You are on page 1of 12

Trouble on Interstate 84

The heroes are traveling along Interstate 84 through Idaho, when they overhear
some CB chatter:

Voice #1: Help! Someone! I've got a 10-33 here -- a bear on my tail, trying to
run me off the road!
Voice #2: This is Zilla, I hear you, what's your 10-20?
Voice #1: AAAAAA! @#$!
Brief sound of crash, quickly cut off.
Voice #2: Hello? Hello? Aw, #$%*! Hey, back off now, don't go coming after
me!

If the heroes try to get involved, they can hail "Zilla" for some information on his
"10-20" (that is, his location). He's not far away. They can try to rush to his rescue
if they care to. If they don't have a CB, they can just observe the events unfolding.
Basically, a black semi cab has just run "Buddy" off the road, and a second truck,
coming to lend assistance, is the mysterious black cab's new target. Both trucks
are hauling loads of produce, and the first one already has a good deal of its
produce spilled over the road. Buddy called the pursuing black cab a "bear",
which has become the catch-all term for road gangers and other wheeled terrors
on the highways -- not patrol cars.

If the heroes get involved, they can catch up with the semi trucks. (The lead semi
is loaded down, and the cab is closing in on it.) For all intents and purposes, they
have the statistics of standard semi tractor cabs, and the most effective way to
deal with the pursuing cab would be for someone in the Posse to line up for shots
at its wheels.

As soon as the black cab fails a drivin' roll, it loses control and pitches off the
side of the highway, rolling down a conveniently placed steep embankment and
crashing. By the time anyone comes back to investigate, however, the cab has
mysteriously vanished, though the impact area is easy enough to find.

If the Posse lends assistance, Buddy is badly injured but not dead, and Zilla has
enough space in the back of his trailer to load up what little can be salvaged of
Buddy's cargo, before it falls prey to local scavengers. (If the Posse lends a hand,
nobody's likely to complain if they claim a little for themselves as compensation
for helping out.) A lot of the produce consists of potatoes, though there are other
vegetables as well.

If, however, the Posse decides not to get involved in this whole ordeal, then Zilla
gets run off the road and his truck explodes in the resultant crash, and the black
cab drives off and vanishes, while Buddy dies of his injuries if he's left that way.
The Posse can then pick up as much produce as they like ... but it happens to
include a special batch of potatoes from New Jerome (described below), and the
Posse can have a bit of "fun" with the results of their cowardly-gained goods.

Awards:

 Saving Zilla's truck from the mystery cab: 1 red chip


 Saving Buddy: 1 red chip
 Helping Buddy to recover spilled produce: 1 white chip

Sunshine Truck Stop

If the Posse helps out Zilla and Buddy, they direct them to a nearby "choke and
puke" (truck stop) located at the intersection of I-84 (heading roughly west-
northwest to east-southeast) and Highway 93 (running north/south). The truck
stop has been turned into a fortified camp and a refueling station for truckers
associated with the Convoy. The truck stop is walled in by makeshift barriers
built up around trailers and wrecked vehicles. During the daytime, the "gates" (a
couple of buses) roll open for trucks to go out or come in, and at night,
everything closes down and the gates are opened for no one. (The local country
has all sorts of nasty mutated creatures running about at night.)

In addition to serving as a refueling and repair station for the Convoy, this truck
stop is also home to a base of operations for a locally based road repair crew that
tries to keep the highways nice in this area so that the Convoy won't have to
expend its resources doing maintenance when it passes through. A great deal of
effort goes into making things comfortable for the truckers when they pass
through, and the truck stop actually has working facilities (including showers)
and a diner -- though availability of menu items changes from day to day
depending on what comes in with the latest truck. The Posse can find an
opportunity to trade for general goods here, and to get produce at very low prices
(i.e., 10 bullets for a serving of vegetables, rather than 55). They won't find much
in the way of combat-oriented supplies, except that most calibers of bullets can
be traded for, and basic handguns are plentiful.

Rooms are expensive here, but luxurious by the terms of the Wasted West, at 100
bullets a night. The Posse, if they helped out Buddy and Zilla, may get a break
and get a chance to stay a few nights "on the house". Otherwise, they'll be given
a discount, or some other incentive to stay a while. (It depends on whether the
Marshal thinks the Posse has too much money on hand or not.)

