TEXT: Written by Ben Counter, Bethany Culp, Stephen Michael DiPesa, Jess Hartley, 
  Martin Henley, David Hill, Filamena Young, Howard Wood Ingham, John Kennedy, 
  Matthew McFarland, John Newman, Alex Scokel, Travis Stout, Eddy Webb  
  Developed by Eddy Webb     Audio produced by Michael Read     Edited by Genevieve Podleski  
  Layout by Jessica Mullins     Art by Aaron Acevedo, Sam Araya, Avery Butterworth, 
  Nicole Cardiff, Kari Christensen, Jim Dibartolo, dugnation, Costas Harritas, 
  Phil Hilliker, Travis Ingram, Brian LeBlanc, Vince Locke, Ken Meyer Jr,  
  Jessica Mullins, Jim Pavelec, Juan Serrano, Brad Williams, Cathy Wilkins 
  Special thanks to our voice actors for giving up a Saturday to help us out: 
  Anna Albano, Nathan Binder, David Bounds, Natasha Bryant-Raible, Priscilla 
  Kim, Vincent Lombardo, Orrin Loria, Weston Reid, Rich Thomas, Michelle Webb
  A Storytelling Adventure System 
  anthology for Hunter: The Vigil
  White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
  2075 West Park Place 
  Blvd Suite G
  Stone Mountain, GA 30087
  We’d spent weeks trailing him, certain he held the key to recovering the lost operative. We had it all planned 
  out – the ambush, the capture and the interrogation. It wouldn’t be pretty, but time was short and we had 
  to get Emma back.  Little did we know that when we finally sprung our trap, we would be the ones held 
  captive – trapped in a situation none of us could have anticipated. We were lost in a hostile and alien place 
  where the rules of reality no longer applied and all our careful preparations went out the window. Our myriad 
  priorities coalesced into a single, vital goal – to get back to the world we called home.
  The tables had turned. The man we’d planned to take captive – whom we’d spied on, tracked and attacked – 
  was now our captor. Worse yet, he was also our only potential ally, the only one who could help us find our way 
  out of this place. No matter how unlikely it was that we could convince him to aid us in freeing ourselves, we 
  had to try. The other alternative was unthinkable: that we might be trapped in this place forever.
  
  © 2009 CCP hf. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of 
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  of CCP hf. All rights reserved. Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage the Awakening, Promethean the Created, Changeling the Lost, Hunter 
  the Vigil, Storytelling System and Collection of Horrors are trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are 
  copyrighted by CCP hf. CCP North America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCP hf. The mention of or reference to any company or product in these 
  pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and 
  supernatural elements are fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.
  Check out White Wolf online at http://www.white-wolf.com
  White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
  2075 West Park Place 
  Blvd Suite G
  Stone Mountain, GA 30087
  Written by Ben Counter, Bethany Culp, Stephen Michael DiPesa, Jess Hartley, 
  Martin Henley, David Hill, Filamena Young, Howard Wood Ingham, John Kennedy, 
  Matthew McFarland, John Newman, Alex Scokel, Travis Stout, Eddy Webb  
  Developed by Eddy Webb     Audio produced by Michael Read     Edited by Genevieve Podleski  
  Layout by Jessica Mullins     Art by Aaron Acevedo, Sam Araya, Avery Butterworth, 
  Nicole Cardiff, Kari Christensen, Jim Dibartolo, dugnation, Costas Harritas, 
  Phil Hilliker, Travis Ingram, Brian LeBlanc, Vince Locke, Ken Meyer Jr,  
  Jessica Mullins, Jim Pavelec, Juan Serrano, Brad Williams, Cathy Wilkins 
  Special thanks to our voice actors for giving up a Saturday to help us out: 
  Anna Albano, Nathan Binder, David Bounds, Natasha Bryant-Raible, Priscilla 
  Kim, Vincent Lombardo, Orrin Loria, Weston Reid, Rich Thomas, Michelle Webb
  We’d spent weeks trailing him, certain he held the key to recovering the lost operative. We had it all 
  planned out – the ambush, the capture and the interrogation. It wouldn’t be pretty, but time was short 
  and we had to get Emma back.  Little did we know that when we finally sprung our trap, we would be the 
  ones held captive – trapped in a situation none of us could have anticipated. We were lost in a hostile 
  and alien place where the rules of reality no longer applied and all our careful preparations went out the 
  window. Our myriad priorities coalesced into a single, vital goal – to get back to the world we called home.
  The tables had turned. The man we’d planned to take captive – whom we’d spied on, tracked and 
  attacked – was now our captor. Worse yet, he was also our only potential ally, the only one who could 
  help us find our way out of this place. No matter how unlikely it was that we could convince him to aid 
  us in freeing ourselves, we had to try. The other alternative was unthinkable: that we might be trapped 
  in this place forever.
  A Storytelling Adventure System  
  anthology for Hunter: The Vigil
  
