This adventure is heavily influence by the movie The Grudge.

The Story So Far…

Sometimes things happen that are so vile and cruel that the evil never washes away. The best one can do his leave this pain and hate alone as it corrupts all that it touches.

In the district of Taeltown there is a large, exquisite house tucking in a small corner. The house sits empty most of the time despite the quality of the construction and size of the property. The neighborhood says the place is pure malice. The next door neighbors (the ones that will talk) will even say they have seen a waif of a woman with extremely long black hair guide pass the windows. A baby can be heard crying on the wind from the house. Everyone who has ever lived in the house has died, horribly. In fact, anyone who has ever spent significant time on the property as also died in seemingly bizarre accidents. Sure priests and monks have been brought in to sanctify the property but that has never worked.

You see after the Great Quake of 1868, out of the ashes of San Fransisco was Shan Fan constructed by the Chinese. It was during this time that many fortunes changed most for the worst, but a few for the better. One such person whose fortune was a builder and engineer by the name Tang Tu Da . It was his vision and work that help Shan Fan flourish. He did very well by the Shan Fan Triad and became quite wealthy. With his wealth he built his family one of the nicest homes in what would become Taeltown. His wealth also allowed him to marry a monk’s daughter named Chu Hua (chrysanthemum). She was one the prettiest girls alive after the quake. They quickly had a baby boy. Unfortunately, Tu Da was an angry, violent man who would take his frustrations out upon his family with physical punishment. He would regularly torture his wife. One night he was too rough with son who wouldn’t stop crying. He shook the baby to death. Chu Hua attacked Tu Da and scarred his face in the attack. Enraged, he choked his wife with her own long black hair. Not long afterward Chu Hua and her son haunted the home. Tu Da sold the valuable property with the intention of moving out of the city with his remaining fortune. He never made it. He was found drown in the tub of private suite. investigators found his mouth was full of long black hair.

The next owners was a Triad Big Brother and his new family. The wife hung herself with her own hair in the upper floor bedroom, the boys seemed to have killed each other with kitchen knives, and the husband was seemingly killed by a tong wanting his power (though no person claimed responsibility). Only the grandmother lived and went mad with grief.

Strangely, the caretakers the Triad hired as well as the deputies to worked the investigation of the wife and sons death died in bizarre and horrid fashions themselves. One of the caretakers threw herself off a four story balcony for no apparent reason, another caretaker just went missing, one of the deputies was crushed between a dock and a ship, another was found drawn and quartered in his bed.

When the grandmother was removed to the Petersen Sanitarium, the property was sold to a banker back east. So far he has never even set foot in the city let alone the house, but he when he saw the description and the asking price he couldn’t pass it up. However, he has been unsuccessful in renting out the property to anyone. He has even succumbed to allowing Buddhist monks to sanctify the property with their “magics.” Even then the house was only quieted for a few weeks before the haunting started back up.

To date their only two living people to have seen the inside of this house. One the apprentice Wu Jen monk Fu Yun and the grandmother Gracie Zabriskie.

The Setup

The Banker wants to hire investigators to determine how to get someone to either rent the house or barring that someone dumb enough to buy the property off the banker. The banker doesn’t care which as he ready to cut his loses at this point. Once the Posse begins nosing around the property and the house they are all cursed. Even if they back out now, they still have to find away to rid themselves of the Ghost of the Golden Flower or have their very souls devoured by her.

