Session Walkthrough

In This Chapter

This chapter walks through a complete session of The Hollow from the first scene to the final close, demonstrating how investigation, faction resources, Merciful Dissonance, Wound Site escalation, and confrontation work together at the table. The combat confrontation in this walkthrough is examined in full mechanical detail in Chapter Thirteen.

The four characters used throughout:

Sister Marisela Duarte: Order of Mercy exorcist. Theology 3, Deliverance 2, Discernment 2, Composure 3, Sacraments 2 [HG]. Magical Tier 1 Access (1 permanent Wound Point), carrying the Opening Rite talent (Exorcism Tree, Tier 1), which is what allows her to lead a formal exorcism rather than assist one. Faction passive: Rite of Office (Chapter Four). Composure Initiative: 6.

Darian Cole: Black Road hunter. Monster Lore 2, Fieldcraft 2, Ranged 2, Composure 2. Faction passive: Kill It Right (Chapter Four). Composure Initiative: 5.

Kwame Asante: Watchfires deliverance worker. Willpower 4, Theology 2, Righteous Fire 2, Composure 2. Passion: Protecting the innocent (Chapter Four). Composure Initiative: 6.

Dr. Yael Stern: Lyncean Office investigator. Intellect 4, Inquiry 3, Forensics 2, Perception 2. Faction passive: Impossible Evidence (Chapter Four). Composure Initiative: 4.

The Hook

The session opens with Dr. Stern receiving a call from her Lyncean Office handler. Three patients at St. Adela's Hospice and Palliative Care have died in the past six weeks, all faster than their prognoses suggested, all on the same night of the week, all on the same floor. The medical examiner's report attributes each death to natural causes consistent with terminal illness. The handler flags it because the pattern is too clean and because a nurse who quit abruptly left a handwritten note at a nearby parish that ended up in Order of Mercy hands: Something is wrong in the basement. I am sorry I did not say so sooner.

GM note: This hook uses two faction channels simultaneously: Lyncean Office for the statistical anomaly, Order of Mercy for the nurse's note. Sister Marisela received the note through her diocesan contact; Dr. Stern received the pattern flag through the Lyncean Office. They are already working the same case from two directions when the session opens.

The hook establishes: a location (St. Adela's Hospice), a pattern (three deaths, same night, same floor), a mundane explanation (natural causes, the patients were dying anyway), and a thread (a nurse who saw something and is gone).

Scene One: Arrival and Passive Examination

The characters arrive at St. Adela's in the early afternoon, presenting as a diocesan review team (Sister Marisela's Order credentials open the door; The Lyncean Office provides cover documentation for the others). The administration is cooperative in the way that institutions are cooperative when they want you to find nothing and leave quickly.

GM procedure: The GM runs the administration as sincere but guarded. They believe the deaths were natural. They have no reason to think otherwise. Their wariness is institutional, any external review is an audit risk.

Darian walks the building while the others meet with administration, on passive examination (Chapter Ten): no check required yet. He notes the east corridor on the third floor is noticeably colder than the rest of the building; the maintenance staff say the HVAC has been irregular since a subcontractor worked on the basement last year.

GM note: The cold is a Wound Site tell. Darian has Awakened Blood; he registers it as spiritual. No check needed, passive examination, obvious-to-Awakened-Blood effect of a Waking Shard.

Sister Marisela makes a Discernment check (Willpower + Discernment, pool from Core Rules) in the hospital chapel on the main floor. She finds nothing unusual there, the chapel is clean. She asks to see the basement.

Administration says the basement is storage and maintenance. Not a patient area. Not relevant to the review. They will need to schedule that separately with facilities management.

The characters have their first lead and their first obstacle.

Scene Two: The Investigation Branches

The characters split. Dr. Stern and Sister Marisela pursue the documentary and testimony track; Darian and Kwame pursue the physical and spiritual track.

The Documentary Track

Dr. Stern requests access to the medical records of the three deceased patients. Administration grants access to the summary records only. She makes a Research check (Core Rules pool) at Average , the full records require a stronger ask but the summaries are accessible.

Success: The deaths occurred between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., all on Thursdays. All three patients had significant pain management medication adjustments in the forty-eight hours before death, adjustments that were within clinical norms but that, together, form a pattern of mild over-sedation across a specific window.

