By “Kirt A. Dankmyer — aka Loki” <dankmyka@wfu.edu>
This adventure can be played seriously, for laughs, or both ways…
Recently, there has been an upswing of UFO sightings and reported abductions in the area, including cattle mutilations.
If the PCs are angels, a favored servant is abducted, tortured, and left, Essence-free, in the middle of a field a nervous wreck, able to do little besides recount the experience. If the PCs are demons, or don’t have any servants, one of them might get kidnapped — but the kidnappers hastily drop them off as soon as they realize the PC isn’t blowing all his Essence in fear. In fact, if the PC is a demon, they might apologize before beaming him down from the mother ship — though’ they won’t explain, muttering something about “the Dero”.
What’s going on? Well, the PCs are seeing part of an alliance that has been going on since the before the second World War (or possibly earlier). It seems few Faeries, members of the Unseelie Court, bumped into a Dream-Walking servitor of Vapula while terrorizing a young child’s dreams, as part of their traditional tithe to Hell. The servitor of Vapula was trying out few new high-tech torture devices, seeing if they caused the right amount of terror, which is why Beleth was allowing him to hang around. Being a nice guy (and interested in further field tests), he lent some of them to the sprightly, big-eyed little buggers for extended use.
Suffice it to say that the Ethereal spirits did quite well. Dreamers started talking about the strange grey, big-eyed aliens that were abducting them and experimenting on them. As the power of these nightmares grew, the small cadre of Fae were transformed by the overactive (but mundane — no one believes in faeries anymore) imagination of those dreamers into the Greys — tiny extraterrestrial humanoids with big, black eyes, oversized heads and inscrutable motives. The Essence and imagination of the terrified dreamers created more Greys, which became a separate (and modern) “pantheon” of Ethereal spirits.
Beleth was pleased with the Greys, and, as part of her policy of taking the War in the Marches into the Corporeal plane, contacted Vapula about getting the Greys more equipment: better torture devices and a way to tool around on the Corporeal Plane. (Flying Saucers make use of the various Songs of Motion…) As long as alien abductions remain disturbing and strange, yet weird enough to be dismissed as unreal by the authorities, Beleth allows the Vapula-equipped Greys to manifest on Earth, causing even more terror and sucking humans dry of their Essence with a wide variety of demonic devices, inspiring weeks or even years of nightmares.
But what of the tales of “space brothers” and other kindly alien visitations? Well, while most of the Greys (and similar “extraterrestrial” spirits) stick to the Unseelie Court method of Essence-through-terror, a small minority have decided to use Vapula’s equipment to spread messages of peace and love, with instructions on how to contact the aliens, thereby creating Rites for the “worship” of aliens, in a modernized variant of the more peaceful methods by which Ethereal spirits gain Essence from humans. These renegade aliens have to be very careful, because if Vapula or Beleth found out what they were doing, they could easily be destroyed — they often have to go on a “terror mission” as a cover, and then spread their message of peace and light a couple of states away.
Some of the “space brothers” (inspired, perhaps, by Michael Gibson) have discussed going the voodoo loa route, and attempting to contact Jean about an alliance. Others think that they should go back to their roots, and contact the Seelie Court for advice.
How do the PCs fit into all this? Well, once they find out about it (which has the potential for some interesting X-Files style adventures — maybe the US Government *is* working with the aliens, and certainly Beleth and Vapula want to keep things under their hats for the moment), there are many ways they can go. Servitors of Jean may be interested in talking to the “space brothers”, or they may be interested in shutting the Greys’ operation down all together, since they’re using technology light-years ahead of God’s plan. Servitors of Vapula or Beleth may want to help, once they know what’s going on. Other Superiors might have mixed feelings about the whole thing, especially considering the “space brothers” faction — and to make things even more interesting, Kobal might take an interest in the general goofy nature of UFO phenomena.
Not to mention the Greys aren’t likely to give away the whole thing at the drop of a hat — they refer to Hell as the “Hollow Earth” and demons as “the Dero”, a form of doublespeak that might confuse the PCs for a while, once they use a Song to decipher their surreal, alien dream-language. (“Our allies in the Hollow Earth have provided us with this anal probe. Use it well, and take copious notes…”) The Greys operate by a strange dream-logic, and are notoriously difficult to track, even by demons working for Vapula. It could take the course of an entire campaign before the PCs figure out the “aliens” are really spirits…
-Loki (the Truth is Out There)