d20 RPG Objects Blood and Blades The Profiler's Guide to Slashers.pdf

BLOOD AND BLADES:

THE PROFILER’S GUIDE TO SLASHERS

BY MICHAEL TRESCA

FOR MY LITTLE BROTHER, WHO INTRODUCED ME TO SESSION 9. I’VE NEVER

BEEN COMFORTABLE IN INSANE ASYLUMS SINCE.

COVER ART

JEREMY SIMMONS

INTERIOR ART

JOHN LONGENBAUGH, MICHAEL TRESCA

LAYOUT

CHRIS DAVIS

EDITING

AMBER TRESCA

Requires the use of the d20 Modern Roleplaying Game and the Urban

Arcana Campaign Setting, published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc

The ‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are Trademarks owned by

Wizards of the Coast and are used according to the terms of the d20 System

License version 1.0a. A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.

com.

“d20 Modern, Dungeons & Dragons, and Wizards of the Coast are

trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. in the United States and other

countries and are used with permission.

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INTRODUCTION

THE ROLE OF THE HEROES

Blood and Blades: The Proﬁler’s Guide usually takes place

in the 1980s: the height of slasher movies. The slasher is not

just a psychotic killing machine; a slasher kills with style, be

it a modus operandi or a supernatural edge. Demon, undead,

ghost…whatever the slasher’s form, he’s not going to be

easy to stop.

So who hunts the hunters? Those schooled in the art of

proﬁling will have an edge, but even they aren’t immune

to the depredations of the slasher. Enter the Paranormal

Response Unit (PRU), a secret branch of the Critical Incident

Response Group (CIRG [and yes, the government does have

an acronym for everything]). The PRU doesn’t just hunt

down slashers; the one and two man teams’ main job is to

take the supernatural slasher down by any means necessary.

When the PRU shows up, it’s usually because things have

gone to hell, escaped, and are playing basketball with your

neighbor’s head.

Blood and Blades: The Proﬁler’s Guide requires the use of

the d20 Modern Roleplaying Game and the Urban Arcana

Campaign Setting, published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

SUMMARY

The best and worst humanity has to offer face off against

predators stalking their favorite prey: humans.

CAMPAIGN IN BRIEF

The slasher. The quintessential mass murderer for the 20 th

century, the slasher’s psychotic, oft-masked persona has

slowly evolved from crazed killer to unstoppable revenant.

In Blood and Blades , the slasher is real. And he’s out for

blood.

Slashers rack up more murders than any other type of

serial killer. Their attacks eventually lose any sense of

rhyme or reason, as they vainly seek to recapture the thrill of

their ﬁrst kill. Silent, invincible, unstoppable—slashers have

become such an epidemic that humanity decides to ﬁght

back.

But no mere mortal can take the slasher on alone.

Teenagers, psychics, cops, and FBI agents have all have

tried and failed. It will take teamwork, nerves of steel, and

more than a little luck. The PCs have but one goal—stop the

slasher before he stops them.

THEME

Blood and Blades pits the art of proﬁling against the

quintessential slasher movie. An offshoot of horror and

monster movies, slasher movies involve a psychotic killer,

melee weapons, and heaps of victims. Not all horror movies

are slasher movies, but all slasher movies are horror movies.

Teenagers. The teenagers are stereotypes such as the

nerd, the jock, the virgin, and the stoner. And of course, said

teenagers die by the boatload. In fact, the victims come and

go so often that the killer, not the victims, is really the star

of the show.

It was a dark and stormy night. My assignments always seemed to take me to places like this. You know

the kind—old, decrepit houses that are dark. With storms overhead.

I checked my revolver for the fourth time. Sure, it was antiquated. But it never jammed and it had enough penetrating

power to stop a nutjob high on PCP. Or was that LSD. I lose track of all the drugs kids do these days.