  1
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  No Escape
  MENTAL ••• 
  PHYSICAL •••• 
  SOCIAL •• 
  Overview
  In No Escape, characters follow a strange man into an even stranger 
  place. Their investigations have led them onto the trail of Robert “Bob” 
  Nikolaidis, a nondescript individual who was reportedly involved in the 
  murder of a number of hunters and the disappearance of another.  All 
  evidence indicates that Bob himself is not much of a threat, and although 
  those who have put him under surveillance aren’t exactly sure what he 
  is, they don’t expect that bringing him in will be too difficult of a task.
  Bob, however, has no desire to be taken in, and the wily suspect has 
  an ace up his sleeve. He has a supernatural connection to a location 
  that seems to exist outside of normal space – a bizarre expanse of hostile 
  wilderness which he alone controls entrance and exit to. To make things 
  worse, he can open a doorway to or from this space almost anywhere.
  When Bob realizes he’s being followed, he uses this supernatural 
  door to attempt to escape. His pursuers are faced with a choice: let 
  their target get away or follow him through the door he’s opened into 
  a place that should not exist.
  Description
  You think you’ve got him now. It’s a dead end, 
  you’re blocking all the exits and there’s nowhere 
  for him to go. Strangely, he doesn’t seem too 
  worried about it. He’s looking over what appears 
  to be a boarded-over doorway, and you think for 
  a minute he’s considering breaking through it. 
  There’s no way he could tear off the layers of wood 
  before you could get to him, though.  But then the 
  area around the door starts to glow with a weird 
  green-yellow light and the door itself seems to fade 
  back into shadow. Bob puts his hands in the middle 
  of the door – or at least where the door was – but 
  instead of pressing up against the wood, he sinks 
  into the shadows up to his elbows. He grins over 
  at you, and then steps entirely into the pool of 
  shadow that has appeared inside the glowing green 
  outline of the door. As you look into the dense 
  shadows, you see weird outlines, like shrubs or 
  trees, with ropey vines hanging down. The glowing 
  outline begins to slowly fade after he’s stepped 
  through, but beyond the doorway the bushes still 
  slowly rustle in the wake of his escape.
  Bob’s Cabin
  The small cabin appears to have been formed 
  entirely of organic material: deadfalls and old 
  branches held together by still-living vines and 
  tendrils. Some more-or-less horizontal expanses 
  that might serve as seating and a bed are similarly 
  formed. The only items that appear not to have been 
  created here are small and portable: a footlocker, 
  some dishes, candles and bedding.
  Storyteller Goals
  The goal of No Escape is not only to bring the characters into direct contact 
  with Bob, but also to expose them firsthand to the otherworldly space that he 
  calls home. This may be the first experience the characters have with a com-
  pletely supernatural environment; the extensive effort required to escape can 
  teach them an important lesson about venturing into unknown territories.
  Sanctuary or Hollow?
  Storytellers familiar with Changeling: The Lost may recognize Bob’s 
  sanctuary as a form of Hollow (though Bob’s sanctuary has the Ritual 
  Doorway Merit from Rites of Spring, p. 95). If you would prefer 
  to use the sanctuary as a way of introducing Hunter characters to 
  the Hedge, the relatively limited scope of such a Hollow can be one 
  way to do so while keeping the ramifications fairly narrow. 
  Incorporating the Hedge in its entirety into your chronicle, on the 
  other hand, is as simple as allowing the characters to discover and 
  open a doorway from the Hollow into the Hedge itself, or (if they 
  manage to interrogate Bob) by having him open a doorway into the 
  Hedge for them to enter through. Keep in mind, however, that the 
  Hedge is a perilous place even for the most wary and experienced 
  individuals. Its thorns are their own danger, ripping away bits of 
  soul and flesh from all who travel through them, and the denizens 
  who dwell within the depths are even more dangerous.
  no esCape
  
