As we head towards the end of our live season of events, one prominent plot during this upcoming event will focus on faith – the zeal, corruption and true belief that makes up Barker Meadow Reservoir.

In this blog post, we’ll cover the Unholy Passengers, those long-dreaded parasites of faith, and the mechanics and story around them. First, the lowdown on what the Unholy Passengers are and how they will function mechanically. Second, some interaction points and themes we encourage exploring this game. Finally, attached mechanics to this particular outbreak of Passengers – the Host keyword, the ways a Passenger can be interacted with by calls: Advance, Inflame and Weaponize, the Weaponized Passenger status and two types of Bane to be on the lookout for: Host Bane and Faith Bane.

So, What exactly are the Unholy Passengers?

The Unholy Passengers are parasites that “eat” away at the bodies, minds and faith of Lineages. They influence, addle and poison their Hosts, often ending in death and, for the faithful, loss of their faith.

Unholy Passengers have three Stages. All characters will enter into town with a Stage 1 Passenger unless the player expressly opts out either OOG or through mechanics. Each Stage will include an RP Prompt and mechanics for what happens when your Passenger is Inflamed (agitated by an outside force). Faithful characters will have a base effect that makes Faith abilities painful to use and receive, while Faithless characters will experience a different issue in play with their status as Hosts.

To be clear, while the RP Prompts can be opted into and out of at any time your character would be under the effect as usual, we do strongly encourage leaning into the RP that comes with being a Host. The mechanical effects of being a Host at different Stages, such as what happens when Inflamed, can not be opted out of without opting out of the entire experience of being Host to a Passenger.

Unholy Passengers Stage 1 -

If Lineage is Faithful:

Mechanics: Faith Anomaly skills cost 10 Body Damage and Agony to use or receive. When Inflamed, take 10 Body Damage and Agony 30 seconds.

Role-Play Prompt: Crisis Of Faith

If Lineage is Faithless:

Mechanics: When Inflamed, take 10 Body Damage and Agony 30 seconds.

Role-Play Prompt: Yearning for Faith

Stage 2 -

If Faithful:

Mechanics: As per Stage 1 but when Inflamed, instead take 20 Body Damage from brain hemorrhaging.

Role-Play Prompt: Corrupted Faith Zealotry (replaces Stage 1 Prompt)

If Faithless:

Mechanics: When Inflamed, take 20 Body Damage from brain hemorrhaging (this replaces Stage 1’s effect)

Role-Play Prompt: Existential Faith Crisis (replaces Stage 1 Prompt)

Stage 3 -

If Faithful:

Mechanics: When Inflamed, take 1 Resolve Damage. If the character reaches 0 Resolve from this damage, they receive 20 Body Damage, Blinding and Stun 5 minutes, then 1 minute later, 10 Murder (Striker’s Coat does not immune, and this replaces the earlier Inflame effect). Reaching 0 Resolve from this damage will remove the Faith from a character and add a note to their sheet that they require a Rite of Reaffirmation to be rebaptized within the next 3 months to that faith. This removal of faith can expressly be opted out of and the note either not added or removed at any time based on a player’s choice. Death by any means purges the body of the Passenger and results in a more intense Mortis scene, during which reaching 0 Resolve will remove Faith as per above.

Role-Play Prompt: As per Stage 2

If Faithless:

Role-Play Prompt: As per Stage 2

Whew! So the takeaway here is: Watch out for those Inflame calls, and get ready to explore faith in your roleplay as a Host! What’s it all mean though? What sort of stories are the Passengers meant to encourage and where might you take your RP of being a Host?

Themes of the Passenger Experience

The three themes of the Passenger experience in this writer’s mind are the Give and Take of Faith in Barker, the Search for Meaning inherent in exploring faith, and the Dread of being Host to an increasingly deadly Passenger that threatens body and soul alike.