The perp this time around is pretty uncreative: Just your standard machete-wielding maniac who’s really pissed off

about his mom. Whatever happened to Mom, Baseball, and Apple Pie? If the moms of these psychos were to be graded,

they would deﬁnitely get a big “F” from me. And a couple of other words that start with that letter.

“Billy,” I said in my sternest voice, “come out here, this is the…” I searched for a word. “Police.” It was a lie, but

calling myself a member of the Paranormal Response Unit was sort of like screaming, “I’m hear to blow your head off if

you don’t come quietly!”

Billy didn’t believe me anyway. I could tell by the way he swung his machete at my head. Fortunately, I’ve been

around enough of these guys to know when to duck.

He’s fast and larger than I expected. I’m no slouch at six feet tall, but this guy’s nearly seven and maybe a few inches

on top of that. The sounds of his footfalls are unmistakable; serves me right for rambling off on my own self-narrative.

“I guess this means you’re not going to come quietly,” I say as I catch my breath. Billy’s too intent on pulling his

machete out of the crumbling molding of his mother’s family home to respond.

That’s when I notice the back of his head.

Now I’ve seen a lot of ugly mothers in my time. But Billy was ugly even from the back. The straps of his mask (of

course he was wearing a mask, don’t they all?) bit deep into his ﬂesh. He must have been wearing that mask forever.

Nobody wears a mask that long and survives. That whole Man the Iron Mask

PAGE - 2

Sex. Where there are teenagers, there’s sexual tension.

Slasher ﬂicks have copious amounts of gratuitous sex and

nudity because…well, because it makes it more interesting

for the teenagers who are watching it. The killings are

even more horrible when people are murdered at their most

vulnerable moments .

Boo! Things hop out at the victims (usually false alarms,

at least the ﬁrst time), people are found murdered in horrible

ways, and the killer seems to be everywhere and nowhere at

once.

Blood. Buckets of blood. Swimming pools of blood.

Whole oceans of blood—you get the idea. It’s not a

slasher ﬂick if there’s not plenty of gore as victims are

hacked, mulched, stabbed, ground, burned, melted, ripped,

shredded, eviscerated, disemboweled, decapitated, smashed,

defenestrated, or otherwise mangled in a suitably graphic

manner.

The slasher as icon has been with us throughout history,

although we did not always have a name for him. Harkening

back to the 1400s, Giles de Rais slew more than 100

children. Margaret Davey poisoned her employees in 1542.

And of course, there are the so-called werewolves of the late

1500s who killed and ate a lot of people.

Serial murders continued well into the 19 th century, the

most famous being Jack the Ripper. Good ‘ole Jack stalked

the darkened streets and further enforced the myth of the

dapper man by day and psychotic murderer by night. Not

that anyone has ever positively identiﬁed Jack…

As society became more advanced, repeat murders became

more common. It’s almost as if serial killers are a reaction

to the stress of our collective conscience crammed so tightly

into one place. Or perhaps they’ve always been with us. In

the wilderness there are no witnesses.

The United States in particular has more than its fair

share of serial killers. In the ﬁrst half of the 20 th century,

there were an average of two serial murder cases per year

nationwide. By the 1960s, authorities logged six cases a

year; by the 1970s it was 18 cases a year. Since 1980, the

United States averages three new serial killers a month and

the numbers continue to rise. PRU agents have to get up

every morning to those kinds of statistics. And you thought

your job was bad.

Serial killers differ from slashers. The slasher myth arose

from serial killers, but the two are now only distantly related.

Serial killers are actually even more violent and gruesome

than depicted in the plots of slasher ﬁlms. That’s because

serial killers have serious personality defects. (As opposed

to scriptwriters, who are just greedy.) Slashers attack quickly

and without warning. And they have a fondness for sharp

objects.

The slasher is well on his way to joining the Horror Hall of

Fame. And so, the psycho with the knife has been elevated

to something more than just horror movie status—he is a

horror staple, a character so progressively awful and familiar

that we end up rooting for him.

