Paris

"An old college friend of mine had contacted me for my advice concerning a series of deaths he had been investigating in France. A highly respected and formidable Police Investigator in his own right, he was at a loss to explain a bizarre series of murders that he had come across recently. No nearer to catching the perpetrators, and remembering my childlike fascination in cases that seemed impossible by human means, he had contacted me to see if I could shed any more light on the matter.

To say I was excited at this opportunity would be understating things a bit. These bizarre cases had caught the world's attention and people all around the world were talking about them with fearful curiosity. Like many people at the time I was following their development avidly. I had a strong intuitive feeling that these murders weren't the work of an ordinary serial killer. The talk among paranormal investigators was that vampires were once again at large in Paris. There was a general unease even here in America and during that winter people could be seen furtively glancing over their shoulders as they went about their daily business. Families would be safely locked up in their homes before night fell.

The case was simple. Over a short period of time, starting in late autumn of that year, a number of bodies started appearing in the grounds of Notre Dame Cathedral. The bodies were always found suspended upside down and drained of blood in the branches of a yew tree. All the victims' origins were traced to the small town of Laon, about 100 miles from Paris. Post mortems of the victims' bodies suggested all the deaths to have occurred approximately at midnight. Was this timing significant to the case? These events happened so quickly that many times the victims' disappearance hadn't even been noticed, let alone reported to the authorities.

When the third body was found, stake outs were set up at Notre Dame, but the officers who were there, said they had no idea of the fourth or fifth bodies being left there. They were accused of sleeping on the job, but I tend to agree with their explanation, that it was as if by magic these bodies appeared in Notre Dame, one minute nothing, the next there was the body. It was only when the fifth body was found that the Laon connection was established and I was called by my friend for my help in the matter.

My investigative techniques even today are said to be slightly unorthodox, but back then even more so. Especially when I had so many ideas, theories and possibilities to go with, not knowing which to try or which of my explanations I wanted to be truer than the other theories I had come with. I am deeply sad to say that at the time I couldn't wait to find the sixth victim's body on one of my stakeouts in the grounds of Notre Dame Cathedral. This innocent curiosity and enthusiasm to learn about the veiled aspects of our world I have long since lost and is now replaced by the bitter realities of my experiences.

I remember being struck by the point that we were fast approaching the winter solstice. The closer we got to it the greater the frequency of these killings. Well at least that is how it seemed to me at the time. I wondered why the victims were found in consecrated ground?

My initial investigation proved what I had been expecting, that Laon lay upon a ley line and that Notre Dame could possibly be sitting upon a transitional place of power. Though I could not prove it to the ordinary person on the street, I established to my own satisfaction that there was a vampire presence in Paris at the time. I do not believe they were behind these particular murders. I suspected that they were just as keen for the real killer to be found as we were. For this brought undue attention on them and attracted hunters to their area. The hunters that flocked to the area talked about removing two powerful vampire lords' and their gangs, which were severely depleted of numbers if not outright destroyed during this period in Paris

The vampire angle was the start of my investigation, these were the fearful whispers and rumours on the ordinary people's lips as well as like minded professionals in the same line of work as myself. Though this led to a dead end, it did lead to other possible explanations. It seems that a few times each century for nearly three hundred years, these types of incidents have been recorded in Paris alone. In other places around the world similar cases to these can be seen throughout history, though nowhere near the intensity they seem to occur in Paris in the last couple of centuries. Interesting to note that these incidents do occur when increased vampire activity is recorded in recent times. Rather than convince me that these were doings of vampires, I became convinced that the murderer was using vampires as cover for his crimes.

Except for myths and legends the eighteenth century is when the vampire presence on Earth is at its zenith in recorded history, especially in Paris. Coincidentally it is in the early eighteenth century that you see numerous cases of this type of ritualistic murder in Paris and since then they have started to occur more frequently in Paris, every few decades instead of every few centuries.

In the early eighteenth century a large engraved stone was removed from the grounds of Notre Dame. The majority of the engraving was said to be in an unknown language used by the druids. The language has yet to be deciphered and what was written on the stone remains unknown even to this day.

One symbol that was identified was attributed to be a representation of Esus "the Lord" but there is even debate about this among academics. The ancient druids are believed to hold Esus in high regard. Is it a coincidence, that there was a renewed interest in druid traditions in the years following the removal of this stone from Notre Dame? Many new druid organisations were set up and many people embraced the druid traditions around this time.

I believe that the engraved stone was in fact a stone of power, and it was acting as a mystical barrier, and it was not engraved in an unknown language but was covered in mystical symbols. These mystical symbols could have been used to empower the stone to do a vital job, namely stop something coming out. Though I am unable to prove it, I believe that without the stone of power preventing its return, an ancient evil is free to come and go, and does so on a regular cycle to extract blood sacrifice from its victims or receives blood sacrifice as tribute from its followers.

