If you're in a DFRPG game set in Asheville, please do not read this thread.
I posted a thread of this title earlier about whether or not introducing science fiction elements to the Dresden Files would work. I decided ultimately, as long as they are of a Lovecraftian "alien/unnatural magictec" type, it worked. So now, for Halloween, we're coming up on my next major plotline with the rise and fall of the Shonokin, and it's a real monster mash.
The Shonokin are an ancient race predating human habitation of North America. They were nearly wiped out by megafauna-riding invaders who nowadays we know as Native Americans (a term the Shonokin reflexively get angry about, they were here first dammit!). They are immortal unless killed, and now survive in small enclaves scattered around the country, pursuing their own ends and hoping to end all human life so they can rise again. Problem: Their numbers are so small they could barely fill the stands at a minor league baseball game, and they have no females. Solution: Create female Shonokin.
To this end, they have taken over a research lab in the local area that was built on the site of an asylum fire where a hundred women died. The lab is actually a real place locally, and the asylum fire is real history. I have a friend who works there and it's actually pretty boring, but calling the place Genova is just too ominous to pass up. Anyway, there they have been conducting all sorts of experiments on kidnapped homeless people, attempting to create more Shonokin. The results have been failure. Attempts to transform a human into a shonokin have created monsters. Attempts to implant human women with (female) shonokin fetuses have resulted in the death of both. Still, research continues, and their strange mix of science and sorcery is close to yielding results thanks to harnessing the angry spirits of the location.
The Shonokin fear death, eschewing anything risky and not even touching dead bodies, so to get their test subjects and dispose of failed experiments, they've contracted with a local mobster nicknamed The Old Man. He's a former associate of Marcone who Marcone lets live only as an insult. The Old Man is, as noted, quite old, in his late 70s-early 80s, and knows his own time is short. The Shonokin have promised him immortality once their research is complete, which he knows is bull but still wants to see where this goes. His right hand man (or woman, as it were) is a werecoyote named Will who one of my players has a history with. He honestly sees her as an apprentice of sorts, since he is more of a trickster and manipulator than a badass ala Marcone. He's somewhat secured his legacy through Will, but the promise of immortality is still tempting.
The two tricksters have set up the Shonokin, and are trying to kill two birds with one stone. The shonokin's latest experiment is their riskiest yet. They decided that if human females were too weak to survive, though implantation does occur, then they could turn to a near-human. Will and the Old Man have therefore gone after the local White Court, and kidnapped someone who they told the Shonokin was a nobody, just a minor unimportant and rebellious member of the White Court. Turns out though she's actually the daughter of the local head of the court, Pastor Will Buncombe (aka Guillarme Bellacroix), and when he finds out she's missing he's going to go through no expense to find the people responsible. He's a Wrath vampire, so he'll burn down the whole city if he has to to rescue his daughter.
The Old Man and Will's goal is to wipe out the two biggest supernatural players in the city, since there is no official Council rep, the paranet just had a crisis of leadership, and there is also no Red Court (yet). Hopefully this will leave a power vacuum they can step in, and if The Old Man gets immortality out of the deal, bonus!
They didn't count, however, on the Autumn Court. They are about dying and the ending of the seasons. The Reaper King no likey the Shonokin Resurrectionists. It's well past their time to die. So, he tells his troublesome Autumn Knight "All Shonokin within this city must be dead by the end of All Hallow's, or your life is forfeit." "What's a Shonokin?" "Did you think I would make it easy?" Again, two birds with one stone.
And now, if you squint, you can just barely make out Frankenstein vs. Wolfman vs. Dracula. Maybe the Reaper King could be called a mummy, but it's a stretch. What's funny is this was entirely unintentional, it just came about thanks to trying to tie everyone in.