The Supporting Characters

The Ghost of Tang Chu Hau
Wild Card
Agility: d8 Smarts: d6 Spirit: d8 Strength: d6 Vigor: d8
Pace: 6 Parry: 6 Toughness: 6 (10 vs. Arcane)
Hindrances:
Vengeful: hates the living (Major)
Edges:
Arcane Resistance
Skills:
Fighting d8, Intimidation d8, Notice d6, Stealth d10
Special Abilities
Deadly Hair: Her hair can attack up to 4 targets within 1" of her. Each is a Grappling attempt that cause 1d6 damage on round after the grappled an additional +1d6 each round thereafter up to 5d6. The hair has a toughness 11 expect vs. magical attacks/weapons which cuts it upon a successful attack. The hair does not regenerate if the attack has her body’s remaining hair upon.
Ethereal: She is immaterial and can only be harmed by magical attacks/weapons.
Fear -2: She can contort her body and make frighting sounds that cause all that witness her make a Guts check at -2. As an action, attempt to further frighten all that view her as well.
Incorporeal: As the dead with no body, she cannot be killed. Using magical attacks can cause he to dissipate, but 24 hours later she can return.
Weakness (Chrysanthemums): She cannot manifest or be in the presence of fresh chrysanthemum. The scent automatically drives her spirit away and causes her to remain ethereal. If her grave is saturated with the scent for seven days she is destroyed.
Weakness (Own Hair): If some manages to collect the remaining strains of her hair off her body they can be used to supplement magical attacks that can destroy her spirit. The hair can be wrapped around relics and used against her or even huckster’s playing cards. Both of which destroy the strains of hair. Only voodooists can use the hair without destroying it with their powers. Note: Her Arcane Resistance does not work against these attacks.

Tang Mao
Wild Card Ghost
Agility: d8 Smarts: d6 Spirit: d8 Strength: d4 Vigor: d4
Pace: 6 Parry: 5 Toughness: 4
Hindrances:
Yellow (Minor)
Edges:
Beast Bond, Beast Master
Skills:
Fighting d6, Intimidation d8, Notice d6, Stealth d10
Special Abilities
Cat Howl: He can howl like a cat causing Guts check at -2 to all that her him.
Ethereal: He is normally immaterial and can only be harmed by magical attacks/weapons.
Familiar (Siamese Cat): He can perfectly control the ghost of his pet cat. Use stats for a cat, small from SWD page 135. The cat also cannot be killed (see Incorporeal).
Incorporeal: As the dead with no body, he cannot be killed. Using magical attacks can cause he to dissipate, but 24 hours later he can return.
Watery Death: He can only manifest when near water or within the house. If able, he prefers to act from sources of dirty water which give him a +2 to all rolls.
Weakness (Bound Spirit): He is destroyed when his mother’s spirit is destroyed.

Tang Tu Du
Wild Card Ghost
Agility: d8 Smarts: d4 Spirit: d8 Strength: d8 Vigor: d8
Pace: 6 Parry: 6 Toughness: 6
Hindrances:
Bloodthristy (Major)
Edges:
Berserk, Martial Arts
Skills:
Fighting d8, Intimidation d8, Notice d6,
Special Abilities
Ethereal: He is normally immaterial and can only be harmed by magical attacks/weapons.
Fear -2: She can contort her body and make frighting sounds that cause all that witness her make a Guts check at -2. As an action, attempt to further frighten all that view her as well.
Incorporeal: As the dead with no body, he cannot be killed. Using magical attacks can cause he to dissipate, but 24 hours later he can return. If this happens the character than defeated him briefly sees images from the eyes of Chu Hua of the horrible things he has done to her and her son.
Watery Death: He can only manifest when near water or within the house. If able, he prefers to act from sources of dirty water which give him a +2 to all rolls.
Weakness (Bound Spirit): He is little more than a phantom of himself. He cannot manifest at the same time as Chu Hua as he little more than a nightmare of her own spirit.

Wu Jen Fu Yun
Buddhist Monk/Sorcerer
Use stats for Indian Shaman from Marshal’s Handbook with Martial Arts Edge and No Hindrance
He has attempted to exercise the spirits of the house with disastrous failure. Years ago only months after the second family moved in he was hired to cleanse it. He and and his mentor (he was only an apprentice at the time) tried every manner of exorcism they knew to remove the hateful spirits. His mentor finally decided to go mano-a-mano with Chu Hua being destroyed in the process. His master’s only success was tricking the spirit into believing she had also destroyed Fu Yun as well.

