Scairy Tales Written by Brent Wolke Interior Art by ? Edited by ? Cover by ? Cartography by ? Savage Worlds Rules by Shane Lacy Hensley First Dedication: to Jeannie Ellen Wolke (1949-2000) and Vera, Jeffrey, and Polina Eidelberg - My Family Second Dedication: to Game Masters everywhere. Keep telling those stories. Special Thanks to Steve Bartell, David Blewer, David Goecke, Ken MacLennan, Randy Mosiondz, Theron Seckington, David Sumpter, and Jason D. Young. Extra Special Thanks to Shane Lacy Hensley. He Believed. Playtesters: Colin Amato, Kevin Anderson, Tom Angus, Whitney Austin, Steve Bartell, Andrew Berry, Dave Blewer, Adam Boring, Rebecca Boring, David Coutley, Tony Coutley, Geneva Dillow, Ruthan Freese, Carter Geyerman, James Geyerman, David Goecke, Max Goecke, Rebecca Goecke, James Grisaffi, James Houlahan, Matthew Houlahan, Marcus Lawson, Ken MacLennan, Peter Martin, Randy Mosiondz, Will Perdew, Crystal Quist, Chris Reed, Tricia Reed, Bret Rood, Clive Savage, Theron Seckington, Mike Smith, David Sumpter, Robert Wilson, Nathan Wolke, Emma Woods, Alden Wouters, Geoff Wright, Jason D. Young, & Joe Zurla Savage Worlds, Smiling Jack, and Great White Games are Copyright 2003, Great White Games. Scairy Tales and all unique characters, <Insert Great White Games Logo> creatures, and locations herein are Copyright 2007, Brent Wolke <Insert Savage Worlds Logo> Peter Pan characters and setting reproduced with kind permission of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London. Map - Left Side Map - Right Side Table of Contents Scairy Tales Influenced by the works of Aesop, Hans could no longer compete with the blitz of sights and Christian Andersen, JM Barrie, Lewis Carroll, sounds of modern day cartoons and movies that Carlo Collodi, The Brothers Grimm, and Charles mesmerized the mind. Perrault, Scairy Tales is an apocalyptic survival Where little wooden boys once strode through game set in the now ruined world of the fairy tales, the dreams of children like kings, now lives called Wonderment. The player characters are fairy pocket monsters and purple dinosaurs. This is tale folks who have survived this apocalypse and the mundane world, but it wasn’t always like this. must seek a way to save the world of Wonderment Children used to believe. from lasting destruction. Wonderment has been all but abandoned by the mundane world’s belief The Dream and the survival of the fairy tale world lays not The Dream was once powerful. It was the with hope that humans will find their way back force generated by children in their imagination to it, but with the fairy tale folks themselves. that created the magical matter from which Wonderment has been inherited by the fairy tales, Wonderment and its inhabitants are comprised. and if their world is to be rescued, they must be The Dream is also the soul of every being in the ones to do it. Wonderment, and this soul gave life. Wonderment was in essence a dream land; a place where the The Mundane World pure thoughts of hope and courage lived side by The mundane world is the real world. The side with joy and magical fancy. It was a place world that must deal with issues of crime and to which the mundane world retreated for rest. punishment. Physical abuse and terror. Sickness Wonderment needs to be believed in order for it and suffering. Pollution and waste. Every to exist. It was in the bedtime stories of sleepy generation of children had to contend with the children the Dream found its belief in their negative elements of their lives, but never has the innocent thoughts. So, too, did it find belief in the troubles of the entire world been so prevalent and minds of parents who for a moment could return to so accessible to them; nightly, the news reports their own belief left behind as children. With belief, the death of millions to starvation, disease, and the Dream can do anything. war. Drugs and crime invade their schools, and Sadly, belief has all but disappeared, causing the ABC’s are learned through foul language, if the Dream to become weak and sick. It could no not from their peers, then from their parents. The longer keep out the negative influences of the mundane world no longer has time to imagine mundane world and the Nightmare came. The stories about fairy tales. Dream has retreated, wounded and nearly helpless. Once upon a time a child could imagine that It lives in the few survivors and the few refuges of if their own life was unhappy, somewhere there Wonderment still untouched by the Nightmare. The existed a place that was better. It’s all too clear Dream must stand on its own or soon nothing will now that no such place exists. What belief a child be left but the Nightmare’s hellish reign. could hold for