Prep Notes for "Extraction from Demon-Fucked Cleveland 1996" Using FIST: Ultra Edition
Extraction from Demon-Fucked Cleveland 1996 (or EFDFC for short) is an Ennie-nominated system-neutral pamphlet adventure written by Logan Dean. The incredibly vivid setting and situation that the adventure presents always struck me as perfect to run with the excellent FIST: Ultra Edition by CLAYMORE.
The following are some notes I’ve been using to prep the module for use in FIST. This includes monster stat blocks, a tweaked encounter table, several changes to the locations, and a healthy dose of headcanon for what I think is going on in the module. I have absolutely no more authority over this information than you do — these are just my thoughts, and I thought I’d share them in case someone out there might find them useful. Use whatever you like!
1. What’s Going On?
The Demon Queen, hell-bent on expanding her influence into our world beyond the boundaries of the Cleveland Demonic Zone, executed a psychic attack against the Air Force One pilots, causing the president’s plane to crash. She captured the president and brought him to the Moon Citadel, where he is currently inside a fleshy cocoon that is growing a mind-control slug inside the president’s brain. This slug will grant the Demon Queen control over the president’s actions and decisions, and thus control over the whole country. It’s possible she secretly wants the rescue to be successful (putting up a veneer of resistance) in order to get the president back to “power” as soon as possible, having already implanted the slug.
2. Hostiles
UNDEAD (2 HP, 2D6 appear)
Bony fingers (3 DAMAGE)
Slow and stupid
CHOKE 5: Bellows loudly, drawing the attention of 1D3 additional Undead from around the corner
GM note: Be sure to inform the players of how the Undead attract more Undead to each other in the fiction so that the players can come up with cool ways to mitigate the effect.
FROG (3 HP, 1D6 appear)
Poison skin (2 DAMAGE, POISONED tag p. 84)
Oversized demonic amphibians
Can cling to walls and ceilings
Prefer to attack from above
Helpless in the open
QUEENSBROOD (3 HP, 1D6 appear)
Gnarling mandibles (3 DAMAGE)
Wicked bone spear (1D6 DAMAGE)
Spiny carapace (1 ARMOR)
General demon grunts given all manner of tasks (patrolling, smithing, nursing, etc.)
QUEENSBROOD COMMANDER (5 HP, 1D3 appear)
Vicious horns (1D6+1 DAMAGE)
Spiny carapace (1 ARMOR)
Leathery wings (can fly short distances)
Random Commander Ability/appearance (see below)
D6 Commander Abilities:
Fire breath (red, flaming mouth) (1D6 DAMAGE, INCENDIARY tag p. 84)
Hulking strength (green, bulging muscles) (best-of-2D6+1 DAMAGE)
Burrowing claws (brown, pointed nose, can rapidly dig underground, attacking from below, dragging victims with them)
Necromancy (black, gaunt, may resurrect 1D6 recently-deceased Queensbrood at 1 HP each)
Geist (pale, slender, can turn nearly invisible while unharmed)
Magnesis (purple, reflective carapace, 3-in-6 chance of redirecting bullets back at attacker)
HOUND (6 HP, 1D3 appear)
Impaling tongue (1D6+1 DAMAGE)
Piercing Howl (momentarily stuns anyone who can hear it)
7-foot long demonic land-eels with slick, silent skin
Reek of brimstone
MEATBRICK (12 HP)
Flailing bones (1D6+2 DAMAGE)
Writhing mass of calcified flesh (1 ARMOR)
Too many grasping limbs
ASSIMILATE: Meatbrick attempts to absorb a character it has grappled into its mass of flesh. If successful, the target is permanently absorbed into the brick and Meatbrick regains HP equal to the amount the target had left.
DEMON QUEEN █████████ (Boss) (32 HP)
Impenetrable carapace (4 ARMOR)
Scythe-like appendages (2D6 DAMAGE)
SENSE FEAR: The Demon Queen peers into the mind of a creature and learns their greatest fear.
MANIFEST NIGHTMARES (BOSS MOVE): The Demon Queen psychically manifests the greatest fears of each character from whom she has learned their greatest fear. Until they are discovered to be psychic illusions, their effects are treated as real.
SMOG PRIEST (1 HP)
Dark figure with smoke billowing from beneath a wide-brimmed hat
Incorporeal - psychic projection from the Demon Queen
Stands still, watching PCs from afar and above
MIND ASSAULT: If attacked, disappears in a puff of smoke. Attacker’s vision suddenly becomes filled with haze for one clock segment and they receive half the damage they would have inflicted.