The Black Cab


At night, when the gates are rolled closed, the guards man the towers, and the
truckers gather, the diner is the main get-together place, even for those who
aren't eating anything. The Posse is likely to be asked about any tales of
adventures they've been through, and also asked about various places they might
have been through, how the roads were, and other "mundane" things. They'll
also, of course, be interested in the incident with the black cab, and Zilla and
Buddy will gladly sing their praises.

One of the truckers, an old fellow by the moniker of Hoot Owl, claims to know the
story of the trucker. The way he tells it, it goes like this:

Back a few years ago, there was this trucker by the name of Jeremy Craven
-- "Casper", he went by, on the CB. He passed through here often, just like
the rest of us, and he was a fairly decent fellow ... but, one time, he stopped
by here, and he fell deathly ill all of a sudden. No warning or anything. He
was feeling mighty sickly, and was in no condition to go anywhere ... but
he was determined to finish his run on time. Folks urged him not to, but he
did anyway ... and, sure enough, he smashed right through the guard-rails
-- *KERASH!* -- and went right over the side!

'Course, he didn't survive that, and we thought that was the last of him ...
but then, this mysterious black cab -- just like his, only meaner -- started
showing up and running trucks off the road. You see, it was Casper,
downright mad about losing his truck, and now he's come back to run
everyone else off the road in revenge. And the only thing that will put him
to rest is if someone faces him down in a game of Chicken and doesn't turn
this way or that ... and forces him to swerve off by losing his nerve! Then
and only then, will he go on to his final rest.

If anyone questions Hoot Owl about just how he knows about this "Chicken" part,
he'll be evasive. Truth is, he made it up. He hasn't a clue as to the whys and
wherefores, but he fancied that would be a neat way to deal with the ghost truck,
so he added it to his story and states it as fact. The rest of the story can be
verified by various persons who either work at the truck stop, or regularly pass
through there.

If anyone tries to find out more about Jeremy and what his truck was carrying,
they'll be able to find out that he was carrying a load of potatoes. And if they ask
what his last stop was, it was the town of New Jerome. The truckers aren't too
forthright with giving directions to New Jerome, since the inhabitants of the town
want to keep their location secret, and the Convoy's willing to oblige in exchange
for all these potatoes, but if the Posse has won a few points by being heroes, the
truckers will figure they can be trusted.

The True Story

Back when the bombs dropped, the little community of Jerome was for the most
part spared from the destruction. It just wasn't big enough to drop a bomb on it.
However, when refugees poured in from other areas that weren't so lucky, the
town was soon overwhelmed. Disease spread, and the town was decimated by
cholera and disentary. The overwhelmed survivors left the bodies rather than
burying them and this, of course, led to another wave of disease. This time,
everybody died.

However, due to the tragic nature of so many deaths, this settlement drew special
attention from Pestilence. Some of the townspeople "got better" ... that is, they
came back as a special sort of Walkin' Dead. They started doing some very
unusual activities for Walkin' Dead -- namely, they gathered up all the bodies and
buried them in a mass grave, and worked on restoring part of the town, which
became the settlement of New Jerome. Then, they went even further ... and
started planting potatoes. Those potatoes that sprouted over the mass grave
were tainted -- they each contained a supernatural infection: anyone who eats
one of these potatoes runs a high chance of getting sick, and no amount of
cooking, boiling, etc. will reduce this risk.

The "townspeople" came into contact with scouts of the Convoy. They provided
the Convoy with large amounts of potatoes, and cheaply. In exchange, the
Convoy promised to grant the town's wishes of keeping its location secret. To the
Convoy, it looked as if this was just because they were afraid of getting raided.
But the real reason is that they didn't want anyone having too clear of an idea
where these potatoes came from -- These specially tainted potatoes were mixed
in with batches of normal potatoes, in hopes of spreading the disease.

Jeremy Craven was one of those truckers, and he made the mistake of staying in
the town a little too long, asking a few too many questions, and eating dinner as a
guest there. (The meal, of course, consisted of potatoes.) He came down sick
later on, to the point of losing control of his vehicle.

Craven's ghost doesn't seek vengeance against other truckers. Rather, his cab is
running trucks off the road that carry potatoes from New Jerome. His one truck,
ghost or not, is incapable of presenting a serious threat to the Convoy, but it has
pestered numerous smaller groups of trucks. Due to the twisted nature of the
Reckoning, he can't simply come out and warn people of the threat. His
tormented ghost is unable to act in a purely rational manner, and in the end, the
Reckoners figure that he serves their purpose just fine by running people off the
road and generally contributing to the Fear Level in the area.

