The hallway/corridor opens to a larger corridor. A large room can be seen at that very end.
The necromantic forces feel stronger here, like they did on previous levels.
As the characters move down the hall, they are attacked by Zombie Ophidians.
There are 1d8+4 zombies of the snake men. They have no weapons and attack with claws and bites. Their poison bite is all used up so they only do 1d4 hp damage per bite.
Taking the far hallway on the right leads to another corridor with four doors. Each door opens to similar rooms.
Each room is dark with a large vat full of green liquid as the centerpiece. In two of these, the vats are empty of liquid and there are skeletons at the bottom. The glass is broken.
In room 16a there is a vat with a Saurian floating inside. If the glass is broken and the liquid drained the saurian will revive in 1d4+1 turns. The saurian (a Warrior) will be enraged and quite insane. It will attack the party right away.
In room 16c the vat has a human male. If this vat is drained the human will revive in 1d6+1 turns, scream incoherently at the party and then promptly die.
--
These are abductees of the Ophidians. They have been here for centuries kept alive and awake for all this time. The Necromancers kept these two to come back to later but never did. The controls for the life support are damaged, so there is no way to put the victims back.
Vril is an energy or the species that uses this energy depending on who you ask. They would be as about as relevant as the Mahars of Pellucidar (the species, not the book) if it were not for the later involvement of Nazis and UFOs.
Vril comes from the book "Vril, the Power of the Coming Race" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and was published anonymously in 1871. It deals, as was common to many "Science Romances" of the time with an unnamed but wealthy first-person narrator. This narrator finds himself in an underground world occupied by these majestic angel-like begins, the Vril-ya who have advanced psychic abilities, but of course, need a proper Englishman to teach them how to speak English. He also finds his lost wife, two sons, and daughter. He learns that these beings also known as the Ana, used to live on the surface but came here sometime before the Great Flood. He learns of their energy, the Vril, which is like an "all-permeating fluid."
It was pretty much pre-Pulp, Victorian Science Romance (the precursor to Science Fiction). While not great, it has some interesting ideas that men and women were 100% equal in society and the notion of wireless communication and the potential of electricity. It was, I do note, popular in its time.
It would have been a semi-forgotten bit of science fiction had it not been for various theosophists, most notably Helena Blavatsky, who took it for Occult Truth (yes. with capital letters). It seems that in addition to his work on Vril, Edward Bulwer-Lytton also wrote books about Rosicrucians and other occult matters. Blavatsky took this bit of fiction and ran with it. Ran so hard in fact that when I first encountered it years ago I was a little surprised to learn it had not been her idea. As learned more and saw she was a con artist who stole ideas and claimed them as her own I became less and less surprised.
As I said the book had some popularity with Vril becoming synonymous for a bit with "life given exlirs." There was even what amounted to a Sci-Fi convention at Royal Albert Hall in 1891 called the Vril-Ya Bazaar. It all has the feel of a Star Trek Convention. I like other sci-fi properties, there were those who really wished it was real.
But what makes this part of a Conspiracy Theory?
The book and the notions of Vril were taken up by various occultists, in particular theosophists, as truth. They began to ascribe all sorts of properties to it and to Edward Bulwer-Lytton (who they felt was telling a first hand account in some cases). Blavatsky used Vril and the idea of "The Common Race" (and "Race" in general, but I am getting to that) in her books Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888). Likewise, theosophist William Scott-Elliot used "Vril-energy" in his The Story of Atlantis & The Lost Lemuria (first ed., 1896).
Likely because of Blavatsky, Vril and the Comming Race became wrapped up in the fertile land of German paganism and pseudoscience that lead to the rise of Nazism. As noted by Willy Ley, a German rocket engineer who came to the US in 1937, pre-Nazi Germany saw the popularity and widespread proliferation of many irrational ideas including Vril. He published "Pseudoscience in Naziland" in the magazine Astounding Science. There is far more in that article than I can discuss in one post. But suffice to say that it is a gold mine of ideas. One of the results of this was the belief in the "Vril Society" existing in Berlin prior to the rise of the Nazis.
