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An Avalon Games Product, All rights reserved, Version 1.0, 2014

All comments, suggestions and contacts can be made to…

Avalon Games Company, avalon@comstar-games.com

Or visit

Avalon Games at…

www.avalon-games.com

Designed & Written By Robert Hemminger

Additional Writing by Josh Vogt

Additional Contributions from Josh Stevens

Edited by Peter Dodge

Cover Art by Michael Wolmarans and Robert Hemminger

Layout by Robert Hemminger

Interior Art by Robert Hemminger

Figure Flats by Robert Hemminger

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IntroductionDr. FrankensteinDr. PretoriusThe BrideIgorThe MonsterClockworkmenFreaksGrave RobbersFailed ExperimentsHomunculiMistakes of ScienceSteam-Powered HorrorFaction ItemsScenariosFaction Objectives

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Content

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“With each passing year, we discover more about the nature of man, nature, and technology than ever before. Knowledge is accelerating at an amazing rate, and we would be fools to let ourselves remain imprisoned by the religious structures and superstitions which have kept us blind, deaf, and dumb to the truth for far too long. So many questions are waiting to be answered, and it is my sincere belief that all the secrets we seek are already within us, hidden somewhere inside our minds and flesh. It only requires the proper key to unlock our full potential. Perhaps one day we shall even elevate our awareness beyond this frail form. Yet there are those who fear this potential, who fear the truth. They speak of ethics and morality, as if those are of any concern to the laws of the universe. What does gravity need of compassion? What does the sun need of mercy? These are the chains and weights which constrain us yet, holding us back from unbounded revelations. I say, cast off such unnecessary concerns and you shall experience wonders beyond any reality we've yet imagined.”

An unknown scientist lecturing in a university hall

It is an age of wonders. It is an age of horrors. Science has taken firm root in the minds of men and women across the globe as society continues to crawl out from under the iron fist of religious constructs. The human intellect has remained in the dark for centuries, and now is the time to cast fear and doubt aside and stride forth into a new world, shaped by human hands into its own image.

The limits of the flesh are only now being tested, and they go much further than we used to think. The deepest resources of the mind are only now being tapped, and true genius is found in those who are willing to take drastic risks. Madness, some may call it, but the world needs these visionaries to break the shackles of morality and free our species from its own hubris.

Laboratories have sprung up across Europe and the world, filled not with alchemical nonsense, but with devices that measure the very heartbeat of the earth and capture the energy of nature itself in glass and copper wiring. Ignore the moans and weepings of the experimental subjects, for theirs is a noble sacrifice for the purpose of giving greater insight into the workings of reality.

Magic is a dying power, and all things supernatural-if they ever really existed outside of humanity's childish fears-should slink back into the shadows from whence they came. Now is the age of man. Now is the age of knowledge, and any who would wish to obstruct the advancement of science will be removed, as they contribute nothing to the evolution of the species.

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Introduction

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“What more noble purpose exists than to unlock the secret of immortality? I tell you, when I succeed, my name shall be heralded forever as the man who saved the human race from extinction. Why, when we are able to live forever, nothing will be withheld from us. The stars themselves will be conquered, and all of nature will be held under our sway. We shall build a utopia for there will be no more war, no famine, no disease. Peace shall reign forever, and we will exist to experience all its glories. I only need a little more time. Each day I draw closer to the final solution. I can feel it.”

From the notations of Dr. Frankenstein

Dr. Frankenstein began his medical career as a simple city doctor, visiting the ill and infirm, supplying medicine or balms to those in need. However, over the years, he began to loathe the sick, seeing in them all that was wrong with humanity-weakness, physical vulnerability, malaise of the mind and spirit. If the human body was a machine, could it not then be tinkered with and fixed like many of the steaming, sputtering devices being engineered these days?

This thought led Frankenstein to withdraw from his practice and turn his powerful intellect on the workings of the human form. He cast aside common medical knowledge, believing it to be flawed and limited, and rather began to construct his own system of biology, chemistry, and many other areas of science. As his experiments grew more extreme, the scientific community began to decry his practices, forcing him to leave the city and retreat to an old family castle that had been abandoned for many generations.

There, shielded from public eye, his explorations grew ever darker, yielding up terrible insights into the human condition. Frankenstein soon resorted to abducting people in order to supply himself with enough subjects, as too many of them died on the operating table. Those who survived the procedures were often reduced to madness and existences of endless agony.

Frankenstein now produces a steady stream of horrors from the bowels of his lab-twisted constructs of flesh and bone, kept alive through applications of electricity and mysterious chemical vials. It is Frankenstein's unwavering belief that he is increasingly close to discovering the secret of eternal life, as well as the ability to resurrect dead flesh. In fact, some darker rumors hint that he has already been successful in these ventures, and now only continues his insane experiments out of obsession.