The cab appears during the daytime now and then to harass trucks carrying loads
of potatoes that have been tainted by New Jerome. If the Posse tries to find a
connection between the attacks, they should be able to first of all find that only
trucks carrying produce have been attacked -- never any passenger cars,
construction vehicles, or tankers. Further investigation should be able to point
out the New Jerome connection.

Every night, at midnight, the black cab rematerializes near where Craven ran off
the road, headlights on. It then drives all the way back from where it crashed, past
the truck stop, and on to New Jerome, where it vanishes. If, for some reason,
members of the Posse might be watching at midnight (perhaps volunteering for
guard duty), they should be able to observe this phenomenon from afar -- even
better if they have binoculars. This is Craven's ghost trying (however vainly) to
point out New Jerome to the truckers.

New Jerome

The original town of Jerome was located on State Road 25, which bridges off
from I-84 eastward to join Highway 93 about six miles north of the intersection
where the Sunshine Truck Stop is located. The shortest route to Jerome from the
Sunshine Truck Stop is to take I-84 northwest for just shy of 8 miles, and then to
turn east onto State Road 25 for around another mile. "New Jerome" is a
settlement located on the fringes of the ruined town, hardly worth any notice ...
except that the surrounding fields sport fertile ground in which are grown
potatoes by the local "populace".

There are only twenty or so people from the original New Jerome that live in this
settlement, plus a few visitors that decided to settle here. (Or, that is, plus a few
visitors who made the mistake of eating here, getting sick, and dying, and then
they joined the crowd.)

The townspeople seem to be fairly normal, to the casual observer: kids play in the
street, and people go about their daily work. However, if anyone tries to engage
them in conversation, they're amazingly shallow. Ask about potatoes, and you'll
learn all sorts of things. They know potatoes. However, if you try to ask about just
about anything else, the conversation always comes back to potatoes.

Visiting the town and snooping around solo has got to be one of the worst things
that someone in the Posse could hope to do ... but, on the other hand, doing so
and surviving would make it really clear just what's going on here.

Basically, if someone comes here to visit and starts asking around, the people
will ideally come across as laid back "simple country folk" who may not have
much to talk about besides potatoes, but there's not much harm in that, right?
He'll be invited to have some dinner -- Everything on the menu will be potatoes
(or a variation thereof -- they plant "sweet potatoes", too). Baked potatoes,
mashed potatoes, potatoes and chives, potato chips ... they'll want the character
to sample them all and give them his opinion. Incidentally, it'll all be pretty
good ... but they'll be serving him a more potent concentration of the virus
described below. By the end of the meal, he'll need to pass a TN of 9 on a Vigor
test, or take a Wound to the Guts. No Fate Chips may be spent to negate this
Wound, though they can be used to negate Wind, if desired.

If the character tries to leave, they'll "insist" that he stay, and use brute force to
shove him into a chair and force-feed him if they have to. If he resigns himself to
his fate, then he's doomed to become the newest member of the town.

As for the situation in New Jerome, the townsfolk, with their malevolent
intelligence such as it is, realize that their care to keep the location of the town
secret is bound to come to an end soon. While they've taken care to try to keep
the town's location a secret and to mix in bad potatoes with the good, there have
been enough deaths that suspicion is bound to fall upon them. The "townsfolk"
have already dealt with a few suspicious people who came to check up on things
-- but who weren't prepared for a town-wide conspiracy and were caught off
guard by the "wholesome" small town aura of the place and its people.

They've started upping the frequency of diseased potatoes with the good ones,
and they've even developed a few more virulent strains. This may increase the
likelihood that they'll be fingered, but their hope is that they'll kill as many people
as possible before that happens. Toward that end, they plan on wiping out the
nearby truck stop, since it poses the most immediate threat.

If the Posse visits this place en masse, the townsfolk aren't likely to act up unless
it's obvious that the jig is up. They're intelligent enough to maintain their ruse,
even though they aren't bright enough to hold an intelligent conversation about
anything other than potatoes. (The undead can be fairly single-minded that way.)

The town has no doctor, no church, no pastor, and by all observations,


everything they do revolves around potatoes (and the kids already know just as
much as the "teacher" does.) If the Posse observes kids in a class, they're being
taught about potatoes. If the womenfolk are talking, they're sharing potato
recipes. The menfolk talk about the weather ... and how it will affect the potatoes.
Kids in the street skip rope to a sing-song rhyme along the lines of,
"One potato, two potato, three potato, four! Five potato, six potato, seven potato,
more!"

