Background
Marcus Hoffman was your average petty criminal who, through a series of increasingly odd jobs, found his way into the Occult Underground and from there, Level D clearance in The New Inquisition. He gained a reputation as the whipping boy who’s one fuckup away from losing his job but through sheer dumb luck he’s managed to keep his head above water.
His luck finally caught up with him one drunken night when he got talked into the bed of a Naked Goddess cultist and wound up starring in a recreation of one of The Goddess’s more “empowering” films. Once the cultist got the footage she needed she kicked Marcus to the curb with the help of some sort of animated gimp suit.
Marcus woke up the next morning sore in places he never thought he’d be and he knew that if word of what happened that night ever got out he’d be the laughing stock of TNI. Lucky for him he gave the cultist a fake name but that tape is still out there and he needs to get a hold of it so he can make sure it never sees the light of day. He’s been tracking the cultist for the past week and knows that she’s away from the apartment from 10PM-6AM on weeknights. Marcus would get the tape himself but he’s too scared of what that weird BDSM suit will do to him if it catches him snooping around.
Setup
If the PCs are strapped for cash or need to get their hands on some low tier ritual or artifact have Marcus get in contact with them somehow. It doesn’t really matter how, one way or another he offers them the job. He is only open with information about where to go, when to go, what to look for and what he’ll pay. He’s very dodgy about questions regarding why he wants the tape and only mentions TNI or The NG Sect if the PCs are notable in the Occult Underground or if they figure out he is involved with them and question him about it. He doesn’t mention the suit and if he is questioned as to why he doesn’t just get the tape himself he brushes it off with something along the lines of “I’m paying you to do a job, not ask questions”. If asked his name, he gives the same fake name he gave the cultist, “Lex Hammerschmidt”. He gives the PCs the number of a burner phone and tells them to call once they’re free and clear with the tape. Basically, play it like Marcus is really embarrassed about what went down and won’t offer the PCs much unless they really grill him for information. If he reveals any specifics offer it up with a healthy dose of shame and “Whatever you do, don’t tell anybody.”
This scenario is formatted for UA2e.
The Apartment
The cultist’s apartment is located in a middle class or lower income neighborhood of whatever city the PCs are in when Marcus hires them. The building can be a large complex, a row home or whatever else fits the setting best. There are likely several neighbors in the area trying to sleep around the time the PCs show up and any sufficiently loud or suspicious noises (fighting, yelling, breaking in carelessly) carries a good chance of a visit from a nosy neighbor or a call to the police.
The apartment contains a kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom and utility closet. The apartment opens into the living room with the kitchen on the opposite end, connected by a hallway containing the bedroom, bathroom and utility closet.
In the living room is a couch, coffee table, bookshelf and entertainment center. In the bookshelf and scattered across the coffee table are biographies of porn stars, an impressively old edition of the Kama Sutra, books on sexual healing, you get the picture. A TV with a VHS player sits in the entertainment center. The drawers are full of tapes that either have the labels scratched off or simply have a name written by hand on a piece of tape. If any time is spent watching the tapes it becomes clear that the labeled tapes are shot for shot recreations of the unlabeled tapes (starring the resident cultist and random strangers) with attention to detail so precise it warrants a Rank 1 Unnatural check. Most of the unlabeled tapes look like regular porn (they’re actually recreations of various suspected Naked Goddess videos by other Sect members) but there is a 3rd generation Naked Goddess tape in the mix. Feel free to have an overly curious PC find that if you feel like spicing things up.
The bedroom doubles as a porn studio. Set lighting is still up and an old video camera sits on a tripod facing the bed. A tape marked “Hammerschmidt” sits in the loader. The bedroom closet contains a myriad of sex toys, whips, chains, ropes, skimpy outfits, and the overpowering odor that all of those items give off.
In the utility closet is a well maintained leather BDSM bodysuit hung reverently on a handmade wooden hanger. The hangar is topped with a symbol of The Naked Goddess. A barbed whip hangs on a hook on the wall next to the suit. Any spiritually attuned PCs can feel a hum of magickal energy the moment they step in the closet.
There is nothing special in the kitchen or bathroom besides potential improvised weapons.