  2
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  Character Goals
  The characters’ primary goal going into No Escape is to capture and 
  interrogate Bob. They believe he has information about the whereabouts 
  and condition of someone the hunters are looking for. As a default, you 
  can use the missing hunter, Emma, from the Horror Recognition Guide 
  (pp. 191-208), but any Storyteller character with ties to the cell would 
  also work. In either case, the cell should have personal motivations 
  (either through their own ties to the lost individual, being called in by 
  allies to help find her or because of assignments handed down to them 
  from a compact or conspiracy) to get that information. 
  There is, of course, a chance that the characters may be able to apprehend 
  Bob outside of his sanctuary, at which time they are at liberty to utilize 
  standard social or physical persuasion methods to attempt to glean the 
  information listed in the sidebar “What Bob Knows” (p. 3) from him. He 
  can still, however, use any doorway (including the locked door of any cell 
  he’s kept within) to access his sanctuary and escape. This may lead them to 
  sanctuary anyway, even after they’ve apprehended him for the first time. 
  If the characters’ actions lead them into Bob’s otherworldly hidey-
  hole, they may quickly find their priorities shifted. Interrogation and 
  information-gathering may quickly be supplanted in importance by the 
  task of escaping back into the world they know and understand. It is 
  possible they may be able to achieve both goals, but without finding 
  a way to escape his sanctuary, any information about Emma that they 
  may acquire from Bob will be of little use to them.
  The action below presumes that the characters’ encounter with Bob 
  takes place in his sanctuary. It is possible that the characters will simply 
  follow Bob through the doorway he creates. If they opt not to follow 
  him into his sanctuary, he is likely to take this opportunity to lay a 
  trap for them, using a doorway or window to ambush one or more of 
  them and pull them forcibly into his lair.   
  Actions
  Finding a Way Out
  Once in Bob’s sanctuary, the characters may walk back out through 
  the door they came in as long as it remains open. However, it will 
  remain open only so long as someone in the group is actively looking 
  back through it and out into the mortal world. Once all members of 
  the party have lost sight of the doorway, it will close behind them and 
  they must find another exit in order to escape.
  no esCape
  The area inside Bob’s sanctuary is a lush wilderness, a small 
  portion of which has been cultivated into a rustic dwelling and 
  strange but relatively tamed garden grove.  The rest is a wooded 
  glade, heavily overgrown with brush, trees and vines that start out 
  thick and quickly becomes so heavy as to be impassable. Those 
  who manage to navigate through it find themselves emerging 
  back into the open glade from a random direction. The only 
  way out of the glade is to find a gateway or have Bob open one 
  for them.
  The vegetation here is alien. Some plants have colorations, leaf pat-
  terns or textures that are vaguely wrong compared to their mortal-world 
  counterparts. Other plants are entirely strange: parasitic vines with 
  maws that suck the life from the plants they cling to, flowers whose 
  paper-white petals open to reveal humanoid eyes at their centers or 
  trees with noose-like branches which hold rotting skeletons of their 
  earlier victims.
  Upon entering his sanctuary, Bob will immediately attempt to hide 
  from sight, using his superior knowledge of the terrain to avoid pursuit. 
  A successful Wits + Investigation roll is required to find his trail, which 
  will lead to the cabin where he’s hiding.
  Those who attempt to do so may find food (albeit in a strange and 
  unknown form) and water here by using the standard foraging rules 
  (World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 77). Foraging and searching for 
  an exit are mutually exclusive activities, however, and stopping the 
  effort to find a way out of the sanctuary in order to forage for food 
  or water resets all the accumulated successes previously garnered 
  to zero.
  Dice Pool: Intelligence + Investigation
  Action: Extended, with each roll representing thirty minutes of 
  searching. Ten accumulated successes are required to identify an active 
  gateway out of the sanctuary.
  Hindrances: The character has left the area that contains the 
  doorway he entered through (-2), Bob is actively chasing him or 
  thwarting his search (-3), the character has been in the sanctuary 
  for more than 2 hours (-1 cumulative for every 2 hour block after 
  the first two hours)
  Help: The character has not left the immediate area he entered from 
  (+2), the character is ensorcelled by means of a Pledge (pp. 179-180, 
  Changeling: The Lost; +1)
  
