Snallygaster (Adventure Seed)

[senko]

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.

[Boneguard]

Both scenarios are pretty good and bring different style of game and approach. I like the second one a bit better, more investigative work and has a layers upon layers feel.

[olegrand]

Well, first of all, thanks for this fascinating piece of American folklore - and yes, this does scream for a DW adaptation, especially if Theodore Roosevelt is includeed (a briliant idea): in a way, this would work a bit like the TV episode "Tooth & Claw", with Queen Victoria and the Werewolf...

And just like in T&C (and other DW episodes where classic folklore monsters provide the inspiration), I think that it would be more interesting to make the creature something different than what folklore purports it to be. For this reason, your second scenario idea seems the more interesting and the more "Whovian" of the two, with plenty of opportunity for social interactions, dramatic tension, problem-solving and "guns are bad" speeches

Perhaps you could add an extra element of physical danger by having a professional "monster hunter" (or a whole team of them?) turn in as well. Three possibilities turn to mind:

- a team of "Gun Club"-like, rifle-totting rich maniacs / thrill-seekers, hoping for a "legendary kill", perhaps with some kind of Colonel Moran-like, tiger-killing marksman thrown in - here humans would be the main menace! (a sort of anti-Predator, if you will)

- a team of covert agents from the US equivalent of Torchwood for the time period, believing the Snallygaster to be a very dangerous alien creature - and these agents could be armed with anachronistic, high-tech weaponry (Torchwood style)

- a lonely "big game hunter" from another planet, with a complete array of high-tech weaponry, expert tracking skills etc. A sort of alien Count Zaroff from "The Most Dangerous Game", hoping from planet to planet in search of the most challenging kills