Buffy the Vampire Slayer Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook

280 Pages·2005·42.635 MB·English

T
he graveyard is cold and still. Bright moonlight deep-
ens the shadows. The silence is disturbed by a throaty
moan. Breaking through the soft, recently packed
earth, a claw extends, sharp and grasping. A sickly sweet
stench rises with the corpse. Desperate hunger is etched on
it cadaverous face—a hunger for your blood!
Buffy: Alright, I get it. You're evil. Do we have to chat about it all day?
—3.10, Amends
No we don’t. It’s time to slay.
Get ready for action and adventure—Buffy-style.
Now you can join the Slayer's world!
IInnssiiddee tthheessee lluussttrroouuss ccoovveerrss,, yyoouu wwiillll ffiinndd::
• An introduction to roleplaying and the Buffyverse
• A roleplaying guide to all seven season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Detailed character creation, including pre-constructed Heroes and
White Hats, for your quick-play pleasure
• Roleplaying specifics for the entire Original Cast, from Buffy to Dawn,
including their wild and wacky changes
• The Buffy Unisystem, streamlined for
cinematic slayage and sneakage
• A primer on magic mojo, for those who dare
• A guide to the hotspots of Sunnydale
• The monsters of mayhem, all stat-ed out and
ready-to-slay, and the skinny every
season's Big Bad
• Blow-by-blow instructions for
creating Buffy roleplaying
Episodes, Seasons, and Series
• A complete Episode to get
slaying fast and easy
• A guide to Buffyspeak to add
sparkle to your dialogue
Written by CJ Carella
Foreword by Christopher Golden
0
01
6
N0
ED5-10-
0
S.) 9331
00 (U.BN 1-
40.IS
$
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER™ & © 2005.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Coporation.
Visit www.btvsrpg.com All Rights Reserved.
Used under license.
for more information The Unisystem™ Game System © 2005 CJ Carella.
The Unisystem™ is used under exclusive license.
© 2005 Eden Studios. All rights reserved.
T
he graveyard is cold and still. Bright moonlight deep-
ens the shadows. The silence is disturbed by a throaty
moan. Breaking through the soft, recently packed
earth, a claw extends, sharp and grasping. A sickly sweet
stench rises with the corpse. Desperate hunger is etched on
it cadaverous face—a hunger for your blood!
Buffy: Alright, I get it. You're evil. Do we have to chat about it all day?
—3.10, Amends
No we don’t. It’s time to slay.
Get ready for action and adventure—Buffy-style.
Now you can join the Slayer's world!
IInnssiiddee tthheessee lluussttrroouuss ccoovveerrss,, yyoouu wwiillll ffiinndd::
• An introduction to roleplaying and the Buffyverse
• A roleplaying guide to all seven season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Detailed character creation, including pre-constructed Heroes and
White Hats, for your quick-play pleasure
• Roleplaying specifics for the entire Original Cast, from Buffy to Dawn,
including their wild and wacky changes
• The Buffy Unisystem, streamlined for
cinematic slayage and sneakage
• A primer on magic mojo, for those who dare
• A guide to the hotspots of Sunnydale
• The monsters of mayhem, all stat-ed out and
ready-to-slay, and the skinny every
season's Big Bad
• Blow-by-blow instructions for
creating Buffy roleplaying
Episodes, Seasons, and Series
• A complete Episode to get
slaying fast and easy
• A guide to Buffyspeak to add
sparkle to your dialogue
Written by CJ Carella
Foreword by Christopher Golden
0
01
6
N0
ED5-10-
0
S.) 9331
00 (U.BN 1-
40.IS
$
BUFFYTHE VAMPIRE SLAYER™&©2005.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Coporation.
Visit www.btvsrpg.com All Rights Reserved.
Used underlicense.
for more information The Unisystem™ Game System © 2005 CJ Carella.
The Unisystem™ is used underexclusive license.
© 2005 Eden Studios. All rights reserved.

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TM
The Waiting
by Christopher Golden
“This bites.” for her. Plus, unlike most Slayers, Buffy had not accept-
A strong wind blew across Crestwood Cemetery, whis- ed the idea put forth by the Watchers Council that to be
pering the dark secrets of the dead as it passed among an effective Slayer she had to alienate all her friends.
the tombstones and whistled through the cracks in the Screw that.
walls of each crypt. But Buffy Summers wasn’t listening. Nope, what was bothering her more than anything on
She knew each of the thirteen cemeteries in Sunnydale, this warm spring night when a hard breeze was blowing
California as though they were her own back yard—hell, in off the Pacific was that she was stone cold bored.
she spent more time in the boneyards than she did at
Buffy slumped against a granite grave marker and
home—and being among the graves of the town’s dead
thumped her head back against the stone. Bored, bored,
had lost its ability to induce even the tiniest shiver.
bored.