It is my view that the murders that winter were done by something once known as Esus or actions of helpers in his name. The question arises why it has not come out and carried out more atrocities. It may well have done, we just don't know, many cases may still remain undiscovered by modern historians and detectives. How many people have disappeared without a trace. Maybe it is a very secretive creature. It could simply be that the doorway opens on consecrated ground of Notre Dame. Did the builders of the Basilicas and then the Cathedral choose this site for this purpose, or is it mere coincidence that consecrated ground surrounds a possible doorway to an ancient evil. Were the knights of old engaged in a war against this creature? Could it be that those who put the engraved stone also put up other defences to stop this evil returning to Earth. Were these people the ancient druids? Is this why their orders started to reform when the "possible" mystic barrier was removed? Because they were only ones that realised the threat that could be unleashed on Earth once again.

Or did this "Esus" instigate the revival in the druid traditions? Is this creature the same Esus the ancient druids speak of or something completely different? Is it simply a question of the Earth not having the mystical energies it desires for it to return for longer periods. Does it return on a regular cycle to see if mystic energy is found on Earth in abundance one again, as I believe was the case in the distant past. A time only remembered by us in our myths and legends. Is its purpose to gain new followers? Who will set it free from its prison. Is someone or something summoning it? Who would be foolish enough and powerful enough to do that? There could be a host of other explanations but in my experience it probably is elements of all these reasons. At the end of my investigation, as always is the case, I was left with more questions than answers. I found several pieces of the jigsaw but not enough to complete the puzzle to the satisfaction of the public at large.

However this case had a lasting legacy, my old friend became a firm backer of my work due to our experience during this investigation. My theories and our actions based upon them may well have saved several other innocent people from being murdered this way. Modesty and the facts at hand prevent me from claiming anymore that my actions may have garnered. My friend still tells whomsoever listens of the winter we stopped a terrible evil from being unleashed on a hapless world. It also brought him into a fight with a possible vampire, enough proof for him at least of their existence. This case changed him so much that he set up and still runs a club for like minded individuals to share their knowledge, the club releases a quarterly magazine, and is fondly referred by its members as the Lazlosociety."

This is what Victor Lazlo appears to say in his posthumous published diary regarding the above article.

The city once known as the capital of romance and the city of lights is anything but those things in the world of Rifts. Now it's only a shadow of its former glories, and on boulevards along the Seine where lovers once used too stroll arm in arm on moonlit nights, the denizens of Hades and other monstrosities tuck into their mortal prey.

One of the notable changes to have occurred in Paris, is the island where the noble Notre Dame Cathedral once stood is completely under water. In fact all the nearby islands in the Seine are underwater, and none of the bridges connecting these islands to the rest of Paris survive. The ruins of Notre Dame are not visible from the surface of the Seine, in fact the waters of the Seine here are very murky. Maybe the murkiness of the waters here is due to the various ruins underneath the water surface, but it doesn't feel natural, whatever the case, visibility is greatly impaired in the waters of the Seine around the submerged islands. There are lots of dangerous creatures swimming for a mile from these islands in the Seine, upstream and down. If you didn't no better you could say they were patrolling this area. To keep everyone safe that they like, the Gargoyles appear to have set up huge Eiffel Towers from which they can watch this area and respond to any activity if need be.

There are many copies of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which are used as roosts by the Gargoyles and their kin. Giving them a fine vantage point to survey their domain and surrounding areas, and to swarm down on any unsuspecting souls to have strayed into their territory.

Among the many ruins and dark corners of the city, humans and other mortals skulk in the shadows scratching for food and try to avoid being the next thing on the menu. Most of these humans and D-bees are either runaway dinner or more likely escaped slaves from the massive gargoyle factories. Whether it is night or day these continuously billow out poisonous fumes. Perpetually a huge smog cloud hangs ominously over the city. Sometimes it descends as a haze to street level, during these events which occur rather regularly, humans and d-bees need to get out or be wearing full environmental armour. An observant person may realise this isn't a normal smog cloud.

GM NOTE: 3D6 SDC/MDC (whichever is appropriate) damage is taken on themselves (organic materials, like skin, scales, leather and so on). A save versus lethal poison every melee also needs to be made, if there is no other means of breathing, like full environmental armour or independent air supply. Each failed save results in 3D6 damage direct to hit points or MDC (whichever is appropriate) + a second save needs to be made, if this fails the person suffers the same penalties as if they failed a save against neural mace. If this second roll is failed THREE times {does not have to be in a row}, the person falls into a coma, that is if they aren’t already dead from the damage taken from inhaling the poisonous fumes. Each time the roll save versus lethal poison is failed, the second roll has to be made. Putting a handkerchief, gas mask or other material over the nose and mouth will slow down inhalation, as such a save versus lethal poison will only be needed to be made every TWO melees. This effects mortals and supernatural alike.