After WWII the Vril Society supposedly went on to continue the works of Nazi Occultism which gave us ideas like the Black Sun and various UFOs. That is another rabbit hole I don't feel like going down today.
For NIGHT SHIFT
I have spoken about various underground races already, the Derro and the Ophidians. The Derro share some commonalities with the Vril. The Vril was published as science-fiction and others took them to be real. The Derro was also published as science-fiction but their author claimed they were in fact real. Both featured anonymous first-person narrators. Both featured an underground lost civilization with advanced technology and energies. But the Derro are invariably described as insane and stunted humans. The Vril are "angel-like." So it is not likely they are the same sort of folk.
There is some similarity between the Vril and the Nordics of UFOolgy. Throw in some of the ideas of Ultima Thule and the "benevolent" Nordics start looking less benevolent. Sure they want the best for humanity, but only the humanity that looks like them.
Vril of course is the common thread. It is the energy that both the Derro and the Nordics use. Hmm...is there an association there that the characters need to tease out? What are the Derro to the Nordics? Is there more here? I think there is!
The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).
Getting back to some of the aliens I want to talk about some of the aliens found on Earth and how they can be used in the game.
There are some generally accepted aliens in UFOlogy (yeah that is a word I typed). Let's go over them here and then see what we have.
Nordics
These aliens are called this because they, generally speaking, are tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, human-looking aliens. Seriously I can't help but think about how many of these ideas are so steeped in racism and these are the Poster Boys. Though, and to be fair, maybe they are more like the Asgardians of the Marvel Universe? Nah, that is giving them too much credit.
The Nordics supposedly come from the Pleiades star cluster. They seem to have a more benign nature that the other aliens.
Reptilians
OR Reptoids I have mentioned already this month and they have a much more sinister motive here. They have infiltrated various levels of government (more on that later this month), but their true purposes are still unknown. They can shape-shift and appear to be human and are believed to be somewhere from the Alpha Draconis system.
Greys
These guys are jerks. They visit trailer parks in the middle of the night and abduct people. Ok that is a bit glib. These aliens are some of the most seen and are responsible for many of the close encounters. Indeed they were featured in the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (one of my favorites), Roswell, Strieber's "Communion," and the various "Alien Autopsy" movies.
Popularly they are considered to be from Zeta Reticuli. This is based on a drawing from one of the most famous alien abductees ever, Betty Hill.
While generally believed to be benign, there is the opinion that they see humans as little better than animals to be experimented on.
LGMs
The Little Green Men are common in Sci-Fi but have not featured much in conspiracy theories or alien sightings for a while. They were commonly believed to have been from Mars.
As their name implies they are shorter than humans, even shorter than greys.
Insectoids
These aliens are spotted far less frequently than the others. The Selenites are often depicted as insectoids. Because of this, I am tempted to give them a temporary base on the moon. It was just set up.
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Alien Species Concepts by Deimos-Remus |
For NIGHT SHIFT
These five alien species all are active on the Earth of NIGHT SHIFT, in particular Weirdly World News. Their motivations are pretty simple. Nordics are observing and helping where they think is best. Greys and LGMs are abducting humans and trying to figure out what makes them tick. Insectoids are new to Earth and are rivals with the Reptoids. Their true motivations are still unknown.
That leaves the Reptoids. They are going to be detailed in more posts here, but basically, they are here to take control of the Earth and its people. There is a lot of speculation on what they want here from human slaves, or they are draining our psychic energy, to needing a new home after their world was destroyed.
Like the Ophidians I mentioned on Monday, the Reptilians/Reptoids can't use magic. Nordics do use magic, or at least they do something that seems similar to magic.
There are a couple of good game resources that cover all these aliens. First, there is the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS - The Cryptid Manual (review) a great resource on all sorts of cryptids and aliens. And secondly an old favorite of mine, The Unexplained (review) a Fudge-based RPG.
Both are excellent resources.
The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).