Dr. Stern's Impossible Evidence passive activates (Chapter Four): After the successful Research check, she may ask: what does the mundane explanation fail to explain? The GM answers: the mundane explanation, accelerated decline in terminal patients, does not explain why three patients on the same floor all experienced nearly identical final-week medication adjustment patterns administered by the same night nurse, or why all three died in the same four-hour Thursday window across six weeks.

The mundane explanation remains coherent on its own, but Dr. Stern's specific questioning gives it a seam.

Sister Marisela interviews a current patient on the third floor: an elderly man named Walter Brandt who has been there for four months. She approaches as a pastoral visitor. He is sharp, lonely, and glad for company.

She makes an Inquiry check (Savvy + Inquiry, Core Rules pool) at Average .

Success with Boon: Walter has noticed things. He does not know what to make of them. He describes: the night nurse. Maria Chen, used to check on him with a kind of warmth he does not see anymore. Something changed about two months ago. She is still professional, still does her job, but she feels "far away, like someone watching herself from across the room." He also says that he sometimes hears people in the stairwell late at night on Thursdays. He thought it was maintenance.

The Boon spend (Chapter Ten): The clue points directly to the next clue: Walter mentions that one of the nurses who left recently (not Maria) lives nearby and used to be friendly with him. He has her number.

The Physical and Spiritual Track

Kwame sits with a patient in the family waiting area on the third floor. He is not investigating. He is listening. Within fifteen minutes he is certain the ambient emotional state of this floor is wrong in a way ordinary grief does not produce, closer to how a room feels when a Leech has been working a grief support group (Chapter Eleven).

He makes a Discernment check (Willpower + Discernment, Core Rules pool) at Hard .

Success: He detects two distinct spiritual presences: a diffuse predatory something (the Leech) centered on the east corridor and, underneath it, more concentrated and more recent, a demonic signature localized around the nursing station.

GM note: This gives the characters the spiritual map of the building without needing basement access.

Darian calls the number Walter gave them. The nurse who left: Priya Mehta, is hesitant but answers. She left because of Maria, and because of the basement. She heard sounds from down there on Thursdays when she covered a late shift. She went down once and saw the door to the old storage chapel unlocked. She did not go inside. She left her notice the next morning.

Inquiry check, Average (she wants to talk: she has been carrying this).

Success: She names two people she saw going into the basement on a Thursday night: a man she does not know and Maria Chen.

The mundane explanation is under pressure. The characters have a target: Maria Chen, the basement.

Scene Three: The Crack

The characters regroup and lay out what they have. The GM names the state of the mundane explanation.

"You have: three deaths in the same window, same nurse on duty, medication adjustments that are within norms but identical across cases. A former nurse who heard sounds and saw the basement chapel being accessed. Kwame's read on the floor, two supernatural presences, one predatory and diffuse, one demonic and localized to the nursing station. The mundane explanation, accelerated natural decline, cannot account for the demonic signature or the predatory presence Kwame detected. The official record is wrong. This is your case."

This is the MD crack (Chapter Ten, Chapter Twelve). The false explanation has held as long as it can.

The characters decide to access the basement before Thursday: two days away. If Thursday is the ritual night, the next event will happen in two days. They need to move.

Darian makes a Monster Lore check (Intellect + Monster Lore, Core Rules pool) at Hard to identify the predatory presence from Kwame's description.

Success: He identifies it as a Leech (Chapter Eleven). Weaknesses surfaced from Research (Hard , which he completes through reference materials he carries): genuine communal joy disrupts feeding; direct expression of founded hope by a character with Theology 2+ imposes a Bane die on its feeding actions; iron in sustained contact creates discomfort and reduces Concealment.

These are now confirmed weaknesses, so Darian's Kill It Right (Chapter Four) activates on the Leech if he engages it with them in play, the standard weakness-exploitation benefit (Chapter Eleven).

Sister Marisela identifies the demonic presence: Discernment check, Hard . Success: Gripping Demon, Tier 1, partial possession of Maria Chen. She has been the host for approximately two months, consistent with when Walter noticed the change. The cult is maintaining the possession and using Maria to access the patients.

