| Bandage Man |
| none |
| Type |
 |
| Threat Level |
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| Active Status |
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| Other Names |
| Michelin Man, Toilet Paper Killer |
Description: Looks like a guy covered in bloody bandages, some bits stick up and
Background:
Location and Population:
Hunting or Procurement Methods:
Okay, we're dividing this section up too. Lots of speculation and lessons learned, wouldn't make sense in a big paragraph. - DCC
No reason to think that guns don't work, when we find it. Searching the forest hasn't brought him out, and neither has foot patrols. It's pretty frustrating - he mighta been skipping down the beach while we were yomping through the forest or driving down the park road. Us Driftwoods just don't have the numbers to cover the whole area, and I'm not gonna split us up. One guy alone in the trees is a bad idea, even with hunting the dullest Blues.
And boy, is this one dull Blue. 400$ reward has aged pretty nicely since 1961, though. If we can kill it.
Yeah, there's no decent hunting techniques or search patterns so far. Three Warders isn't enough to hope for anything but blind luck one of these nights. Christ, the head ranger - Park ranger, that is - wanted us to watch the gatehouse for some local vandals last night, one of his guys called in sick. We're Warders, here to shoot a nasty bastard and move along, not rent-a-cops yelling at dumbass teens. Embarrassing.
Speaking of dumbass teens, Glen wants to invite his niece up here after school ends. Lina isn't comfortable with bringing a kid to a hunt, not at all, but Glen assures me she won't be dead weight. Hell, no dead weight in a car that ain't moving.
Christ. At least we can use the fourth Driftwood Outfit patch that's been sitting in my glove compartment since Dave chickened out for that cushy Singapore job last fall.
DCC boys say I shouldn't bloat the methods section like that, so we're professional from here on out.
F██K F█CK & F██K the raggedy-█ss Michelin Man to high █████N, leads us along for a month in the ████-filled, bug-infested park and has the stones to not f███ing die when it eats a quarter pound of lead
Okay, maybe we're not that accurate, but we hit it. No doubt, blood splattered in the bandages, thing scrambled for the treeline screaming. Not quite a quarter pound of lead, nowhere close, really, but we got him with a good half dozen rounds. Kid plugged him right in the skull before he made it to the trees, he went down and crawled the rest of the way. We went after him, but his silhouette got right back up and sprinted away. Fuck. I wouldn't let us pursue all willy nilly and maybe get separated, so that was that. Great shot from the kid, froze when the Michelin Man appeared, but pulled herself together in time; as good of a trial by fire as you can hope for in the Society. Reminds me of my younger days under Ranger Godward, god rest his soul.
Suppose the DCC boys want context. The whole Driftwood outfit was in Glen's old Ford, going up and down the beach road - we'd been doing the foot patrols less and less. Hell of a lot easier, and less frustrating to hit the sack at sunrise with windblasted hair instead of bug bites and muddy socks. Anyway, Glen and kid in the cab, me and Lina lying low in the bed. Line of thinking was, this thing has only ever attacked vehicles; maybe it made a hiker or two disappear over the years, but nobody knows.
Tonight, sure enough, Michelin Man outta hell comes running up behind us - we're moving slow, bout 15 mph. Glen stops the truck, everybody starts shooting, aberrant gets away. We'll keep at it. We saw him.
Woke up a little before sunset to get our gameplan together. More guns - shotgun first, with me. Everybody else aims for the head, kid was the only one to make it flinch. Automatic weapons would be ideal, but we don't have those. So - shotgun, headshots, get him down and pulverize him. Nobody's scared of it anymore, not after last night.