Ideally, at first it should just look like a settlement of decent folks who don't get
out much. However, if the Posse sticks around for too terribly long, they'll start to
notice things amiss. (Of course, if they stick around for too long, they're all likely
to get infected, too.)

If the Posse actually shows much interest in the potatoes and inspects the fields,
they'll find one field just outside of the settlement, where the earth seems to be
exceptionally rich -- black in color. If anyone in the Posse actually has trade:
farming, or some other related knowledge area, and he actually examines the soil,
he'll be able to figure out that while it looks dark the way exceptionally fertile soil
might be, the texture is all wrong. It's oily, and smells rank. If the soil is tested
somehow for the presence of the virus, it will be reveal that the soil in this patch
is contaminated, and that the potatoes are, too. It's important to note that merely
touching the soil or potatoes will not cause someone to catch the disease --
only consumption of the potato, or contact with someone who has been infected.

The other potato fields, however, are completely uncontaminated by the disease
or any other taint. Those potatoes, after all, are being used as the bulk of New
Jerome's output to the Convoy. If they were all diseased, the Convoy would catch
on real quick.

Rewards:

 Checking out New Jerome: 1 White Chip


 Rushing In Where Angels Fear to Tread (one lone PC decides to visit
New Jerome by himself and ends up right where the zombies want him): 1
Blue Chip as a consolation
 Figuring out New Jerome's secret: 1 White Chip

Rotten Potatoes

The first night the Posse stays at the truck stop, Buddy's and Zilla's shipments of
potatoes will come in. Since they've got twice the potatoes and half the trucks to
carry them, there's a bit of a surplus, and potatoes are sold cheaply at the diner.
For just $5 in bullets or trade, members of the Posse can have a potato-based
meal, and the diner has many recipes. (This is Idaho, after all.)

The trouble is, all of these potatoes are laced with the supernatural disease from
New Jerome, so anyone who eats a potato meal will have to take a Vigor test to
keep from getting sick. Inevitably, people are going to get sick ... though most of
the truckers passing through are just there for the night, and they'll be gone the
next day, so that minimizes just how obvious the outbreak might otherwise be ...
except in the case of the Posse, who will find it very obvious that something's
wrong if anybody in their number gets sick.

Have everybody in the Posse make Vigor tests (even if some are just doing it as a
pointless die-rolling exercise), and don't have them do it right after eating. They
shouldn't initially know that the potatoes are to blame, so if you have some
people in the group roll dice, and the others don't, that might make it too easy to
figure out what the common factor is. It's just, of course, that the people
who didn't eat the potatoes won't get sick, regardless of what they roll.

The Disease

The disease caused by the infected potatoes is as follows:

A character must roll a Vigor test if he has eaten a contaminated potato. If he


passes a Hard (9) Vigor test, he's fine for now. If not, he takes a Wound to the
Guts, and suffers from nausea, fever and diarrhea. Each day, he will have to take
another Hard (9) Vigor roll, and don't forget the wound modifiers. If he fails, he
takes another Wound. If he passes, he stays at his current status. If he gets at
least one Raise on the roll, he recovers from one level of Wounds to the Guts. If
he heals all Wounds gained in this way, he is cured.

Mundane healing will not do any good against the disease, since it is
supernatural in nature. Miraculous healing can remove Wounds and prolong the
life of the sufferer, but it won't cure the disease -- Keep a running tally of all
Wounds suffered from the disease, and any Wounds healed back by getting
Raises. The character won't be healed until he has gotten enough Raises to offset
all Wounds taken from the disease. If a miraculous means is available to cure the
disease, the victim needs to first be healed of any disease-inflicted wounds (so
that there's not a relapse) and then the disease can be cured at a TN of Incredible
(11) by using such means as a Blessed's "Panacea", et cetera. If that succeeds,
the victim is cured completely, but it doesn't guarantee against future infection.

The disease is also highly contagious. Anyone who comes into contact with a
diseased person has to pass a TN of 7 or come down with the disease within a
day. Anyone who is in regular contact with a sufferer (such as a doctor) must
pass a TN of 9 not to become infected. Careful measures to avoid contaminaton
(such as medical gloves, disinfectant, etc.) add a +2 to the roll to avoid getting
contaminated this way.

Anyone who dies from this disease will become a Potato Plague Zombie within
1d6 days, unless the body is burned. This is a type of Walkin' Dead, not a
Harrowed. The Manitous are firmly in control of this undead creature.

