GM Notes

AX.GHW.14.04.09

Running the Revenant as a Non-Villain

Connie Reyes is not the antagonist of this adventure. Kapoor is. The party's job is to understand Connie's purpose and help her achieve it, not to destroy her, not to contain her, but to do what every institution in this city failed to do: take what she found seriously.

GMs should resist the instinct to play her as a monster. She was a person. In a meaningful sense, she still is. Her attacks on Okonkwo and Chen were not random violence; they were focused on people who had the truth and chose silence. That is a moral act, if a brutal one. When the party encounters her, she should feel like a person who has been failed by every mechanism that was supposed to work, who did something drastic because she had no other path. She is terrifying in the encounter not because she is monstrous but because she is comprehensible.

The most effective way to run Connie in encounters: slow, purposeful, and without threat display. She does not posture. She does not warn. She is simply moving toward something and the party is either with her or in her way.

The Three-Clue Rule in Practice

Before running, map which clues the party is likely to find versus likely to miss. The SD card is the most direct resolution tool; it converts the investigation into a legal case immediately. But it is not required. Duchenne's testimony alone, combined with the physical evidence at 14 Harmon Court and Adaeze's file, supports the same resolution.

If the party misses all three routes to a critical fact, use the safety valve: Jace Tully surfaces the missing piece as a Network research pull. The three-clue rule means the story does not stop because of one bad roll or one unexplored thread.

Track which facts the party holds at the end of Stage 2. They need to reach Stage 3 knowing: the Revenant's identity, the connection to 14 Harmon Court, and that the site is where the answers are. If any of these are missing, route a Stage 2 NPC to supply them, Adaeze will call the party if they gave her contact information and haven't followed up; Baskin will note the connection between the Okonkwo case and the three-year-old accidental death on the same KRD property if she's been given reason to look.

Carl Duchenne

Duchenne is the most mechanically important NPC in this adventure; he is the path from the evidence to a legal outcome. Run him as a man who has been waiting for someone to give him a reason to do the right thing without it destroying him completely. He has been paid for silence, which means he knew the price of silence and accepted it. He is not comfortable with that. He is more uncomfortable now.

The approach method matters. A party that comes to Duchenne with understanding, acknowledging that a scared cop made a bad call under pressure, offering him a path through that does not require complete self-destruction, will find him cooperative and ultimately relieved. A party that comes with leverage will get the same information and leave him humiliated. Baskin will have opinions about this. Not stated opinions, Baskin is professional, but she will remember when the party needs something from her later.

Do not let Duchenne be a simple obstacle. He is a specific kind of compromised person: not fully corrupted, not fully innocent, genuinely frightened by what has happened since. The events of the past ten days have made what he covered up feel much more real than it did three years ago when it was paperwork.

The Veil at the Groundbreaking

The party has two days. That is enough time to avoid the catastrophic public exposure scenario if they move with purpose. If they spend Stage 2 cautiously, taking their time, building a complete picture before acting, they may reach the groundbreaking with the evidence in hand but nothing submitted. This is a real consequence of pacing choices, not a puzzle the GM should solve for them.

The chaotic resolution path (Path 3 or the failure state) is harder and messier but not a campaign-ending outcome. The BUA's media suppression resources are substantial, they exist precisely for this category of incident, but calling on them costs organizational capital and creates a debt the party will need to address. Treat the aftermath of a failed Veil containment as a campaign thread, not a punishment. The world noticed. What do the people who noticed do with it?

Scaling

Street Level (6D generation package): The Revenant's Death Grip poses serious risk to underprepared characters. Add a practical mitigation at the Stage 1 encounter: a line of salt across the file room doorway, placed by a previous investigator who recognized the threat type (an older Network contact who got there first and left without engaging). The salt line buys the party a round or two to observe before the Revenant can exit. Reduce Crushing Strike to 5D and remove Ignore Pain for this tier. The investigation difficulty is unchanged; only the combat profile is adjusted.

National (12D generation package): The Sovereign Circle sends a representative to observe the groundbreaking, the Shadow trace at 14 Harmon Court is known to them, and the pending demolition has attracted internal attention. The representative is not hostile. They are assessing whether the containment markings in the basement require maintenance before demolition breaks them, an assessment that does not include informing the party. This representative has their own objectives and will not appreciate supernatural disruption of a civic event before the Circle has determined their exposure. The party now has a third party with an unknown agenda operating at the climax. Whether they are a resource, a complication, or an obstacle depends on how the party handles the encounter.