fairy tales quickly fell to the side as they grew older. The dreams of children were Wonderment invaded by flashy toys, sugar coated cereals, and Wonderment was, in its glory, a completely the Saturday morning cartoons with commercials magical realm that existed only in dream and convincing children they needed the latest toys story. There was no lasting death and no concept to be happy. Technology, invaded, bringing with of time. Things were as they are in stories; heroes it the internet and its easy access to perversion and villains did battle over and over, for the delight and debasement. Storybooks were replaced by and thrills of those who had not yet given up the the television and videos, computer games and Dream. Life and death meant nothing - for at the movies. The reaffirmation of moral lessons taught telling of each story those that died were reborn by the just and good over the wicked and foul so the story could be told again. Wonderment had became just words on paper, ignored in favor of no physical limits and extended forever in every digital explosions. Imagination took a back seat. It direction. Fairy tale folk dwelled in villages or large cities. who dwelled in Wonderment. The land itself was Castles or cottages. Forests or caves. Some lived tainted, and visiting a place ruled by the Nightmare at the bottom of oceans. They lived in families or invited death, or far worse; corruption. The once solitary existence. happy realm became a wasteland. The damage Each new story added to the geography of was done, and Wonderment was left to its fate, Wonderment, filling it with countless kingdoms, abandoned by the mundane world who had given oceans, forests, and mountains. People of birth to it. every shape and form, from simple peasants to talking animals and objects, found a home in Nightmare Creatures Wonderment. It was a truly happy place, for in The Dream in its glory allowed for any Wonderment, the villains never won. Justice was possibility of form or being, but it never accounted dealt to the wicked, and the deserving always for creatures born of hate. Trolls and giants received their reward. are nothing compared to the creatures that the Nightmare has given birth to. Twisted forms Fairy Tale Folk of hellish origin covered in teeth and claws, or The very beings, folks, who inhabit tentacles and eyes, walked upon Wonderment Wonderment are creatures of the Dream, never for the first time. All of Wonderment recoiled in really human or animal. The lives of fairy tale folk horror at the sight of things new and terrible. The were dictated by their stories. Stories they knew. Nightmare had never held a place in Wonderment, Fairy tale folk have always been aware that the but the mundane world’s black emotions had been mundane world existed, that they lived because given form within. someone had created a story. Being born in a story, with their fate laid out on paper, their lives The Villains were not their own. They had to live by the will of Besides the creatures born of the Nightmare, the stories. In a cruel twist of fate, the coming of the survivors of Wonderment must also face the the Nightmare freed the fairy tale folk from their villains from their stories. Wicked witches and big stories and gave them free will over their own bad wolves were terrible enough in the old tales, destinies. However, freedom does little good when but they pale next to what they have become now. you are a prisoner of the Nightmare. Now fairy tale No longer destined by story to lose, no longer folk hide from the Nightmare creatures and villains held in check by the Dream, these villains seek in the few pockets of Wonderment not yet lost. to do what they could not ever before - win. Many Folk try to simply survive another day, and simply revel in the destruction of Wonderment and desperately wish for the return of the mundane seek to aid its fall further. Others have used this world to save them. Sadly, many believe that the opportunity to further their own plans of power. mundane world will come for them, and they Indeed some areas of Wonderment, both those simply need to live long enough for that time to untouched by the Nightmare or those areas that come. The truth is that their belief is misdirected. have succumbed, are now controlled under the The survivors need to believe in themselves. iron grip of the villains who delight in the pain they can cause. The Nightmare Villains are not the automatic allies of the The reign of the Dream ended as the mundane Nightmare, even though on occasion such dark world wrought an apocalypse on Wonderment as bargains are made. Should the Nightmare win, the black emotions of the real world spilled over the villains will be lost as well.