Post by senko on Jul 28, 2018 2:07:19 GMT
I just found out about this. Apparently the original 13 colonies were terrified by a monster called the Snallygaster or Schneller Geist, meaning "quick ghost" in German. The earliest incarnations mixed the half-bird features of a siren with the nightmarish features of demons and ghouls. The Snallygaster was described as half-reptile, half-bird with a metallic beak lined with razor-sharp teeth, occasionally with octopus-like tentacles. It swoops silently from the sky to pick up and carry off its victims. The earliest stories claim that this monster sucked the blood of its victims. Seven-pointed stars, which reputedly kept the snallygaster at bay, can still be seen painted on local barns. Anyway a couple of newspapers resurected the tales with a "story" that president Theodore Roosevelt was going to postphone an African Safari to hunt the beast down.
Now in our world its just a newspaper gimmick to sell more copies but what if it were true?
The PC's arrive in northern New York state on 12th of January (or other appropriate date for American weather) on a cold winters day to find the small town they were planning to vacation in/arrived at accidentally is living in fear of the Snallygaster that has been killing cattle and . . .
Scenario 1
Has recently killed two children. President Theodore Roosevelt along with an "occult expert" and a number of other hunters is in town to hunt down and kill the monster. The party must help find and defeat the Snallygaster which they find is gathering food for a clutch of eggs.
Scenario 2
Theodore Roosevelt along with an "occult expert" and a number of other hunters is in town to hunt down and kill the monster. The party must help find and defeat the Snallygaster. However the Snallygaster is actually a member of a largely peaceful race which crashed her several centuries ago. It has made several attempts to communicate with the native life forms only to be driven off and attacked now it lurks in the shadows feeding on cattle and dreaming of going home. The PC's must realize although there are many terrifying tales of it there is no documented attack on a human, make contact and save it from the hunters before its killed.