What Fu Yun Knows:

• He knows the primary spirit is that of Tang Chu Hua Tang and he is also aware of her son Tang Mao’s spirit. She eats the souls of the people she kills growing in strength when she does.
• Anyone who spends any length of time on the property (about a minute) or enters the house is marked by Chu Hua. She is then able to follow the marked person anywhere in the world to destroy them.
• The house serves as much as a prison as it does an anchor. If the place was to burn down, Chu Hua’s corrupting hate and wrath would then be able to expand.
• The usual weaknesses of this ghost don’t work or don’t work well. Sutra scrolls have little or no effect, as does salt, and most holy powers. All things that could normally rid the spirit of the earthly plane only stave it off.
• He tried to find the body of Chu Hua or her son, but failed. He never thought contacted her family. He believes that her own hair can be used as a weapon against her.

Locations

The House
The house it self is quite nice and is clearly the biggest and nicest house on its street. It is a three story building (four if you count the small shrine on top) built in a Chinese pagoda stye with stark white walls and a black painted timber frame. Like a layer cake, the first floor is the largest with each floor becoming smaller. On the first floor the kitchen, family living space, and common areas be found including a small guess room. up the steep wooden stairs to the second floor are two more bedrooms and bath at the end of the hall way with another set of shear stairs to the top floor which is the master bedroom. From the Master bedroom, one has a remarkable view of the Shan Fan Bay. Hidden with the closet of the master bedroom is a trap door in the ceiling that leads to a small shrine. Behind the house is a garden that has long since died and allowed weeds to take control. Around the fenced boundary of the property are chrysanthemums. Any Chinese or character with a possible understanding of Fung Shui is allowed to make a Smarts roll to notice that the Fung Shui of this house seems to have been ignored.

Chu Hua and Mao’s Graves
The people of Shan Fan bury the dead is densely pack small lot graveyard that are sprinkled throughout the city. All told the city probably has close to 60 grave yard lots. And that’s just within city limits. While the number of dead in eash grave yard vary wildly (some are near empty, while others are completely full), they on average, house some 100 persons. Each cemetery are placed according to Fung Shui principles. Chu Hua and Mao were buried in such a graveyard in Stinktown. Unfortunately, exhuming the bodies reveal the bodies have been poorly preserved. Only a few hair strands can be found after careful inspection (5 Notice successes in 3 attempts). There is not enough left to be used as a weapon without arcane help. Hucksters can wrap their hair around their cards to affect the ghost normally with their hex consuming the hair (their is enough hair for 4 hexes) and Voodooists can add the hair to their gris gris to allow their powers to work against the ghost. Similarly, Asian shamans can make use of the hair to affect the ghost of Chu Hua. Lastly, Chu Hua can be dismissed if someone can permeate the air of the graveyard with chrysanthemums for seven days. Unfortunately, this will require most of Stinktown being shut down to accomplish it and several hundreds of dollars in flowers.

The Curse of the Ghost of the Golden Flower

Once anyone has spent any apprecialble amount of time on the property (about a minute or so) or has stepped foot inside the house, they become cursed. The only exception is if they do so during the time that Chu Hua has be dissipated and cannot reform, they are cloaked in the scent of chrysanthemums, use the Conceal Arcana Power, already dead, etc. While under curse, Chu Hua begins to torment the cursed for 3d4—Acing days. After which, she seeks to kill them. The first 3 days nothing happens, the remaining days strange sounds and shadows occur around the character growing into more discerning things: A Siamese cat follows them wherever they go, they feel a small calmly hand brush their hair while walking in the rain, they see a drown cat in buckets/basin of water or a young boy in watering troughs/tubs, something moving under the covers of their bed only to reveal nothing. Towards the last days or hours the ghost fully manifests itself to get in the last few scares and demonstrate how inescapable death is for the victim.

Things the Posse can Try

• Talk to the neighbors. They will need to be able to speak Chinese (any dialect) and make a Persuasion roll at a -6 to the neighbors to talk. On a failure, the neighbor tell the Posse that the property will curse any who step upon it. With a success, the Posse learns that the house was built by the architect Tang who lived there with his pretty wide and son. Tang killed both of them and the house has been cursed since then. Anybody that steps foot on the property is doomed to die. With a Raise, the Posse learn all above and the wife’s name was Chu Hua which means chrysanthemum. The posse can attempt this three times before they run out of neighbors to talk to.

