light sources. If he rolls Duck and Cover, he can partially vanish from reality, but only were the light source strikes him.

MIND 10
Hide 10%
Notice 10%

SOUL 20
Daddy’s Boy: 25%
Daddy’s Boy is a simpler version of what Caroline has. Unlike Caroline, Zanzibar has to read Wallace’s body language and voice. Much like an over eager, but hellish puppy.

Isaiah (a little tenebrae)
Remember to add +10 to all of Isaiah’s stats and skills when in total darkness. Although Isaiah seems to be similar to a kitten, he is still pretty much a normal tenebrae. His sister and brother curb him in. He gets his vicious streak by hunting other tenebrae that occasionally drift into the basement. As long as Isaiah’s simple needs are taken care of he is safe. He may still be playful though, but his sister sorts him out.

Obsession: None. Not yet.

Rage: Comfort taken away.
Fear: No comfort again.
Noble: Comfort

BODY 20
Squirm 15%
Claw 60% (H2H +6)
Squirm means that Isaiah thrashes wildly if caught and is likely to slip away.

SPEED 70
Dodge 60%
Initiative 35%

MIND 15
Make a noise 15%
Do what the others do 15%
Isaiah has learned to make noise with his normal soundlessness. It is used as an attention seeking measure.
Isaiah hasn’t a distinctive personality yet so will mimic what his siblings do.

SOUL 10
Need comfort 20%

A note about tenebrae… tenebrae are not normally like this. It’s possible that Wallace’s grief and need to nurture has sparked off a little magic. Whether Wallace is a little magician or not, his paradox is there – the desire to have a family obscured by the denial that his substitute family is a bunch of magical cockroaches and he sacrifices any true friendship for his new family.

It must be also stressed that even Wallace knows that his three children are exceptional versions of horrible creeping things. Even deep down the reason he keeps the three tenebrae are that the ate bits of his last family and feels that the three children are the closest tangible link he has to the past.

Despite his new family, Wallace is an amazingly nice guy. If he ever relaxes and lets the characters on to what he has – a one-in-a-million chance, he will certain react negatively to any sort of bargaining to get the “secret”. His children will be immediately aggressive

The tenebrae are only male and female because Wallace has named them such – he hasn’t a clue about gender or if there’s any form of breeding. It’s not even something he truly considers.

Adventure hooks
·A neighbour’s irritating, nosy poodle sneaks into the basement and tries to attack Isaiah. Caroline smashes the dog into a wall breaking its leg. The dog escaped and becomes incessantly noisy when near Wallace’s house. The neighbour suspects that Wallace hurt her beloved Frederick and he must pay.

·Alex Greenberg, Wallace’s manager, saw something investigating a noise when he was installing Wallace’s computer. When Alex gets really trashed he lets bits of this story slip before he can catch himself. Most of the time he thinks he was seeing things.

·Some scummy punk the characters know tells the characters of how he tried to roll this old dude one night and these monsters came out of his clothes and one bit the mugger. He shows them the raggedly healing injury.

·The Order of St. Cecil have obtained a rumour that a person living in the neighbourhood has being seduced by incubi pretending to be the person’s dead family. Although this person is happy, his immortal soul is forfeit by have truck with devils from hell. It is the Orders duty to eliminate the demons.

·Someone finds a bottle of Ink, Wallace forgot in the kitchen. The Ink has strange powers needed by certain people (perhaps it gives them tenebrae abilities or reduces age by twenty years in total darkness or like pheromones, make tenebrae think the ink user is one of them, etc.) Wallace starts getting offers and then threats if he doesn’t co-operate.

·A nasty demon catches wind of what Wallace has done and decides Caroline would make a perfect body to operate in…