Afraid of Play Reports - A Perfect Wife (Session 3 & 4)
Afraid of Play Reports is a series of blogposts where I write play reports of the campaign that I have finished or currently running. I name it that way because I keep on procrastinating on writing play reports. I will write my GM thoughts/comments in italic.
I've been slacking with this play report because the first one was posted on Halloween. I guess it's fitting that this series is called Afraid of Play Reports. Anyway, this is the play report for A Perfect Wife Session 3 & 4. You can find Session 1 & 2 play report here.
Session 3
The investigators returned to Kampung Damai on Saturday in hopes to meet Sarah, the sex worker. They regrouped at the wet market and saw a woman scrounging through a dumpster. When they asked her what she was doing, the woman who goes by Bude Mawar (Bude means Auntie) explained that she would usually find something valuable among the trash to be sold later at her pawn shop. They would visit her later on.
Siti revealed that she pulled some strings to meet with the local police chief. She felt that there might be answers in the police files regarding all the missing people, including Tedi. So they went to the police where they met Officer Rafiq. The pig wasn't too thrilled that Siti had used her connections to meet him, so he didn't respond kindly to the investigators' questions.
Eventually they had to distract some of the police at the station so one of them could take a look at the documents. The documents revealed that the missing people might be a victim of human/organ trafficking perpetrated by one of the gangs or perhaps even someone working in the medical field.
After receiving this information, the investigators confronted Rafiq. He then asked why were they so interested on the missing people, which they revealed that they were helping their friend, Sarah, who wanted to look for Tedi. The pig then revealed that they should be careful around Sarah's husband, Azman, a surgeon. The local police seemed to think that he might be behind the missing people, due to his house located at the edge of Kampung Damai. This made the investigators decide to go to Sara and Azman's house.
My thoughts: Azman being a suspect of the missing people cases is not in the module. Azman's house is supposed to be located outside of Kampung Damai. The changes that I made actually happened at the heat of the moment, because it felt right. But it did made the players think that Azman might be behind all of this.
The investigators went straight to Azman's house, where they finally met the antagonist of the story. The session ended with the investigators ringing the bell to Azman's house and he opened the door for him.
Session 4
Azman was welcoming to them and letting the investigators to be his guests. Liany noticed that Azman was wearing some kind of necklace, which she believed to be some kind of talisman, a similar type to the ones worn by the Black-Bands. They also saw Azman's doctorate and master certificates. They found it weird that Azman would have multiple medical doctorates and a masters in anthropology. The investigators also saw a potted banana tree at the back garden, which they found strange.
The meeting with Azman was intense. Siti were very vehement that Azman had something to do with the missing people, to which the doctor took offense. It all blew up when Azman called Sara. His wife appeared with a long maternal gown, revealing that she was pregnant. Sara was also obeying Azman's commands to make some drinks for the investigators. This made Siti believe that Azman had done something to Sara. It all ramped up from there, with lots of shouting, ending with Sara screaming "Stop! Stooooooop! Enough!" and Azman telling them to leave.
My thoughts: The players were shocked seeing Sara being pregnant and thought that something was wrong with her body. I had to clear it up that they saw Sara wearing thick clothes, perhaps hiding the pregnancy. I think I didn't telegraph it that well when they met her the first time. If I run it again, I would just tell them outright that Sara is pregnant.
With a few hours left until evening, the group paid Mawar a visit. They found out that she was selling the teddy bear pendant that Yeyen gave to Tedi. One of them bought the pendant and paid extra so Mawar would let them know where they found it. Her information led them to Mighty Tower apartment building.
When they arrived at Might Tower, they noticed a strange stain on the ceiling of the lobby, in front of the elevator door. One of them believed it was blood. When they were checking the stain, a woman entered the lobby and pacing quickly to the elevator, her face in fear. They decided to follow her to her floor and found which room she was staying.
When they found her room, one of them actually shot the door knob to forcefully enter, which alerted the 38 gang members (Mighty Tower being their base of operation). The gangsters looked around for the source of the noise, but they didn't notice the door knob. The lady, Cinta, had to be calmed down because she was paranoid, and the investigators made it worse with them breaking into her room.