There was a lull in the wind, and somewhere not far
“This really bites,” she muttered to the darkness and
off she heard the creak of a rusty hinge. Though she
the dead.
knew it was merely the resettling of one of the crypt
Sunnydale was right on top of the Hellmouth, a place
doors or the one on the maintenance shed, her imagina-
where the barrier between the human world and the
tion filled in so many other images. A chill ran up the
demon dimensions was worn thin. It was a like a mag-
back of Buffy’s neck.
net, drawing monsters from all over. Nearly every night
‘Kay, she thought. Maybe just one itty-bitty shiver.
she patrolled the town looking for trouble, and most of
Buffy smiled to herself. In a freaky way, it was good the time she found it in some form or another. Somehow
to know she was capable of a good old-fashioned wig- she managed to work in some hang time with Willow and
gins, the fear of creepy nothing. After all, she had dealt Xander, not to mention her Mom.
with so many somethings in the last few years, ever since
But there was no patrolling tonight. Even though she
she had learned what she was.
could think of a dozen things she should have been or
The Slayer. The one girl in all the world chosen by would rather have been doing, tonight, all she could do
powers beyond her reckoning to combat the forces of was wait.
darkness. Chosen. It had its pros and cons, no doubt
So she sat there with her back against the grave-
about that. On the plus side, there was the whole super-
stone—feeling the engraved letters of a dead man’s name
human thing—strength, speed, quick healing, those
on her back—and she waited and she stared at the fresh-
things didn’t suck. On the other hand, being the Slayer
ly turned earth of the grave across from her and she
meant she had a duty to hunt monsters until one of them
wondered when Sasha Kopeki was going to come back
killed her. Given the hazards of the job—being public
to life.
enemy number one as far as the nasty ol’ forces of dark-
An image swam up into her mind of Sasha in her
ness were concerned—the killing thing was pretty much
cheerleading uniform. The girl had graduated high
guaranteed to happen sooner than she would like.
school the previous spring and had been attending UC
Buffy figured one hundred was a nice round number,
Sunnydale, but Buffy only remembered her from the time
but she’d be lucky to make it out of her teens.
she herself had briefly been part of the cheerleading
Even that did not haunt her as much as it might have— squad. Sasha hadn’t been the prettiest girl on the squad
as much as it had when she had first learned that she was and she had certainly not been the best, but when it came
Chosen. Like all Slayers, she had a Watcher to guide her. to smile-wattage and team spirit, the dead girl was sec-
Giles was tops with the demony knowledge, and had ond to none.
given her the combat training she needed, but he was
more than that. This was his fight too. He looked out
6
FFOORREEWWOORRDD
TM
“Was” being the key word there, Buffy thought. “Those aren’t your memories,” Buffy told her, a horri-
Sasha’s pretty much second to everyone these days. The ble revulsion roiling in her gut. “They belong to Sasha.”
girl had been killed by a stray vamp who had wandered “I am Sasha,” the vampire hissed.
into Sunnydale to check out the Hellmouth, and to find
“No you’re not,” Buffy replied calmly. “You’re just the
out if the Slayer was really as tough as they said. Buffy
thing that’s living off her corpse. Like a maggot.”
had already dusted the moron, proving the point.
With a roar of fury, the vampire lunged across the
But Sasha was unfinished business.
open grave, fingernails hooked into claws, features con-
With a sigh, the Slayer rested her head against the torted with demonic ferocity. It leapt at Buffy, who spun
tombstone again. Her eyes began to flutter closed. out of its way. Sasha rushed her from behind and Buffy
Almost the moment they did, she heard the soft sound of took a single step backward—toward the vampire—and
dirt sprinkling to the ground. Of digging. shot an elbow into its face. Sasha’s surgically recon-
Buffy’s eyes snapped open and she glanced over at structed nose exploded in a gush of blood and a splin-
Sasha’s grave. Slender white fingers jutted from the tering of bone.
freshly turned earth, clawing at the dirt around them, Buffy leaped into the air, spun around and shot a high
destroying the dead girl’s French manicure. A wave of kick at the vampire’s face. It staggered backward and
sadness passed through Buffy for the excitable cheer- fell over the gravestone Buffy herself had been leaning
leader with the blinding smile. But the Sasha Buffy know against for the past two hours. The vampire’s legs were
was dead now. splayed, the hem of its burial dress hanging like a curtain
It was her fingers that bored their way up from the over the front of that stone. The Slayer leaped over the
dirt, her hands that burst from the ground, her arms that marker and landed on the vampire’s chest, plunging the
thrust forth and dragged the rest of her body from the stake into the dead girl’s heart.
grave. And Sasha was still dead. Sasha whimpered once, eyes locked on Buffy’s.