Humans and D-bees need to be able to take care of themselves on the streets of Rifts Paris, for it is open season on them, actually anyone really, only those perceived as mightier than themselves are left unchallenged by the creatures that inhabit this city now. The only exceptions to this are the Gargoyles and their ilk, the Gargoyles' Monster allies or any creature that is a blood druid or even affiliated to the blood druids, especially if it is under their aegis. Bizarrely the gargoyle rulers of Paris take extreme and lethal exception to anyone that may threaten a blood druid or anyone under the blood druids' protection.

There are many powerful supernatural and monstrous beings in Paris, but it is clear to anyone that the gargoyles rule it. Their authority is unchallenged and they have made the city what it is today. Without a doubt it is a power in its own right and that is before you take into account the whole of the Gargoyle Empire in Europe or its allies. The NGR found this out for themselves at great expense, by the failure of their surprise assault from the Bay of Biscay and Mediterranean Sea. The NGR still can not believe how greatly they underestimated Paris, or they greatly overestimated their own abilities.

Serious lessons need to be learnt quickly by the NGR if they are to survive, for from the failed assault the NGR at the very least has learnt that there is a need to investigate the Paris area properly. Even if it is to figure out where all the gargoyles and their hardware came from. They are certain from their spy network that not all of the hardware used against them came from the Phoenix Empire. At the moment their theory is gargoyles coming through a Rift at Carnac, but their satellites and spies should have spotted such large numbers of gargoyles.

Whether it is the influence of CS spies or NGR paranoia, they are leaning towards Atlantis being involved, using some powerful and unspeakable magic to move large number of gargoyles to Europe. Whatever the case, they want to get to the bottom of it, so they can prepare a counter for it.

The NGR is wrong about Lord Splynncrytth's involvement in this. Of course the Lord of Atlantis helped his gargoyle allies in Europe, but not to this extent, after all the gargoyles of Europe are allies in name only and a useful distraction, their demise would not have been a great loss. Atlantis is very unlikely to have revealed any of its true power for this trivial conflict. The amount of help Atlantis gave, was enough to ensure the Monster Nations remained a threat to the NGR after the current round of conflict. Thereby ensuring Lord Splynncrytth winning some of the large bets that the Megaversal powers have laid between themselves on the outcome of this conflict. In these bets, monetary value is not the only thing at stake.

Atlantis is just as surprised and baffled by the number of gargoyles, the quality and amount of hardware that appeared when they fought the NGR assault at Paris. Atlantis to is contemplating matters in this regard.

The loss of Paris will be a very serious setback to the Gargoyle Empire, akin to The Coalition States losing Lonestar. From the billowing factories it is apparent that the Gargoyles build the great majority of their war machines here, many of their warriors could be trained here in relative safety. Due to the Gargoyle power concentrated here, it is quite conceivable that the command of the Gargoyle Empire may well be found in Paris.

NGR spies have not found anything amiss in Paris that suggests otherwise. The factories appear to be low tech, relying on slave labour and what they produce isn't anything the NGR hasn't encountered before. In these factories efforts are made to replicate technology. Efforts to reproduce Triax technology in these factories have been without much success. Emulating other hardware they have bought for their arsenal in these factories hasn't been any more successful.

As far as the NGR spies could tell, there is a lot of effort in these factories for little obvious return. It appears these factories are very inefficient, without the necessary numbers of workforce required to run them, and their reliance on slave labour tends to be a fairly large disadvantage, especially at the rate the Gargoyle Empire appears to go through them. NGR knows it is has missed something, but doesn't know what it could be.

Just to be on the safe side in the recent assault, the NGR specifically targeted these facilities with long-range missile barrages and other aerial bombardments. Damaging some and putting others out of commission for awhile, albeit their reconnaissance satellite imagery and spies have shown these factories weren't as greatly damaged as they had calculated they would be. Triax scientists specialising and working in the Triax anti-paranormal unit appear to suggest that the smog hanging over Paris may have interfered with the smart missiles computer systems. This has yet to be confirmed. This bizarre hypothesis has not been dismissed out of hand by the NGR because it was the people in their anti paranormal unit that came with the uranium and depleted uranium round technology, when the rest of the military dismissed that avenue of research.

There are many guilds to be found in Paris, able to cater for a great number and variety of visitors. For whatever reason the Gargoyles have discouraged this, even their Monster allies have never been warmly welcomed here. The facilities are all there for Paris to thrive, but the gargoyles reluctance to open up has been a great hindrance to this. It has been assumed the gargoyles here are from the same tribe and culturally more like animalistic predators than other gargoyles, as such they are extremely territorial, and do not want others who can threaten their supremacy of Paris to be anywhere near it.