After she calmed down, the investigators ask Cinta if there was anything strange that happened the past few weeks. One of them also asked if she knew about the teddy bear pendant. She knew it belonged to Tedi. Cinta told them that she saw Tedi being eaten by a naked female figure. But the woman didn't attack her, leaving her alone. With this information, and about the 38's whereabout, they returned to Fortune Club.
In the club, they met with Heri again and revealed the 38's location. Heri eventually agreed to let one of the investigators have some personal time with the sex worker, Sarah. Bule volunteered. The others tried to call Tedi's spirit who confirmed that he was killed by a Kuntilanak who disguised herself as Sarah, and his body was taken to Azman's house. As a faith healer and being knowledgeable in the occult, Liany believed that the banana tree at the back of Azman's house might be the conduit for the Kuntilanak.
My thoughts: In the module, it's actually Pontianak, not Kuntilanak. But because I changed the location from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta, I changed the Pontianak to Kuntilanak. Both are similar bloodthirsty spirits in a woman form, with a few different details. You can read more about Pontianak and Kuntilanak here.
The group splits up during the night. Bule spent his time with Sarah, enamored by her beauty and charm. While the rest headed straight to Azman's house to confront him. But everything turned into chaos when Sara's Baby (who they encountered at the second session) appeared and forced them to jump over the wall to get into Azman's house. Siti actually tried to call Sara at this point but no reply. And at the same time, Bule noticed Sarah receiving a call.
My thoughts: I decided to name Sara's alter ego as Sarah just as a tease that would make them go "Surely Isaac wouldn't do that. It's too easy of a guess!". And it worked! I can still remember their gasp and their "oh shit" when the players realized that Sara and Sarah are the same person.
Bule actually decided to walk with Sarah to Azman's house because he wanted to make sure how the others were doing. But then he heard the screams, which forced him to run away with Sarah to the direction of the Mighty Tower. They went through an alleyway, and that's when Sarah turned into her Kuntilanak form to attack Bule. He was incapacitated by the spirit and taken to Azman's house.
Jacky, Liany, and Siti looked for Sara and Azman in the first floor. They screamed, shouted, hoping that they would show themselves. But they were surprised when Bule fell from the sky to the garden. They checked up on him and saw the Kuntilanak flying above the second floor balcony. Azman joined the Kuntilanak and did his evil speech, explaining that he wanted "a perfect wife", so he did a ritual to turn Sara into a Kuntilanak in hopes that she would bear him a child. She knew Sara needed sustenance, so he allowed her to kidnap and kill the people of Kampung Damai. Their bodies were taken by Azman for organ trafficking.
At that point, Jacky had enough of Azman and shot his necklace. He remembered what Liany said, that the necklace might be a protective talisman of some sort. With the necklace destroyed, Sara the Kuntilanak was free from Azman's control and killed him. Sara's Baby crawled to the garden, and she hugged him. The group stopped her, asking what she would be doing. The Kuntilanak explained that she wanted to be free and take care of her baby. But they knew more peope would die, so they burned the banana tree. The Kuntilanak and the baby screamed, as they were finally destroyed.
My thoughts: I left it an open ending whether they managed to destroy the Kuntilanak and the baby. Because the method to defeat a Kuntilanak was actually to destroy her spirit form, forcing her back to the banana tree, and finally destroy the tree.
In the end, the group used their connections to expose Azman and what he did to the missing people. But they disclosed what happened to Sara.
Afterthoughts
A Perfect Wife is one of the best horror adventure modules I've ever run. And I've run a lot (being a fan of games like Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, Kult: Divinity Lost, Mothership, and Liminal Horror). I know that an adventure module is that good if I wanted to run it again. A Perfect Wife is that kind of module. I'm totally going to run it again in the future.
I love the NPCs, the locations, the situations that can happen in the game. I love the urban Southeast Asian flavor. I love the writing. I love everything about it. Most importantly, I'm glad that the players had fun and had such a memorable experience playing this adventure.
I want to thank Zedeck Siew for this module and his guidance whenever I asked him about it. I want to thank Zedeck, Amanda Lee, and Scrap World for the amazing illustrations in the adventure. I want to thank I want to thank David Blandy and Copy/Paste Co-op for publishing this module. And most importantly, I want to thank Elegyst, Ocin, Papi, and Ruby for being my players.