• The Posse might want to check out the hall of records to learn the history of the house. With an extended Investigation (each roll takes a day, longer if none of them read Chinese), (1 Success) they discover the house was designed and built by Tang Tu Du after the Great Quake leveled San Fransisco who was also the house’s first resident. Additional Investigation roll(s) into Tang Tu Du reveal (1 success) he was an architect and engineer that really helped Shan Fan become what it is today, (2 successes) he was married only a few years after the reconstruction (1870) of the city and (3 successes) less than year after the house was completed to a woman named Chu Hua, they had a son a year later (1871). (4 successes) In 1878 he went on a murderous rampage and killed his family by drowning the boy (Mao) and his pet cat and strangling his wife with her own hair. New Investigation roll(s) with more research reveals (1 success) the other occupants also dying in horrific ways both on and off the property (2 sucesses) including police inspectors investigating the deaths. (3 successes) The only survivor is a westerner. (4 successes) An old woman whose son and his wife and child dead only weeks after moving in. (5 successes) The paper says she was sent to Petersen Sanitarium having no family left.

• Talking with the police causes Long-Haired Tony to get involved. He tells the posse that there is a lot of bad blood on the property and some things are best left alone. If the posse attempts to use Persuasion they need make the roll at -6. Even then, Tony just about slips up saying, “allot of people have died because of that…” He then catches himself before he gives up the information and congratulates the sliver tongued devil in his ability, but won’t reveal what he thinks. Later, one of his deputies will however, talk to the Posse. He lost his partner to some awfully strange thing, a waif of a woman with long black hair that concealed his face choked life out of his partner while they were walking the beat in The Skids. The woman didn’t to notice him hiding, but he was too scared to stop her. While checking on his partner there was this strange pale boy with a cat that yowled at him frightening him before running off. Long-Haired Tony covered it up. The deputy, Cheng Shi, will get the Posse whatever files he thinks will help (giving them Investigation rolls with +2 for any information that could be found in the hall of records). Additionally, the records note the resting place for the entire family.

• Speak with the clergy of Shan Fan. With a Streetwise made at -2 (no penalty if Chinese) the Posse locate a Buddhist temple that knows something about the house. The monks there say the house was always going to have problems as the architect didn’t care about the Fung Shui of the house allowing dark emotions to become trapped with it like a spiritual net. If asked directly, the monks will say that destroying the house will free the evil allowing it to spread. They also reveal that a several monks attempted to exercise the spirit from the house, but they failed. In one case a couple of them attempted to fight the spirit head on killing one of them. The monks don’t know why the other was spared and where he is. Finding Wu Jen Fu Yun will require a Streetwise roll -4 in addition to speaking Chinese (any dialect). They warn the Posse about the curse and the fact their very souls are endangered by it.

• Speak with the Shan Fan Triad. While this might seem like a long shot, the Triad has been keeping pretty good tabs on this house ever since its construction. Even Big Ears Tam knows about it as the sight as the Yin is clearly out of balance with the Yang of its Fung Shui. He even told Tang Tu Du it would be a poor place to live as bad things were destined to happen there. He believes it is better to just leave the place alone. If the Posse can convince the Shan Fan Triad to give them information (via bribes, offering favors, using up old favors, etc.) the Triad will tell them pretty much the whole story depending how much it cost the Posse to get that information. The Triad is your ‘get out jail free card’ when it comes to the Posses investigation coming to a dead end. They will actually offer they have the information the Posse is looking for the right price. It can’t be so bad to be indebted to the mob could it?

• If the Posse wants to find the body of Chu Hua they will need to track down her family or her husband’s family. As the daughter of poor family of a shamed priestess (by giving her body to dark Wu Jen) it won’t be easy. The Tang family might provide the best lead they know their son was involved with the Shan Fan Triad. By owe the Triad a favor they can get this the location of her and her son’s grave in 1d4 days.