COOPER LEVI (5 HP)
Scoped Springfield M1903 (1D6+2 DAMAGE)
Improvised machete (1D6 DAMAGE)
Scavenged police body armor (1 ARMOR)
Has been hiding out in the Demonic Zone since the emergence
Has not spoken with another human in 22 years, several screws loose
Hears voices in his head (whisperings of the Demon Queen)
LIKES: His pet, Nibbles (cat-sized demon louse, de-beaked)
DISLIKES: people alerting demons to his location, people messing with his stuff
Encyclopedic knowledge of the Demonic Zone and its denizens
3. Encounters
Run as-written. Grenade cache contains 2D6 grenades (1D6+1 DAMAGE).
Smog Priest (above) is spotted atop a nearby building, conspicuously watching FIST’s progress for the Demon Queen.
An hour is quite a long time to spend on this. I’d suggest only spending one clock segment on this.
D6 blessings:
Quad damage for next clock segment
Invisible for next clock segment
Permanently gain +1D6 MAX HP
Gain infrared vision for next 2 clock segments — see heat signatures of creatures through walls
Gain ability of a random Trait (D666) until the end of the mission
Gain immunity from the Demon Queen’s psychic abilities
The sniper is Cooper Levi (see Hostiles). While initially suspicious of FIST and worried about them revealing his location or stealing his stuff, Cooper can be convinced to help the team and share intel.
Instead of spending an hour to recover, treat this as the Demon Queen using her SEE FEAR ability on a random PC from afar.
Run as-written.
Instead of restoring 1 PC to full health, perhaps add 1D6 medkits (+1D6+TAC HP). Good place for a rendezvous point if your players ask for it.
Replace with fallen building the PCs have to navigate through with 1D6 Frogs inside, clinging to walls and ceilings.
Leave the choice to invoke Durango to the players instead of having it happen automatically. Instead, treat this as a huge horde of zombies (think Left 4 Dead infinite Boomer horde) and let the players think of a cool way to deal with it, find an escape route, do a chase scene, something like that. Maybe have Durango call in after 3 rounds to remind the PCs that they can use it if they can’t think of anything.
Run as-written (1D3 Hounds)
4. Locations
The locations in RAW EFDFC are very evocative, but I admit I had a really tough time piecing them together mentally. Some of the problems I realized I had to solve include:
What is it about the Moon Citadel that makes it impossible to enter?
Where did this catwalk come from? And why would the PCs even go to the Eye to begin with?
Is the portal really the only way to get into the Moon Citadel? Not wild about that being a potential bottleneck.
Solving these problems lead me on a journey to make several changes such that I felt comfortable running this module as a location crawl in a more interactive way for me, which involved a lot of scrolling around on Google Earth looking for cool stuff in Cleveland. While some of the things I found probably did not exist in 1974, I didn’t really care and decided to include stuff I found cool anyway.
Noteworthy changes:
The Moon Citadel resides atop a chunk of downtown that floats ominously 50 stories above the cracked ground from which it was ripped. Think the floating city from Age of Ultron except smaller scale. Also, the ground is being turned to white limestone due to what’s happening inside, so the floating island looks like the Moon from below.
The Eye is cool, but it felt pretty purposeless to me as a location, so I replaced it with the Waterworks, based on the Garrett A. Morgan Waterworks Facility.
Since the Waterworks is south of downtown Cleveland, I flipped the hex crawl upside-down, so the Rift Facility and Demon Barracks are on the north side, and the extraction point is on the south side. Mechanically it is identical, just mirrored across a horizontal axis.
I added multiple potential ways to get into and out of the Moon Citadel in the form of huge manhole-sized bio-tubes extending down from the floating Moon Citadel to various points on the ground. These tubes could theoretically be traversed internally according to their flow (detailed below), or climbed externally, albeit at great danger to the PCs.
Instead of a hex crawl, I decided to run this as a point crawl. The two lake hexes didn’t make sense to me as discrete locations, so I decided to just make the “Harbor” the starting location and let the players go from there.