The corpse crouched beside the hole it had burrowed “I remember you,” she whispered.
up from its coffin, clad in a simple and elegant black
Then she exploded into a cloud of cinder and ash that
dress. Sasha’s blond hair had been arranged lovingly in
was swept away by the warm Pacific breeze.
her casket but now it was crusted with moist earth.
“No you don’t,” Buffy said to the night, to the dark-
Buffy thought she saw a worm dangling near the dead
ness. “No. You don’t.”
girl’s ear.
Then she turned and strode quickly from the cemetery,
“About time,” Buffy told her. “I thought I was gonna
wanting to put it behind her as quickly as possible. She
go gray waiting for you. And, brrrr at that thought.”
would go to the Bronze, where she hoped to find her
Sasha whipped around to face her, rising up almost to
friends hanging out, maybe dancing, depending on what
her full height but still somehow feral. Yellow eyes
band was playing tonight. With them she would laugh,
glared at Buffy in the darkness. The girl’s face was not
and in laughing, she would begin to forget, and she
at all the way Buffy remembered, but that was no fault of
would fill her life with the things that mattered, the
memory. It had more to do with the metamorphosis her
things that reminded her what she was fighting for.
features had undergone, the way that her forehead and
Buffy would talk, and she would move, and she would
cheeks had become ridged and cruel and inhuman.
dance. She would use the time she had in this world, and
Vampiric.
she would not be bored. Nothing about being Chosen
The undead girl grinned. Instead of the perfect smile bothered her more than those times when boredom set
Buffy recalled, her mouth was twisted in a predatory ric- in, when she had to sit in the graveyard and wait.
tus, flashing deadly fangs.
Nothing was worse than the waiting.
“I remember you,” the vampire said, voice raspy from
disuse. The voice of the grave.
Buffy stood across the disturbed grave from Sasha and
reached inside her zippered sweatshirt for the stake she
carried in the pocket sewn there.
“No you don’t,” the Slayer said.
Confused, the vampire frowned, lips curling back sav-
agely from those fangs. “Yeah. I do.”
7
FFOORREEWWOORRDD
TM
11
IItt’’ss tthhee SSllaayyeerr’’ss WWoorrlldd,,
WWee JJuusstt PPllaayy HHeerree
McNamara:You telling me my business?
Buffy: This is not your business. It's mine. You, the
Initiative, the boys in the Pentagon, you're all in way
over your heads. Messing with primeval forces you
have absolutely no comprehension of.
McNamara:And you do?
Buffy: I'm the Slayer. You're playing on my turf.
—4.21 Primeval
What the—?
So, the cover image caught your eye, or your Buffy
fanaticism compelled you, or maybe some college
freshlings knocked a pile of books from the top shelf
onto your head—whatever the reason, you decided to
flip through, and now read (of all things!) the Buffy
the Vampire Slayer roleplaying game (BtVS RPG)
corebook. Isn’t that special. You have just embarked
on your own personal roleplaying trip.
The roleplaying veterans among you—those gaming grognards—know most of this intro stuff already. And those
familiar with UUnniissyysstteemm games will find very little new here. You folks can skip ahead to the other juicy bits of this
chapter, or even straight to character creation in CChhaapptteerr TTwwoo:: SSoommee AAsssseemmbbllyy RReeqquuiirreedd.. Nothing for you to see
here. Move along, move along.
Now that those types are outta here, we can fill your heads with all sorts of nonsense about roleplaying, with no fear
of contradiction. First off, it’s an easy way of making major bundles of cash. Just send a ten-dollar bill to us at . . .
Buffy: Spike, what are you doing here?
Spike (between blows): Same reason as you and your cub scout here, I wager. Wanted a spot of violence
before bedtime.
—5.4 Out of My Mind
8
CCHHAAPPTTEERR 11