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Actions:APs:12

0*

0*

1

0*

0*

1*

1

Type:MeMe

Re/ SP

Re/ SP

Rg

Re/ SP

Re/ Sp

Re/ Sp

Ho

Name: Gloved PunchHesitant Charge

Lighting Punch

Lighting Discharge

Lighting Gun

Lighting Arc

Electrical Discharge

Arching Discharge

A Stitch in Time

Effects:Make a single Gloved Punch Melee attack at +1D4 Action ModThe Doctor may make a five-square move toward a target and then make a Gloved Punch attack at +1D4 Action Mod. This is a Charge actionYou may spend a stored Lightning Point to add +1D4+2 Action Mod to a Gloved Punch Melee attack. You may add additional dice per Lightning Point you wish to spendThis damage is electrical in natureYou may spend a stored Lightning Point to add 1D4+2 Action Mod to a Gloved Punch Melee attack’s damage roll. You may add additional dice per Lightning Point you wish to spendThis damage is electrical in natureYou may make a single Lightning Gun Ranged attack at any one target within sight and within 12 squares. If you score a hit you may place a single Lightning Burst marker centered on the target. Any character touched by the marker is hit and takes 1D4+2 woundsThis damage is electrical in natureYou may spend a stored Lightning Point to add one additional Lightning Burst marker to a successful Lightning Gun attack. The new marker may be placed anywhere so long as it is touching one other Lightning Burst marker. You may place as many Burst markers in this fashion as you have Lightning Points to spend.This damage is electrical in natureYou may spend a stored Lightning Point to add +1D4+2 Action Mod to a Lightning Gun’s Damage rollIf you are hit by a Melee attack you may, after damage is determined, spend a Lightning Point to do 1D4+2 wounds to the attacker. This damage is automatic and cannot be stopped. You may add additional dice per Lightning Point and action points you wish to spendThe Doctor may heal any Construct in a square next to the doctor, returning 1D4+2 wounds to the monster

Special:Lighting Generator:The Doctor wears an electrical generator on his back, which will generate 1D4+1 lightning points each turn. The generator is subject to critical die rolls, adding the results together to find the total lightning points generated. If the generator should ever create 15 or more lightning points at any one time, it explodes, doing 1D10 wounds to all characters within eight squares. Once the generator has exploded, it can no longer be used for the rest of the game.

Roll for lightning point generation during the compulsory phase of each turn.

Lightning Points unspent by the end of a turn are lost.

Bloodthirsty:May fire into close combat.

Base Stat:D4D6D4D6

To Hit:Type:Melee: Ranged:Magic: Horror:

Defense:555 8

Special:Lightning Glove (Me, Dmg: D4+2Lightning Gun (Rg, 12 squares Scatter, Dmg: D4+2)

Name: Dr. Frankenstein (Human)Faction: Horrors of ScienceType: MasterCost: 4Action Points: 3Morale: 5Leadership: 8 squaresCommand Points: 1Movement: 3 squaresWounds: 15

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“Frankenstein the master of science? Frankenstein the Fool! How he deludes himself, hiding away in his labs like a pathetic worm, thinking his endless tinkering with corpses will somehow offer up eternal life to his simpering grasp. He is too blind to see the truth he craves. Flesh is nothing but a bundle of chemicals, and it is within these mixtures that the real answer lies. I will show home. Once I have mastered the chemical processes that govern all life, I will break down the walls of his moldering lab and force him to his knees, wringing a blubbering admission that I am his superior before I break his spindly neck.”

Notations by Dr. Pretorius

Dr. Pretorius was drawn to Dr. Frankenstein's search for eternal life, one of few minds in the scientific community open enough to see the potential so many others had rejected out of ignorance. For a time, the two worked together, fueled by a shared passion for knowledge. One day, though, a lab accident splashed acid across Dr. Pretorius' face and splattered his body with horrible scars. Rather than surrender to the agony of the incident, Pretorius embraced the flesh-altering qualities of the acid and returned to work believing greater revelations lay within the manipulation of chemical compounds.

Frankenstein argued that his fellow scientist's scope had narrowed too far to yield any helpful results, and that reliance on mere chemicals remained too close to the outdated study of alchemy. This caused the first rift between them, which quickly widened due to their obsessive and tempestuous personalities. The disfigured Pretorius eventually abandoned his work alongside Frankenstein, destroying a goodly amount of lab materials and data in his departure, to Frankenstein's fury.

Dr. Pretorius has since set up his own hidden laboratory, deep underground where he is safe from prying eyes as well as any sabotage attempts by Frankenstein's minions. There, he has continued exploring how to apply a wide variety of chemicals and observe the results while working to direct them to his own ends. He has taken many of the principles learned while working with Frankenstein and adjusted them to his malformed perspective. Rather than relying on electricity as a base motive energy, most of his experiments rely on injecting subjects with solutions and formulae he has concocted.

Much like Frankenstein, he has experienced a limited amount of success in his efforts, coaxing semblances of life from corpseswhile bestowing new abilities and sensations upon living test subjects-albeit, often in a spectacularly painful fashion. If Frankenstein and Pretorius were ever to reconcile their differences and once more ply their united intelligences, who knows what they might be able to accomplish together? Perhaps it is fortunate for the world at large that the two remain having gone their separate ways. Better yet, the world might be a safer place should the two ever come to a direct confrontation and destroy one another.

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