In Barker, faith giveth and faith taketh away, as people and whole religions rise and fall with Trials big and small. The Unholy Passengers are yet another test of faith and of the community strength of Barker Meadow – including the strength of the All-Faiths. For the faithful, being Host to a Passenger is a terrible state, one’s faith turned into a weapon against oneself, but also the Hosts will be key for dealing with the outbreak (as we’ll talk more about below) and this is yet another opportunity to prove the strength of your faith in Barker.

The RP Prompts involved are meant to evoke a winding path through the experience of faith or faithlessness, with a movement from crisis to zealotry for the faithful and a descent into the now very literal crisis that is lacking faith in Barker for the faithless. We encourage you to lean into aspects of your character’s beliefs you’ve been wanting to explore and to take dramatic action based on the RP Prompts!

Finally, being a Host is dangerous and potentially deadly. There will be calls that Inflame and put the Hosts in danger in other ways, and the fear and horror inherent in being affected by something that’s taken worse and worse root in you should be at the front of the mind of those playing Hosts.

How to Interact With This Plot Other Than Being a Host

There are some ways you can interact with this plot other than suffering from being a Host, including Research and Removal.

First, the Passenger outbreak will need to be Researched in order to understand how to deal with it. This Research will be made available during play, and provide a chance for the educated to put their book learning to use. One thing to note ahead of time about the Research: it will require at least one Host involved in the process. While it will be possible to remove the Passengers in town, it would make the overall problem much harder to deal with without Host researchers.

Second, the All-Faiths have a ritual for removing Passengers that will be made available to town. Of course they do! This ritual requires some heavy faith RP, ritualists, a surgeon and a Sunbloom. The problem with this ritual is no problem for the All-Faiths – it does not work on the faithless. There may be other ways to remove a Passenger discoverable during game, however, with different methods taking variant resources and having their own complications.

There will be more ways to interact with the Passengers and more for Hosts to do to understand their predicament and importantly, protect themselves against the Passengers within them that will be unlockable through play.

What Mechanics to Know

You’re going to want a quick mechanical rundown of relevant calls and keywords for the Passenger outbreak this month: Host, Advance, Inflame, Weaponize, Weaponized Passengers and Host and Faith Bane.

Host: A keyword targeting all who currently have Passengers.

Advance: A call that impacts Hosts, bringing a Passenger one stage forward, to a maximum of Stage 3. There is no progression beyond Stage 3 and Advance does not impact those without Passengers (there is no advancement from “Stage 0” via this call, unlike some Diseases).

Inflame: Inflame is a call that has different effects at different Stages of hosting a Passenger and can be delivered in a variety of ways, defended through its base defense – a melee-delivered Inflame would be Avoided, a Psionic Inflame countered with Basic Mental Endurance, etc. – as well as specific mechanics to negate Inflames overall.

Weaponize: Now this is where things get spicy. Weaponize is a call that turns a Passenger into a Weaponized Passenger. Exactly what this means is to be discovered in-game but for transparency, let’s go over the Weaponized Passenger status.

Weaponized Passenger: A Weaponized Passenger acts as per the Passenger’s base mechanics, but adds the following –

The Passenger will Advance every 2 Hours up to a maximum of Stage 3.
When about to Advance, make sure to tap a Guide familiar with the plot (Brom or Emily are your best bets) to make the appropriate calls that result from Advancement of a Weaponized Passenger.
Dying while under the effects of a Weaponized Passenger is a dramatic event above and beyond the experience of death – make sure to get a Guide as detailed above as well.

Host Bane: This is a Bane that deals double damage to anyone or anything (spoilers: not just Lineages can and will be Hosts to Passengers…) with a Passenger.

Faith Bane: This one is simple. If you have a Faith, this effect will deal double damage.

With the rundown of a big threat this weekend complete, we look forward to seeing you at our September event, “Politics and Religion!” If you haven’t grabbed your ticket and checked in on the database yet you can do so here.