A rough point crawl outline can be found below:
General Description
General vibe of demon-fucked Cleveland:
Swelteringly hot
Sulfurous fumes belch from cracked earth
Toppled, burned husks of buildings
Harbor
Crumbling ruins of the Cleveland Browns Stadium
2D6 Undead shamble between scattered shipping containers and overturned vehicles
Ahead
An enormous chunk of the downtown skyline hangs unnaturally 50 stories above the ground, the rock turned white as if made of limestone. Metal from skyscrapers twist together into the demonic spires of the Moon Citadel. Three large, long tubes extend from the Citadel down to various places around the Demonic Zone (two to Waterworks, one to Birthing Pits)
Black smoke billows from below the citadel (wreckage of Air Force One)
To the South
Two of the large tubes extend down toward the Cuyahoga River (Waterworks)
To the North
Another large tube extends to the far side of town (Birthing Pits)
Occasional sparks of energy can be seen flitting between the Moon Citadel and some location north of Downtown (Rift Facility)
Downtown
Burned-out post-apocalyptic skyscrapers and buildings surround a rocky, 1000-foot wide crater where central downtown used to be, which now hangs ominously overhead as the Moon Citadel
Abandoned military and medical outposts litter the landscape
Crash Site
Remains of Air Force One smoulder in the pit beneath the Moon Citadel
1D6 Queensbrood pick through the pieces
1-in-6 chance of living crew member or secret service agent
Equipment crate (roll on crate loot table, p. 85)
Rift Facility
Old Baxter Corp building in the northern suburbs
Facility
Dozens of Queensbrood + 2 Commanders patrol the halls
Various paths (manmade and demon-made) upward and downward
Basement - Hell Gate
Fiery pool of energy in the floor - entering takes you to the Demonic realm (utterly inhospitable)
Dream Room
Highly secured and guarded
█████████████ held in suspended animation
Queensbrood shaman feeding ███ dreams to keep the hell gate open
Rooftop - Moon Citadel Portal
Metal bent into ornate, circular shape filled with eerie iridescent purple glow of energy
Queensbrood bring Undead sacrifices to feed to the Demon Queen
Waterworks
Water treatment plant south of Downtown on the Old River
Two enormous (5ft/2m diameter) biological intestine-like tubes extend from the Moon Citadel toward the Waterworks and the Cuyahoga River
Esophagus: Brackish water from the Waterworks is sucked up into the inner biological workings of the Citadel
Sphincter: Excrement and waste filled with bones and guts (human) spill into the river
Small handful of Queensbrood lazily patrol the Waterworks to ensure things are in working order
Frogs lie in wait on the ceilings of the damp indoors
Demon Barracks
Queensbrood scurry between various buildings of what was formerly the Tri-C Metropolitan Campus
Birthing Pits
Track field hollowed out and filled with bubbling green ooze that incubates new Queensbrood eggs
A large (5ft/2m diameter) intestine-like tube extends downward from the Moon Citadel to deliver new egg spawn of the Demon Queen
Queensbrood nurses tend to eggs and newly-birthed warriors
Forges
Black smog belches from the forges built out of the remains of the Manufacturing Technology Center
Queensbrood smiths create demonic weapons of war
Roll on weapons table (p. 83) and flavor as demonic somehow
Equipment Sheds
Stockpiles of demonic weaponry housed inside Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library & Archives
Guarded vault with infernal lock containing unknown relics
D6 Demonic Relics
Hellfire Cannon - Lobs fiery explosive orbs (1D6+2 DAMAGE)
Houndcall - Gnarled whistle that emits paralyzing shriek of Hounds
Shadowhook - Grapnel gun that launches tendrils of shadow that latch onto distant surfaces and objects
Geist Armor - Can become temporarily translucent (1 ARMOR)
Doomrail - Highly accurate energy weapon (1D6+2 DAMAGE)
Abyssal Scythe - Forged for the Demon Queen (2D6 DAMAGE)
Moon Citadel
The Moon Citadel has become half-earth, half-organism as the Demon Queen grows into her nesting grounds on a floating island above the city
Exterior
Wind whips hot air rising from the demon-fucked city below
Buildings melted and twisted together into spires and domes
Ground appears to be turning into white limestone, a side-effect of the growth of this Demon Queen organism
Gaps and holes from windows and doors lead inwards toward Rift Room
Rift Room
Queensbrood bring Undead from the city below through the rift to feed to the Demon Queen
Enormous doors lead to the Throne Room
Side tunnel leads down into the Bowels
Throne Room
Demon Queen feasts on Undead
Queensbrood servants ferry newly laid eggs to the Bowels to deliver through the tubes to the birthing pits
Bowels
The “guts” of the organism that has grown into the ground of this floating island
President Bill Clinton lies unconscious, encapsulated inside a cocoon with biological tubes going down his throat
Enormous intestinal tubes wind around one another, bringing in water from the Waterworks and expelling waste to the Waterworks
Another tube opening sucks eggs down to the Birthing Pits
Extraction Point
Industrial area with toppled train yards and abandoned materials processing plants
PCs must secure a suitable open area for landing and extraction, fending off demon attacks from interstate and river