- The Headsman
- A Scenerio Seed for Call
of Cthulhu/Delta Green
From: Morrigan (aj_hide11@hotmail.com)
Date: Tuesday November 25th , 2003
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- In 1991, James Neal Harvey's book "The
Headsman" came out. With obvious connections to "The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow", it neverthless told a fine, creepy
story, a variation on the "town with a secret" theme.
Of particular interest to Delta Green people is the way the
police investigation into the crimes of the story is handled.
The hero of the Headsman, Braddock (NY) Sherif Jud McElroy,
would be right at home in Delta Green games. Following the obligatory
bibliographic information on Harvey's book, I present the stats
for the villain of the piece, the ominous Headsman.
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- Harvey, James Neal. "The Headsman"
(Jove Books, a division of the Berkley Publishing Group, New
York, 1991). ISBN 0-515-11209-7.
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- The Headsman of Hounslow, axe murderer and guardian of
morality
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- Description: The
Headsman is described as a large - more bulky and muscular than
tall - powerfully built human male. The word 'hulking' is used
fairly often, actually. The Headsman's upper arms, upper back,
and shoulders were described as being exceptionally muscular
and strong, and he is said to be extremely powerful, powerful
enough physically to subdue grown, healthy men with a single
blow. The Headsman's uniform - a stereotypical executioner's
costume - of black tunic, close-fitting tights, and gloves was
said to have tattered into rags during his last appearance, in
1991. The Headsman wore a close-fitting hood over his head, whose
slanting eye-holes had a feline cast.
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- The Headsman's signature weapon was a very
large bipennis, or double-bladed ("double bitted")
battle axe, the sort used by executioners to sever the heads
of criminals. The blades were identical, and were dramatically
curved, so as to increase the chances of severing the neck when
swung by a standing axeman at a prone victim. The steel of the
head of this axe is polished to a mirror shine, while the handle
fashioned from well-oiled hickory. According to the Headsman
himself, this axe was fashioned by a master armorer in the English
town of Hounslow in 1690.
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- Notes: Many of the settlers who founded the
town of Braddock, in upstate New York, migrated there from the
town of Hounslow, England, and many of them aboard the HMS New
Hope in 1705. At that time, Hounslow lay just west of London,
but today, it has probably been absorbed into that metropolis,
and would be a neighborhood if it retained any independent existence
at all. The original Headsman was among these settlers. Both
in England, in Hounslow, and in Braddock, the people employed
an executioner to mete out sentences of death on criminals. This
executioner - called the Headsman because his technique was to
chop off the criminal's head with a large battle axe - also happened
to be a psychopathic murderer who had no compunctions about committing
a few murders when his civic duties slowed down.
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- As the town of Braddock grew and prospered,
the need for such executions dwindled, and the Headsman had to
resort to his own devices more and more often to keep his proficiency
up and to satisfy his unholy need for blood.
Both when acting on behalf of the town government and on his
own, the Headsman was often called upon to punish individuals
of questionable moral character: adulterers, habitual drunks,
homosexuals, pederasts, and so forth. The Headsman always believed
that he was discharging a duty given him by God when he took
a life, especially those of such moral degenerates.
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- Eventually, the original Headsman disappeared,
but a sort of urban legend or fairy tale about him appeared in
Braddock. The Headsman punished those of questionable moral character
just as often as he punished recognizable criminals, and he soon
became a sort of spook story used by parents in Braddock to encourage
moral behavior in their children. The problem with this story
was that, periodically, the Headsman would seemingly return from
beyond the grave, to murder morally questionable individuals
once more. The most recent time this occurred was in 1991, when
the Headsman killed at least five Braddock locals before he was
killed by the then-sheriff.
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- In 1991, it was believed that the Headsman
was simply a murderer seeking to cash in on the local legend
for its fear factor and the authorities could account for everything
the Headsman did rationally. For example, the sheriff emptied
his .357 revolver into the Headsman at a distance of less than
two feet, without causing visible injury. The sherif attributed
this to the Headsman wearing a bullet proof vest and/or some
other form of armor. However, in his final confrontation with
the Headsman, the murderer told the sheriff that:
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- "I am in Emmett Stark's body now, as
I have been in the bodies of other hosts many times. Whenever
God has commanded me to serve the people of Braddock, I have
returned"
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- This opens the possibility that the Headsman
was either someone already possessed by some blood-maddened fiend
when he first came to America, or that the animus of the original
Headsman survived corporeal death to possess others serially
down though the years. If this were true, then the supernatural
capabilities of the Headsman - at least vast resistance to harm
and extreme physical strength - can be explained as changes which
the possessing entity wrought in whatever host it was using at
the time, to enable it to kill more easily.
