Launch Code 4

Themes

Things that go SNIKT in the night!

Structure

Exposition

Haunted Nerdy Frathouse Edition!

Among local Greek organizations associated with Campaign City colleges and universities, Psi Phi Zeta ( Ψ Φ Z ) has a reputation as The Most Tight-laced, Boring Frat Ever. They don't have scandals. They don't have wild parties. They don't have nerve-wracking Rush Week traditions. They don't raid the Dean's office or play pranks.

They are "staid" if you talk like they do.

"Lame" to everyone else.

Until now!

Something mysterious has lit a metaphorical fire under them. Members are making inventive, amateur forays into several metahuman fields at once. Some research ancient legends of artifacts that granted godlike powers. Some visit Chinatown, asking specific questions about rare, old herbal remedies. Some seek out psychics for very unusual queries. And some ... some make suspicious purchases on the black market. Not just the latest edition of Silent Dreams, either, now called Star Gate.

Earlier this evening, the Trenchcoat Brigade disrupted a cobbled-together ritual in a New York University park. They have wrecked a three-way drug deal in the alley behind Tony's House of Ribs. They investigated several university professors, including one whose connections to these problematic young men was too noteworthy.

Now it is time to take the investigation to the fraternity's headquarters!

At the PPZ frathouse ….

The hour is late.

Not all is silent! But most of the house's twenty residents are settled in place: five in the study that other fraternities might have used for a gaming room, three in the kitchen, seven in their beds on the top 3 floors, one in the 4th floor bathroom, and the remaining four work together in the front room to sort some data, or possibly to play some sort of complex miniature battle.

One of the trio in the kitchen gathers up three bulging garbage bags. He checks that his fancy watch is securely in place on his right wrist. Then he heads for the back door.

He is certainly going to the alley that runs behind Fraternity Row, heading for the dumpster at one end of the alley. He will have to pass behind three other frat houses, cross the alley, and unlock a tall iron gate that bars casual entry to the dumpster.

He looks like a pledge: exhausted, always hyper-aware of his posture and clothing, always looking around for higher-ranking members of his organization. He wears chinos, a safety-yellow long-sleeved polo shirt with the fraternity logo on each collar point, a bow tie (with a polo shirt!), and THIS APRON.

(Which is not spotless.)

(And shows some signs of fading in previous washes.)

(And does not fit him well.)

Components

Cruel Tricks

The TB and their guest stars have A Plan!

Milton Glavis is the first offering of a person for Nathan Bourne to replace. If they skip him, switch most notes to either the guy in the shower, or one of the sleepers, because surely they would NOT grab the two in the kitchen or the other groups.

Surely.

Speaking of groups:

The people in the kitchen are cleaning up after a long day of food prep.

1. They have made lots of sandwich bags full of filling snack food, each labeled with a particular ingredient NOT included (allergy prep). We're talking lots of oatmeal, blueberries, salmon jerky, raspberries, dried yellow tomatoes, and beet chips. And coffee beans.
2. They have made several Gladware containers of an orange concentrate+quinoa+spinach sort of dense pudding.
3. They have been using a food dryer machine for hours; the kitchen smells very weird.
4. Already stored away, maybe even transported away, are the dried salads and deconstituted seasoning or drink mixes and freeze-dried cheese.

Complication: Card Shark and Blockbuster are planning to swipe the notes and the mutagen.

Complication: underwater lair!

Things that Nathan can find on his own, depending on his inventiveness:

1. : detritus of NASA-style food prepackaging, (1 raps on 7/7) but on a scale for 50 young men for at least 30 days
2. : What is an odd recipe they have made? They did a full chem lab analysis of ??? (half raps on 7/7) Orange Fanta and figured out how to make a just-add-carbonated-water mix.
3. : Some of the things in this kitchen do not belong in a kitchen. Any success roll at all, hand Ben 1 item from my "ritual ingredient stash".

Things that the party might find in the discarded trash:

1. : Lots of exterior packaging (cardboard, paper labels, cellophane). Anything with words on it got shredded. Some is still recognizable by the clever or the cooperative as what you get gladware in, or bags for produce, or styrofoam meat trays from S-Mart Market.
2. : Lots of shredded but smelly paper enclosures from Chinatown.
3. : a truly disturbing number of empty Orange Fanta bottles.
4. : water filtration kits were assembled. None are present on-site except for personal straw-style ones that each member has.
5. : Empty bottles from GNC for various vitamins, (full raps on 7/7) with a strong weight toward people who will not be getting any sunlight for a long period.

Things either might talk me into:

1. : PPZ spent some time this afternoon destroying evidence of their planning.
2. : Roll me some nice numbers, get a prop from the bag.
3. : Roll me some AMAZING numbers AND have a good explanation: All data trails are being slipped through Zeta Beta Tau, including cleverly forged credit card accounts.

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Left off: Nathan aka Milton is waiting to clean up the pizza order. Everyone else is in the half basement, just outside the "central heating and air" room, looking at Summon and a fully functional warded chemlab that is 1) analyzing Cherry Fanta and 2) brewing another batch of Star Gate.

Relations

Protagonists

Trenchcoat Brigade

• Chameleon
• The Shadow
• Psypher

Guest starring Sahara

Neutrals/Bystanders

• Summon

Competitors

• Card Shark

Adversaries

• PPZ a.k.a. Psi Phi Zeta
• Blockbuster

Plot type

Chapter 4: confront the source

Parent Plot

Launch Code

Related Characters

• Agent Chameleon
• Psypher
• Sahara
• The Shadow

Related Organizations

• Card Shark Syndicate
• Trenchcoat Brigade