  3
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  no esCape
  Roll Results
  Dramatic Failure: No successes are accumulated and any accumu-
  lated successes are halved (rounded down) as the character runs into 
  some sort of strange vegetation or animal life, and is distracted from 
  locating an actual doorway.
  Failure: No successes are accumulated towards locating an active 
  doorway out of the sanctuary.
  Success: Successes equal to the number rolled are accumulated 
  towards those needed to locate a doorway out of the sanctuary, lead-
  ing to a random location somewhere in the city. If the number of 
  accumulated successes reaches 10 or more, an active doorway out of 
  the sanctuary is located and the character (and anyone accompanying 
  him) can pass through it to return to the mortal world. The doorway 
  will remain open until no one is looking through it from one side 
  to the other, after which it closes again and cannot be re-opened, 
  except by Bob. 
  Exceptional Success: Regardless of the number of accumulated 
  successes, the character finds an active doorway out of the sanctuary. 
  As well, the doorway located leads back out to the same location 
  in the mortal world that he left from. The doorway remains open 
  until no one is currently looking through it from one side to the 
  other, after which it closes again and cannot be re-opened, other 
  than by Bob.
  Consequences
  If the cell manages to convince Bob that they are not work-
  ing for the individual who abducted him but are only seeking 
  to rescue Emma, he may be willing to open a door to allow 
  them to leave. To do so, he will open a gateway and push them 
  through it, depositing them back in a random location in the 
  mortal world before closing the doorway behind them. If they 
  are not able to convince him that they are in no way connected 
  to his former kidnapper, he will either abandon them in the 
  sanctuary or, if pushed into physical confrontation, will attempt 
  to knock them out and leave them for “the Others” as he did 
  Emma. (In a physical fight, Bob will use the Haymaker ability 
  from Fighting Style: Boxing, p. 111 in the World of Darkness 
  Rulebook.) Feel free to use this to segue into the next phase of 
  your ongoing chronicle.
  If the characters are successful in interrogating Bob, they may gain 
  access to any or all of the information listed in “What Bob Knows.” 
  The facts are accurate, as far as Bob knows, and you are encouraged to 
  add or subtract information to mesh this scene with your story.
  What BoB KnoWs
  • Bob considers himself one of “the Lost,” 
  a group of folks who have apparently been 
  kidnapped, tortured and escaped their 
  captors. He refuses (regardless of torture or 
  other motivations) to say anything specific 
  about who or what kidnapped him, but it is 
  clear that he fears being recaptured more 
  than anything else.
  • A few months ago, he began sensing that 
  he was being watched. At first he assumed 
  the surveillance was not focused on him, but 
  he later came to realize that it was more 
  than just FBI monitoring his workplace for 
  drug sales.
  • He came to the assumption that those 
  who were watching him were working for an 
  individual who had previously kidnapped and 
  tortured him.
  • He contacted his allies, and the 
  surveillance team was “dealt with.” He 
  doesn’t know how, he wasn’t part of the 
  attack, but he assumes (and is comfortable 
  with the idea) that it was a lethal use 
  of force.
  • Emma was one of those who avoided being 
  “dealt with.” Bob recognized that she had 
  escaped and was waiting for those who 
  had dealt with her companions to finish 
  the job when she followed him into his 
  sanctuary.
  • Convinced she was working for his previous 
  kidnappers, Bob “neutralized” Emma.
  • Bob did not kill Emma, but “she’s not 
  coming back.”
  • Bob refuses (regardless of torture 
  or other motivations) to give Emma back. 
  If pressured, he will say that he cannot 
  get her back, that “the Others” have 
  already taken her and he has no way to 
  contact them.
  