The Suit
The leather bodysuit is the cultist’s security system. The suit and whip were used by Daphnee Lee when she played the dom in a series of hardcore BDSM videos a few years ago. The cultist bought cheap it from some sucker at a porn convention who didn’t realize that something like that would have some latent magickal energy rubbed off on it. The cultist used that energy to animate the suit. It follows simple commands (in this case “guard the apartment”). It activates as soon as the PCs enter the apartment, preferably it should get the jump on them before they find the tape but after they’ve snooped around a bit. When active the suit looks and feels solid, as if there is a parson inside of it but any damage reveals that it is full of air. This realization prompts a Rank 2 Unnatural check.
There are three ways to defeat the suit: Either open the zipper down the back of the suit causing it to collapse in a pile, deactivate it with the safe word “Blue Velvet” or use magick that dispels animated objects. The suit can be damaged, even to the point of immobility, by physical means, but not deactivated or destroyed and it repairs any damage it’s sustained while dormant over the course of several hours.
The dominatrix personality that’s been hard coded into the suit prevents it from killing anyone, it just beats them into submission with its whip and built in stiletto heels. Anyone who takes damage from the suit equal to half their wound points has to make a Rank 2 Violence and Rank 2 Helplessness check. If they fail both they start to enjoy the pain and possibly develop a fetish for domination. If the suit manages to disable all of the PCs (or if any of them get left behind by their companions) it will tie them up and leave them gagged in the bedroom until the cultist comes home and decides what to do with them.
Conclusion
All the PCs are there to do is get the tape and get out. If they do this they can call Marcus/Lex on their way out and he tells them he’s getting some food at a local diner and they can make the exchange there. If the PCs choose to blackmail Marcus with the tape he’s willing to double the payment but they will lose access to a possible TNI contact in the future.
Marcus Hoffman AKA Lex Hammerschmidt, TNI Fuckup
Personality: Shame masked by unearned confidence
Obsession: Not looking like an idiot in front of his peers
Wounds: 50
Body: 50 (Scrappy)
General Athletics: 30%
Fight Dirty: 30%
Speed: 50 (Quick)
Drive: 15%
Dodge: 20%
Guns: 30%
Initiative: 25%
Mind: 45 (Short Sighted)
General Education: 20%
Notice: 15%
Conceal: 30%
Soul: 55 (Lucky)
Charm: 15%
Lie: 20%
*Lucky Guy: 50%
Lucky Guy: Marcus is one of those guys who things usually work out for despite not being particularly great at anything. Some might call him an Avatar of The Fool, but they’d be giving him far too much credit. Marcus can use Lucky Guy once per round as a reaction to a failed roll. If he succeeds the Lucky Guy roll, he can re-roll the original failed roll. Marcus can’t use Lucky Guy to attempt to re-roll a failed Lucky Guy roll.
Possessions: Knock-off name brand clothing. A burner phone. A small folding knife (+3 melee damage), Marcus keeps a silenced, unlicensed Mac-10 submachine gun with one extra magazine concealed in his coat whenever he’s on a job or going into a situation where he thinks he might need protection.
Violence: 3 Hardened, 2 Failed
Unnatural: 2 Hardened, 0 Failed
Helplessness: 0 Hardened, 0 Failed
Isolation: 0 Hardened, 1 Failed
Self: 0 Hardened, 0 Failed
The Suit, Leather Golem
Personality:
Obsession: Protecting its owner’s home
Wounds: 65
Body: 65 (Vice-like Grip)
General Athletics: 45%
*Whip and Choke: 55%
Speed: 70 (Sexual Gymnast)
Initiative: 45%
Serpentine: 45%
Tie Knots: 40%
Mind: 0 (Secret Sub)
Soul: 40 (Magickally Stained)
Spit Wax: 40%
Serpentine: The Suit moves with unnatural grace, bobbing and weaving in combat with limbs that contain no bones. This skill functions as Dodge but can be used as per the High Dodge rules.
Spit Wax: The Suit has the ability to spew gouts of hot wax from its “mouth” by unzipping the front of its mask. It can shoot the wax as far as 10 feet and it can be used to seal doors shut, immobilize, blind, or suffocate threats, and deal damage. Roll the Spit Wax skill to successfully hit. It deals normal melee damage and can be used to immobilize limbs, blind the target, or suffocate them (use rules for Kung fu Grip and Blind cherries and Strangling respectively)
Possessions: Barbed leather bullwhip (+3 melee damage)