The disease is supernatural in nature, so boiling or cooking won't purify the


potatoes, but if a contaminated potato is examined under a microscope, anyone
with a scientific or medical background should be able to distinguish the micro-
organisms infecting the potato. (Even if the character hasn't much of a
background, if he's able to compare it to an uninfected potato, he'll be able to
notice the difference.)

The Finale

There are a number of ways for this adventure to be resolved. First of all, the
Posse could just tuck tail and run. No chips should be awarded for that, but
sometimes a wise Posse may figure out that it's in over its head, and moves on to
greener pastures (or the next best thing in the Wasted West).

However, if people start getting sick at the truck stop, and someone in the Posse
finds out that New Jerome is behind it, it won't take too much effort to persuade
some of the truckers to lend a hand and to go check things out. If someone
actually comes back with a tale of horror about the "potato people" being
zombies, things will start to click with the truckers. One fellow might note that he
thought those people in New Jerome were a bit strange, and some others might
pitch in with odd observations they made ... but never bothered to mention in
mixed company. Together, combined with the desperation brought on by the
disease, it should be a simple matter for the Posse to get a group of truckers
(perhaps five rigs) to head out to New Jerome to deal with things.

If they do so, and someone in the Posse passes an Onerous (7) Cognition check,
or just happens to be watching out for such things, they'll notice that they have
not five rigs, but six in their convoy, the sixth being a mysterious black cab. The
cab won't prove to be hostile, and if anyone attacks it, it will just up and vanish. If
anyone tries to hail Craven by name or call sign, he'll answer that he's "coming
along for the show", and be unconversive from that point on.
When a big group of truckers come into New Jerome, the locals will
just know somehow that the jig is up, and they'll all come out of their houses,
zombie-like. If the Posse stays in their vehicles, it will just be a slaughter,
because the "potato people" aren't armed, and they can't really do much about
big rigs. Rather than playing out the entire "battle", unless the Marshal wants to
kill time or add some elements to make the final showdown more difficult, this
episode can probably just be resolved through narration -- The trucks roll into
town, the zombies dumbly attack the trucks and get splattered as a result. Once
the opposition is taken out, truckers in gas masks and the occasional hazmat suit
go around burning everything to the ground.

Unless the Posse intervenes and makes a really good case, everything is going to
get torched -- no looting allowed -- including the good potato crop along with the
bad. This is probably the safest route to take anyway. Craven's truck vanishes at
some point during the mayhem.

Once the last of the "potato people" are taken care of, and the cursed potato
patch is put to the torch (with a bit of diesel fuel for good measure), the
supernaturally caused "potato plague" will miraculously disappear, though any
wounds inflicted will still remain. There is still the possibility of "potato plague
zombie" truckers out there somewhere, but they won't share the ability of the
citizens of New Jerome to pass for living people -- It will be plainly obvious that
they're undead.

Once the town is taken out, any and all Posse members who attempt to count
Coup are rendered immune to the effects of the potato plague, should it ever pop
up again.

Whomever actually wins Coup, however, gets an additional bonus: Craven's truck
o' doom. (see below)

Potato Plague Zombie (Potato People)

You can use the statistics for the Walkin' Dead out of the Hell on Earth rulesbook
to represent Potato Plague Zombies (a.k.a. "Potato People"), with the added
problem that anyone who suffers a wound from a Plague Zombie in hand-to-hand
combat must pass an Incredible (11) Vigor test, or be infected by the Potato
Plague.

Otherwise, here are some alternative "Potato People" statistics. (Just six-sided
dice were used here, because when I'm running a combat with swarms of nasties,
as a Marshal, I'd far rather have just one type of die to worry about, if possible.)

Special Abilities:

Damage:
The Potato People use various implements (frying pans, tools) as
bludgeons for STR+1d6 damage. Otherwise, they'll just pound on
their victims, doing STR damage. Any wounds sustained in hand-to-
hand with one of the Potato People require the victim to pass an
Incredible (11) Vigor test, or come down with the Potato Plague.

No Self-Defense:

The Potato People give no thought to self-defense. They never


Dodge, never Vamoose, and in close combat, their levels in fightin':
brawlin' are not added to the opponent's TN to strike.

Fearless

Undead

Coup:

Only once all of the Potato Plague Zombies of New Jerome are destroyed,
and the cursed field burned, will anyone be able to gain a Coup. All who
attempt to Count Coup are rendered immune to the Potato Plague inflicted
by those who died from this disease, and the contaminated potatoes
whither away.