  4
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  Robert “Bob” Nikolaidis, 
  Otherworldly Glutton
  Quotes: “You shoudn’t have ought 
  to followed me in here. This ain’t some 
  place you should be.”
  Notes         
  Intelligence 
  Strength 
  Presence
  Wits 
  Dexterity 
  Manipulation
  Resolve 
  Stamina 
  Composure
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  WillpoWer
  HealtH
  skills
  Merits
  Morality
  Size
  Speed
  Defense
  Initiative Mod
  Armor
  FlaWs
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  ooooo
  o o o o o o o o o o o o
  o o o o o o o o o o
  tactics
  Name: 
  Virtue: 
  Profession:
  Concept: 
  Vice: 
  Compact: 
   
   
  Conspiracy:
      Robert Nikolaidis  
      Fortitude 
         Otherworldly  
   Gluttony
         Glutton 
    
           
  Danger Sense
  Brawling Dodge
  Direction Sense
  Fast Reflexes
  Fighting Style
    (Boxing)
  Toxin Resistance
   Computer
  Crafts
  Investigation
  Occult 
  Athletics
  Brawl
  Drive 
  Larceny
  Stealth 
  Survival
  Weaponry
    (Improvised)
  Empathy
  Intimidation
  Persuasion
  Streetwise
  Subterfuge
             5
  5
      14
          2
                      8
    
  Derangements: Paranoia
  Dread Powers: Balefire 3, Crushing Blow 3, Fury 3, Strange Form 5
  Notes: Bob suffers from the derangement Paranoia (World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 98) 
  and will assume that anyone spying on or trailing him is an agent of his former captor, 
  until convinced otherwise. 
  “You the cops? I ain’t talkin’ to you un-
  less you shows me badges or paperwork 
  or somethin’. I know my rights.”
  “You’re gonna make me do this the hard 
  way, aren’t you? I hate the hard way.”
  Virtue: Fortitude. Bob has endured 
  much to get where he is, and does not 
  easily give up on a task or thought 
  once he has sunk his teeth into it.
  Vice: Gluttony. Whatever changed Bob invested him with a deep 
  hunger, one that he frequently indulges himself in.
  Background: Four years ago, Bob Nikolaidis disappeared. He was 
  kidnapped, held prisoner, and allegedly a simulacrum took his place 
  for almost a year. Bob returned a changed man, in more ways than one. 
  His captivity made him jumpy, surly and reclusive. His simulacrum 
  has been “dealt with” and he’s taken up his old life, although he often 
  finds it a poor fit since his return. He works part-time, mostly under the 
  table, dealing with seedy underworld types and two-bit criminals. His 
  days are filled with running errands and trying to remain unobtrusive 
  as much as possible.
  Description: The same imprisonment that changed Bob’s atti-
  tude also warped his physical form. While he still wears the illusion 
  of his former self, when near an open gateway to his sanctuary (or 
  within its confines) his real body is revealed. His skin takes on 
  a grey color, and its stony texture becomes apparent. Although 
  his profile is always notably flat, this feature is accentuated when 
  his true-self appears, becoming remarkably bulldog-like in ap-
  pearance. His arms lengthen until his knuckles almost drag the 
  ground, and he gains an increased height and bulk that was not 
  apparent before. 
  
  5
  ColleCtion of Horrors
  Storytelling Hints: What Bob wants most is to be left alone. He didn’t 
  have an active hand in Emma’s disappearance, although he knows (or 
  at least strongly suspects) what her fate was. He is, however, paranoid 
  and will interpret any pursuit or surveillance as coming from agents 
  of his former captor, reacting to protect himself from re-abduction.  If 
  convinced that the characters are not working for his kidnapper, he 
  will relax a bit but won’t be overly helpful, retaining his secretive side 
  and desire to be left alone.  Bob is not a cruel man, but neither is he 
  friendly or especially kind-hearted. He’s pragmatic and will do what 
  needs to be done to retain his own privacy and freedom.
  prop
  Map
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Storyteller [multi]/World of Darkness (WoD) [multi]/CofD/Hunter - The Vigil/Collection of Horrors/Collection of Horrors 10 - No Escape.pdf