Disclaimer: Serial killers aren’t funny. This book makes

fun of slashers, not serial killers, but there’s a ﬁne line

between the two. Those who are easily offended should

run away from this book with their hands over their ears

shouting “LALALALALA!” For the rest of you who plan

to continue reading, we will make fun of cheerleaders,

authority ﬁgures, sex, the mentally ill, and gamers. Consider

yourself warned.

PAGE - 3

CHAPTER ONE: CHARACTERS

This chapter covers everything you need to make a character.

Maybe the ﬁrst hint was the title.

If you want to start hunting slashers, the Paranormal

Response Unit (PRU) is a good place to start. The PRU is

trained to take the psychos down with a well-placed bullet.

Preferably from somewhere out of machete reach. But of

course, it never works that way. If it did, slasher movies

would be very short.

The PRU is one way to approach slashers with the PCs as

heroes. Conversely, the PCs can play victims, which is the

plot of every slasher movie ever made: teenagers in a remote

location get attacked by mad slasher; ﬁnal girl maims slasher

just enough so that he can survive for a sequel. Rinse and

repeat. Voila! Instant horror franchise.

If you want to play a horror movie-style game, this chapter

covers a host of victim rules, including character creation,

victim classes, and ﬂaws. That’s right, ﬂaws: the usual

tropes that are a sureﬁre indicator a victim will be killed by

the slasher. Remember the bitchy cheerleader, the arrogant

jock, and the lazy frat boy? Now you can collect the whole

set…and then kill them!

VICTIMS

“Victims” are everyone else. They’re the poor saps terriﬁed

out of their wits by the shape at the window, the fools who

get stabbed when they go outside to take a whiz, and the

clueless goobs that always go down into the basement to

“check it out.” They never come back.

Victims don’t have to be NPCs. Playing a victim can be

a lot of fun. Why? For some, role-playing a normal person

defeating the slasher really makes it special—it’s one thing

to shoot a slasher with an AK-47, it’s entirely another to

outwit the slasher with a ball of string and a frying pan.

For a game that’s not about combat, playing the victim can

actually be a blast.

GROUPS

Victims—us—tend to work in groups. These groups can

vary considerably. Try these on for size:

Family: The victims are all related. This is the typical

daddy, mommy, and children scenario. Although the dad

might at ﬁrst seem like the hero, it’s often the mom who

is left to protect her brood. Not all families have this

mix however—families can be broken up, have extended

members (a creepy psychic grandma is always a nice touch),

or just be a parent and child. The one thing a family has is

each other. Whatever the hell that means.

Slasher Exposé: These “Dare You to Eat It!” types

of shows throw young, attractive people into dangerous

situations and then capture it on camera. Alternately, the

victims might be trying to tape their own documentary. Of

course, this is like hanging meat out for a tiger; the victims

are perfect bait for slashers. And ghosts. And zombies.

(But those are other books entirely.)

Tourists: Ah, tourists. They’re the perfect target for

slashers because they don’t know where they are, they don’t

know anybody, and they carry cameras around with them.

Okay actually that’s a disadvantage, but really, slashers turn

that around by killing the tourist. No more worrying about

those pesky pictures—see what happens when you think

positive?

PAGE - 4

CHAPTER 1: CHARACTERS

CREATING VICTIMS

Victims are built using the eight victim classes (Tough Guy,

Jock, Nerd, Mundane, Outcast, Cheerleader, Stoner, and

Scream Queen) and have starting occupations, skills, and

feats. As they gain levels, victims increase their skill points,

base attack bonus, saving throw modiﬁers, Action Points,

Defense bonus, and Reputation bonus just as heroes do.

However, victims differ from heroes in several ways.

A victim character has:

• The standard starting ability score package

• Random starting hit points

• No levels in an advanced class

I’ve dealt with plenty of maniacs in my time,

but if they had a king, he would most certainly be Dr.

Cannibal.

He had a name once, but I think he traded it away

with the rest of his soul. Dr. Cannibal’s a little too

enamored with his self-image. The man ﬁled his teeth to

points, for crying out loud.