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- The Headsman's host in 1991 was slain by
the sherif, using the Headsman's own axe, in mortal combat. The
extreme resiliency displayed by the Headsman in this confrontation
suggests that the Headsman can only be killed by his own weapon.
Whether he is a guise adopted by human murderers for various
purposes over the years, a sort of shared delusion, or an actual
avenging spirit able to act from beyond the grave, the Headsman
prefers to adopt the tactics of a ghost. He appears, commits
a murder, then disappears seemingly into nowhere, leaving no
trace of his actions except a headless corpse.
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- Oh, and the Headsman likes to take the heads
of his victims with him. Pleasant dreams.
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- Note: The following
characteristic scores apply to the Headsman himself, not to the
host body. If the Keeper chooses for the Headsman to be an entirely
human murderer - perhaps a psychopath or someone consciously
cashing in on Braddock's legend - the difference will still hold.
The Headsman will simply present a more feeble public self to
the world.
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STATS |
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- STR: 21 [1]
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- SAN: 0
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- DEX: 14
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- POW: 17 [4]
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- CON: 16
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- HP: 17
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- APP: 12 [3]
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- SIZ: 18 [2]
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- EDU: 11
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- INT: 11 [5]
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- [1] If the
headsman's physical strength is not superhuman, he is at least
as strong as it is possible for a human male to be without having
superhuman strength.
- [2] The Headsman
is big, although not so much tall as very, very brawny.
- [3] The Headsman
himself is never seen. When the mask comes off, it's the
face of the host body, and the APPearance score of that host
body is used.
This APPearance score applies to the specter in full regalia.
- [4] Exactly
how the Headsman relates to magic is unknown. He certainly isn't
the sort to cast spells. The Headsman does seem to be pretty
tough, though,
so he has been given this POWer score to resist magic. Keeper's
should feel
free to modify this score to suit how the Headsman will be used
in their games.
- [5] The Headsman
does appear able to reason - he has cunningly orchestrated
attacks and the evidence left behind for maximum shock value
- but he seems
to prefer sledgehammer tactics: just pounding his way through
obstacles and
opponents with brute force.
- Damage Bonus: +
1d6
-
- Armor: The
Headsman resisted having a .357 Magnum revolver emptied into
him
at a range of less than two feet. He wasn't knocked back, there
were no visible injuries, and the Headsman displayed no pain
from having been so severely shot. The person who did the shooting
was only sure of one thing - that he did in fact hit the Headsman
with every shot fired. This would give the Headsman at least
12 points of armor - since .357 Magnum bullets do 1d8 + 1d4 points
of damage - either through some form of mundane but highly effective
body armor, like a bullet proof vest, or through supernatural
toughness.
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- There is another possibility which Keepers
may wish to explore. The person who emptied his .357 Magnum revolver
into the Headsman at such close range - the then-sherif of Braddock
- was only able to kill the Headsman using the Headsman's own
axe. If the Keeper desires a highly supernatural Headsman, then
the Headsman may only be killed by a blow struck with his own
executioner's axe.
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- Fear Aura: Those
persons actively stalked by the Headsman come under the influence
of his fear aura, which causes them to make illogical actions
that help the Headsman to catch, and kill, them: they run upstairs
instead of down, run away from help instead of towards it, discard
potential weapons, that sort of thing. If the victim fails a
Luck roll, so long as the victim is within 10 feet of the Headsman,
or the victim can see him with their naked eye, that victim automatically
fails all Luck, Idea, and Know rolls, experiences a -15% penalty
to all skills, cannot concentrate well enough to cast spells,
and must make a SAN check or lose 1d6 points, over and above
the SAN loss described for the Headsman below. They will make
the aforementioned poor decisions: run upstairs instead of down,
run away from help instead of towards it, discard potential weapons,
etc.
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- SAN Loss: 0/
1d6
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- Attacks:
- Strike with hand/ punch 60%, 1d3 +
1d6
- Strike with foot/ kick 30%, 2d6
- Strike with head/ headbutt 10%, 1d4
+ 1d6
- Grapple 25%, special
- Executioner's axe 60%, 3d6 + 2
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