Appearance:

The "Potato People" of New Jerome look like normal, living people, and
they're smart enough to fake breathing. However, victims of the potato
plague who die elsewhere and come back as plague zombies don't look
quite so good -- after 1d6 days of sitting around and getting rank, they'll
have a hard time passing for breathers. A "Potato Person's" flesh turns into
a putrid black goop, like the insides of rotten potatoes. If a wound is scored
against a "Potato Person," this fact is revealed, and a rancid smell is
released.

The Truck

Jeremy Craven's rig is not necessarily any more scary than a regular rig ... but the
prospect of getting run down by a semi truck -- possessed or not -- is not
palatable to much of anyone, regardless. The rig has the following stats, without
any sort of trailer:

The wheels on the rig have Durability 8. The rig has a large spiked ramming plate
mounted to the front, giving it AV 4 on the front, and AV 2 at all other body
locations (including the windows).

Special Abilities:

 Terror: 3
 Ghost Driver: The ghost of Jeremy Craven has 2d6 in all Traits, with 3d6
in drivin': wheeled, overawe, area knowledge: Interstates of the West. He
has no form, other than to control the truck, and he can't leave it. If
someone does enough damage to see inside the cab, there will be no one
visible driving the vehicle. Jeremy, being a ghost, is Fearless.
 Ram Plate: The truck itself is supernatural in origin, and damage
inflicted by a collision with its spiked ram plate can harm creatures immune
to normal weapons. The Ram Plate has an AV of 4 to protect the truck from
the front, but it also has shock absorbers -- Treat it as having an AV of 5 for
the purpose of calculating damage against the truck caused by a front-end
collision.
 Reconstitution: The truck can be destroyed by normal means. If it is
destroyed, it vanishes, and will not appear again until after the next
midnight. At midnight, the truck materializes for the sole purpose of
running a route back to New Jerome, and will doggedly pursue that course
regardless of what is done to hinder it along the way, unless it is rendered
inoperable. (In that case, it will vanish.) At any other time it appears, it will
pop up for the sole purpose of running trucks off the road which are
carrying loads of contaminated potatoes from New Jerome, and it is
confined to activity in the local area.

If at all possible, if the truck does any vanishing acts, it should be when
nobody happens to be looking.

Appearance:

The truck is a big black cab with a spiked ram plate affixed to the front, and
windows tinted so dark that it's impossible to see inside unless there's a
light source in there. (The view inside the cab of the outside world looks
just fine, though.) The cab expels vapors that resemble the writhing spirits
that would suggest the use of spook juice, though it doesn't actually burn
spook juice and doesn't actually release Manitous into the air when it runs.
The truck has a generally menacing air to it.

Coup:

Craven can only be put to rest once the Potato Plague Zombies in New
Jerome are dealt with. Then, the one who Counts Coup will gain a parting
gift from Craven: his truck.

The truck will have the statistics listed above, including the amazing ability
to run without fuel. However, it is a jealous machine -- It will not materialize
if the one who won the coup already has another vehicle. If the Posse
member later loses his vehicle, the truck will conveniently materialize at
some other point, awaiting its new owner.

If the truck is destroyed, it will disappear entirely. It will also vanish if its
owner is killed -- but if the owner should return from the dead (breathing or
not), the truck will pop up again. If any attempt is made to sell, trade or give
away the truck, it will vanish. The engine housing, fuel cap and other
maintenance access areas are fused shut. If some nosy person is so
determined to peer into the machine's inner workings that he hacks his way
in to poke around, he'll find nothing there ... and the truck will vanish at the
next available opportunity. (It prefers its mystery and privacy.)

The truck can suffer normal damage from attacks to specific hit locations
just like a real vehicle. It can be "healed" by various supernatural means of
restoring inanimate objects, and the owner can try to patch it up as well.
Superficial damage, such as scratches, dents and bullet holes will just fade
away within a day. More serious "wounds" will heal by making a natural
healing roll each week, and treating each Durability Level as a Wound
Level. (For this purpose, the truck has a Vigor rating of 2d12.)

The truck cannot drive itself, but it is still capable of doing a few things on
its own. The doors won't open except to the owner, and if anyone tries to
operate the truck without permission, the truck will either stubbornly refuse
to work, or else -- in dire circumstances -- the brakes just might give out at
an inopportune moment.

The radio picks up only country music stations, though the reception's a
bit staticky. If someone listens carefully, they may pick up clues that these
are broadcasts from before the Last War. Craven liked country music, and
that's what he always played on the radio, so that's what his radio will
always play, even if all those stations have been reduced to glowing slag
long ago. The radio can be turned off.

You might also like