When I stand in front of his cell, the guard stiffens.

Sometimes Dr. Cannibal takes a swipe at me. Never

physically of course. He’s blackmailed guards, made

three escape attempts, and even convinced a few

cellmates to commit suicide. I keep telling the PRU

brass to just put him in a plain old cellblock, Alcatraz-

style, but they never listen.

People are Dr. Cannibal’s meat, literally and

ﬁguratively. He might have a taste for ﬂesh, but it’s

their minds he most enjoys nibbling on.

“Hello, Mr. Beckem,” he says in hushed tones.

Except for the ﬁled down teeth, Dr. Cannibal could be

Santa Claus. He was quite jolly with kind eyes and a

long, bushy beard. Of course, Santa Claus didn’t eat

twenty-seven people and sell the food as a “special

brand of sausage.”

His history not withstanding, Dr. Cannibal’s really

a nice guy, once you get to know him. And have two

inches of plexiglass between you.

“Hello Doc. Guards treating you well?”

“Oh, well enough. I’ve got my books back, so things

are looking up.”

Dr. Cannibal is a voracious reader. Sorry, that was too

easy.

“You know why I’m here?”

“Of course,” says Dr. Cannibal. He was sitting in the

corner of his cell, shadows covering most of his face

except for his gleaming white teeth. I swear, he could

sell more dentures than a dozen celebrities with those

chompers. All of them still intact too. “And you know

what I expect in exchange?”

“You want Billy’s drawings. I can’t give you the real

things, but I can give you copies.”

“That’ll never do,” he says. “I want to smell the

crayons. Taste the desperation, the rage, the hurt.”

“All right, one of the originals. That should be scent

enough for that shnoz of yours.”

“So pedestrian,” he says. For all his pleasant

mannerisms, the Doc is very sensitive about his

proboscis. It’s not overtly large, but I guess he wished it

were smaller. It’s a minor weakness, but I play on it to

keep him under control. “Speaking of delicious odors,

you had teriyaki chicken today with that delicious treat

of a partner. I can smell her on you. Have you slept

with her yet?”

“You’re getting slow, doc,” I say, ignoring the jab.

He knows I’m married. “You didn’t mention this,” I

STARTING ABILITY SCORES

Victims do not roll their ability scores. They start with the

standard score package: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. The player can

assign the scores as he or she sees ﬁt. At 4 th level and every

four character levels thereafter (8 th , 12 th , and so on), a victim

adds 1 point to one ability score—just as heroes do.

HIT POINTS

Unlike heroes, victims do not automatically receive

maximum hit points at 1 st level. The GM should roll a

victim’s starting hit points normally.

ADVANCED CLASSES

Victims cannot multiclass between the victim classes.

They’re bad stereotypes, not well-rounded personas.

However, if a victim survives until 5 th level, he or she can

advance thereafter as a hero.

CHILDREN

Children (newborn to age 11) are handled differently from

other characters. They do not have classes or levels. They

begin with the same ability score package as victims (15, 14,

13, 12, 10, 8), but their ability scores are reduced as follows:

–3 Str, –1 Dex, –3 Con, –1 Int, –1 Wis, –1 Cha.

Children have 1d4 hit points plus their Constitution

modiﬁer (minimum 1 hit point). They have no skills, feats,

action points, or occupations. Their base attack bonus

is +0, they have a +0 modiﬁer on all saving throws (plus

any modiﬁers for high or low ability scores), and their

Reputation bonus is +0. Children have a +0 modiﬁer to

Defense and a normal speed of 20 feet. Children have no

effective attacks and should be treated as noncombatants.

When a child turns 12, he is considered a young adult and

takes his ﬁrst level in one of the victim classes.

Why play kids? Beyond the obvious physical

disadvantages, playing a child means a world of know-it-all

adults, unsympathetic authority ﬁgures and plenty of slasher

fodder. What’s not to like?

PAGE - 5

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