Sister Marisela's Research (Theology) at Average surfaces the Gripping Demon's weaknesses: specific binding prayers (her Deliverance 2 makes these effective), salt perimeter for the exorcism space, ordained authority imposing a Bane die on the demon's Stage 4 interference.

The characters now know what they are facing, how to address it, and when the next escalation event is scheduled. They have two days.

Scene Four: Preparation and Approach

The characters use the two days to prepare; the exorcism cannot be rushed (Chapter Eight).

Sister Marisela sources additional holy water and consecrated sealing tape from the diocesan supply. She reviews the Gripping Demon's documented weaknesses and selects her specific binding prayers.

Darian acquires iron rounds for his Light Pistol (Chapter Seven: Iron-Core ammunition, available through Black Road contacts).

Kwame identifies his Passion activation condition: protecting Maria Chen from the cult's use of her directly engages his Passion (protecting the innocent), letting him suffer Strain after the roll to add successes (Chapter Four; see Chapter Thirteen for the mechanic in play).

Dr. Stern runs a discreet Inquiry check at Hard on the two people Priya identified going to the basement. Success: One is a patient advocate employed at the facility (access to the basement). The other is a man with known ties to an occult supplier the Lyncean Office has flagged previously, a connection that puts this as an Established Organization cell, not a Street Cell (Chapter Eleven).

The threat level is higher than initially read. They proceed anyway, but with updated intelligence.

They access the basement Thursday night at 1 a.m., ninety minutes before the window the deaths have historically occurred in. The combat confrontation that follows is covered in full in Chapter Thirteen.

Scene Five: Aftermath

The combat is resolved. The cult cell is disrupted: the patient advocate and one other member are incapacitated; the cult lieutenant escaped during the confrontation. The possessed nurse (Maria Chen) is physically unharmed. The ritual materials in the basement chapel are secured by Darian.

The Leech did not enter the combat: diffuse rather than localized, it doesn't engage in physical confrontation. Addressing it will take a separate engagement, Kwame projecting founded hope (Theology 2+) into the affected space to make it hostile to the Leech's feeding, followed by banishment.

Sister Marisela begins Stage 2 of the exorcism (Chapter Eight): preparation. She establishes the salt perimeter in the basement chapel. Kwame maintains the perimeter and provides Stage 4 assistance. The exorcism proceeds.

The exorcism: Stage 3 Binding: opposed check, Willpower + Deliverance vs. the Gripping Demon's Willpower 2. Sister Marisela invokes the syllable of the demon's name that Maria surrendered during the confrontation (name leverage, Chapter Eight): the demon's opposing pool takes 1 Bane die . Sister Marisela succeeds. The demon is bound. Stage 4 Confrontation, three successes required at Average . The demon attempts interference: it accuses Kwame of a specific past failure, it offers Sister Marisela something she has wanted (the GM had prepared these; the players had provided the material across the campaign). While the partial name is invoked, each interference action costs the demon 1 Strain, plus 1 more; by the second check it is rationing itself. The team holds. Three successes at the extended check.

Stage 5 Expulsion: Willpower + Deliverance, Easy (Tier 1 entity). Success. Maria Chen collapses. Darian catches her. The basement is quiet.

Post-case status:

• Maria Chen: exorcised, in shock, will require pastoral care and medical monitoring. No lasting mechanical effects expected (short possession duration, approximately two months).
• The Wound Site: Cold Shard, previously Waking Shard. The ritual activity that was feeding it has stopped. It will de-escalate further with time and a proper consecration of the space.
• The Leech: still present, weaker without the cult's feeding contribution. Addressed in the follow-up scene.
• The cult lieutenant: escaped. His identity is now known. He is a thread into whatever Established Organization is backing this cell.

Unresolved threads:

• The organization above the cell. This was not a Street Cell: there is infrastructure behind it.
• Why St. Adela's? Was it the Wound Site they were building, or were they using the hospice because the Leech made it easy, or is there something specific about this location?
• The backing devil, if any: Established Organizations have infernal backing (Chapter Eleven). Someone made deals to set this up.

The session closes on a partial success: the immediate threat is addressed, the larger threat identified but still at large.