Nine Tenths of the Law

By Fergal O’Brien

Players: 10

Genre: Horror

In the beginning, there was a creature. Call him a demon, call him a ghost or even a nephilim if you wish - Shabra had one very important characteristic. Shabra didn't have a body. What Shabra did have was the box. The box was very important, because it kept his spirit hosted between excursions. These excursions took the form of possessions - sojourns out into other people's bodies, whereby Shabra would taste the delights of the human world and then leave as suddenly as he came. Unfortunately, Shabra was not a good lodger. In his wake he left ruin of the mind. Not content merely to have his own experiences and then leave, Shabra would ravage the mind of his victims and take away theose parts he found most enticing. Life forming experiences, emotions and even skills would be torn from the mind of his host and brought back to Shabra's box where he could toy with them for eternity. Sometimes, he took only a little, and the victim's only sign of having been possessed would be a mild case of forgetfulness. Sometimes he took almost all and the victim would be left in a vegatative state.

For centuries this pattern continued. Transported by a fanatical cult of followers, Shabra would move from place to place, sampling human life. In all probability he could have kept this up forever and never been caught, but then life accelerated. The twentieth century was an exciting time for Shabra. Never before had life offered more options. As the century wore on, life became more and more interesting. Technology boomed and whole new worlds were opened up. Anxious to experience it all, Shabra became less cautious and took more hosts. Worse, he took more and more with him when he left the hosts. By the turn of the millenium, there was a pattern there to be followed by anyone alert enough to notice it - and they did.

Enter an intrepid team of investigators/adventurers/plucky heroes in the right place at the right time. They track their way back through the vegetables that Shabra is leaving behind him and finally find out where it is that he is holed up. Thoughful folk that the cultists are, they have decided to keep Shabra in a casino where he has plenty of frenetic life to choose from. People tend to go a little crazy in Las Vegas anyway, so who's going to notice a few more? At least, that's what they thought. Eventually it all went wrong though, and our heroes manage through a combination of luck, skill, strength of arms and cunning plans (none of which will ever come to light in this game) to corner the cult and Shabra's most recent host in one of the back rooms of the casino (along with one or two innocents who are just caught in the middle). A pitched battle erupts, there is a bit of frantic spellcasting, Shabra's host is badly injured and when he flees the body he is destroyed. With me so far? Good, 'cos here's where I explain how the game works.

Shabra may be dead, but his legacy lives on. In agony, he lashed out as he was destroyed and sundered the minds of all those around him. The box, which was his home for years, did what it was designed to do - it sucked in the free flowing mind stuff around it assuming it to be the demon.

So what does this mean for the group? What this means is that most of the players have very little recollection of what the hell has happened. In fact, they aren't too clear on most of their life in general. They have bits, but most of their memories are stored in the box.

Cost: free

Available from: http://www.irishgaming.com/scenario_storage/fob/nintenths.zip