The Gargoyle rulers appear to have deferred the running of the guilds to the blood druids. This seems contradictory because the guilds cover every facet of life in Paris. In Paris you have a merchants' guild to an assassins' guild, so it could be argued whoever runs these guilds runs Paris. Once this has been realised, the question arises who is actually in charge of Paris, the Gargoyles or the Blood Druids.

Without a question from what can be seen, the gargoyles are in power, they do what they want, because they provide the muscle, they make up the military and what could be described as the police. Without their say so the blood druids would not be able to run the guilds with impunity, in fact it is quite obvious that the gargoyles remove anyone they do not like who sets up shop in Paris. This could be why only the Blood Druids run the guilds because for whatever reason the gargoyles allow them to run their little enterprises in the territory under their control.

There is an inevitable tide of visitors that are heading to Paris, something the gargoyles had not bargained with. Just maybe word of mouth has finally spread the news that in Paris there really are decent facilities catering for the more discernible monster clientele. It could be that the blood druids have finally had the courage to ask the Gargoyles to allow more visitors in, so the businesses their guilds run actually start making some money. Whatever the case there are interesting times ahead for Paris. For it just happens that it is going head to head with LondonSplynn in this regard.

For without trying LondonSplynn has become the major Splugortian city outside of Atlantis in recent years. From being a secure outpost to pick up slaves and goods from Europe, it has grown to a popular hunting and visitor resort for Atlantis's supernatural patrons. LondonSplynn security is tightened and lots of development is taking place. This change in LondonSplynn is occurring just when Paris is starting to attract similar types of clients to use its facilities.

Both Cities appear to have advantages and disadvantages over each other for these purposes. Clearly the people running LondonSplynn, have the know-how to put on hunts, provide security and so on, and they are building the facilities in LondonSplynn. Whereas in Paris all the facilities are already in place, but they lack the expertise to deal with visitors and their needs.

Paris is potentially in a war zone, though this provides an added thrill for some of their visitors, and they can offer NGR troops as prey, or raiding NGR cities or outposts as attractions. LondonSplynn has far more resources and good public relations to back it. Their resources mean they could conceivably lead long-range hunts into NGR territory in relative safety, if that is what visitors want.

The outcome of all this could all depend on how much Paris is opened up. With the recent NGR assault on Paris, the Gargoyles and Blood Druids may have no choice but to open up Paris. If this rivalry develops an interesting side note will be how Lord Splynncrytthh will react to this competition, and will it affect his so-called alliance with the Gargoyle Empire. How will the Lord of Atlantis handle this potential competition? just economic warfare, or will things be take further?

On the face of it, there are appears to be not much damage done to Paris from the recent round of conflict. The changes like Paris opening up to visitors are subtle and slow. There was another change which occurred in Paris due to the recent conflict but has gone unnoticed by all. It has occurred in one of the guilds. This could potentially be a huge change in the politics of Paris, especially if it goes hand in hand with Paris opening up to outside visitors. In fact this change may have led to Paris being more welcoming to outsiders.

The change could potentially have massive consequences for the NGR wars with its Monster Nations neighbours. The change that has occurred is that the Blood Druids are no longer running the most powerful guild in Paris, namely the Assassins Guild. The gargoyles in Paris appear not to have realised this, nor have the blood druids, if they do, they have not admitted it to the Gargoyle rulers of Paris.

This was a hostile take over, as the parties involved by no means mutually agreed to it. It occurred during the NGR assault. It also remains unclear if the NGR Black Ops orchestrated this change. To put it bluntly, well really more to the point, the blood druid running the Assassins Guild woke up with a knife in his back.

GM NOTE: the new Grandmaster of the Assassins Guild in Paris is an Elven assassin using an elven magical weapon known as a shadowblade. Shadowblades are elven magical weapons (daggers) used by Elven assassins.

By the nature of the Assassins Guild, the Grandmaster remains anonymous, this may help in explaining why the Gargoyle rulers of Paris are unaware of this major change. For it is a colossal shift in power if it remains unchecked. From having a puppet running the most powerful guild in Paris, the gargoyles could find they have someone running a large chunk of Paris who is against their stranglehold on the city. Worse still this person could be working for the NGR or at least spy for them, or most likely could have been put in power by the NGR.

If it was another guild, this may not have been bad news for the Gargoyles, but because the Assassins Guild asserts far more influence than the size of its membership implies, this is bordering on the catastrophic. By it's very nature the assassin's guild is elusive, and a great threat to the Gargoyle rulers, as they too could be in its sights, and they may find themselves in the dead of night falling out of their roosts with their wings clipped.

For the NGR they could potentially have a powerful ally amidst their enemy, and by this change they will learn that infiltration and thereby other actions are also possible within the heart of enemy territory if they are carefully planned. What a full on assault failed to do, small covert operations may succeed in doing.

Gargoyle Paris Blood Druids Americas Blood Druid Paris

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