That brings up another point. He came out once, but we agree he mighta gotten real spooked by getting shot a half dozen times. Might not come out for a while, and if he's a little smart, he won't be approaching any trucks for a long while. We'll
Encounter Records:
Additional Notes:
| Spinefruit |
 |
| none |
| Type |
|
| Threat Level |
|
| Active Status |
|
| Other Names |
| Flower Grapes, Flower Power, McCormans |
| Fog People |
 |
| none |
| Type |
|
| Threat Level |
|
| Active Status |
|
| Other Names |
| Dancers, Coast Ghosts |
| Engine Arachnid |
 |
| none |
| Type |
|
| Threat Level |
|
| Active Status |
|
| Other Names |
| Bergmann's Devil, Mine Spider |
| Features unique threat markings used by the Twin Horns outfits. |
| Acrylic Trail Cameras |
| Warders of the Acadian Militia, seen through an active frame. |
| Type | Threat Level |
|
|
| Active Status | Other Names |
|
Remote Viewers, Gold Screens, Peepers, Halvs, Paintin' Toms, Bob Ross CCTV |
Description: Acrylic Trail Cameras are the most common colloquialism in the Society for a series of antique picture frames with a useful, highly aberrational remote viewing ability. Simpler English, they're used to monitor an area with no trace of video equipment or anything like that. If an aberrant is too smart for standard trail cameras, these things have no physical presence to warn an aberration. Useful for everything from tracking a target for an ambush down the valley, to having an IED ready to manually trigger.
Physically, these are lovely antique picture frames. Made of metal, enamel decorations, they come in different styles but all have the initials "E.H." on the back side of the lower edge.
These frames are totally useless without a very specific media. You must paint a scene with nearly absolute accuracy to an actual real life perspective, and slot it into the frame while the painting and its real perspective are still the same. Do it right and the painting will be "coupled" with the real perspective, and will update continuously, showing the perspective as if there was a CCTV camera there. Trees will blow in the wind, people or creatures passing into the view will be rendered in the same style and detail of the original painting, potentially with colors that weren't in the original painting.
I want to make it clear that these frames are only as useful as the quality of the original painting. The big limiting factor for the utility of this artifact is the relationship between image quality and actually coupling the damn things. Finely detailed paintings are hard to get sufficiently accurate, especially in a forest. Easier to couple with a vague painting, which is okay if you're only trying to track an aberrant's location, but not okay if the whole point is to find out what it looks like. A fuzzy watercolor splotch isn't useful for recon, or figuring out which head you should aim for.
You need a skilled, fast painter to make these things useful in the field. If you can, might be a good idea for an outfit's artist to not also be a trigger-puller. I should know; I was an art student when a Warder outfit in the area got their warrior-painter banged up by an aberration. Brother knew an uncle knew a friend, and I've been painting for those guys ever since. Saved me from unemployment.
This is getting long, so I'll save some specific tips and uses of these frames down in the notes below. Also, photographs don't work. You're not clever for being the thousandth guy to suggest trying that. If a guy in your outfit is sitting in the middle of the forest with an easel and a canvas, leave him alone and don't step on the leaves in front of him.
Background: Far as I've heard, all of these frames are the work of a single master craftsman. Mr. E Halvorsen, Norwegian fellow who lived in the mid 1800s. For a bit more detail, I'm going to hand this over to the Data Collection Center crew of New Haven, CT.
Mr. Halvorsen hailed from New Haven, so this is a welcome break from constant sea business. Harpoons and garage depth charges gets old after a while, and we're rather proud of these frames. Proud of the craftsman, too, but we don't know much on him. Immigrant from Norway, just about when detailed enamel work with frames was really maturing in Europe. A buddy of mine in the Cambridge circles over in England found his name in the 1847 rolls of a London framer's guild, the Honorable Printsellers Association.
Trail gets cold there, only picks up again here in New Haven. From what the DCC boys can gather in local archives, he was fairly quiet about his work, advertised to the wealthy. Known for specialized decorations, dunno if that was a euphemism for the aberrational abilities of his frames. Worked here all his life, died in 1887.
Next mention of this special frames is a Smithsonian expedition to the Arctic Circle in 1903. Archivists had scrubbed specifics on whatever aberration they'd been hunting, but overlooked the equipment list; massive amounts of nitroglycerin, a Gatling gun, a Zalinski gun-equipped steam launch and a "viewing frame" with a "special artist" were a giveaway. Since then, these frames have been used by exotic hunters; we can track a few frames fall into the hands of Warders over the years, and we assume most have eventually circulated into the Society by now.
Now, how he made these things, whether the abilities were a deliberate work, if there are frames back in Europe from other craftsman - nobody knows. We're not a bunch of a white coats with a lab, and poking at a frame or worse to see what makes it tick also just might break it. Situational as they are, we're not taking any chances. If you've got any more questions, contact us through your local DCC.
- The DCC New Haven team.
Side note, it's a tradition for Society painters to make a pilgrimage to Halverson's gravesite. I've done it.
Location and Population:We have no idea on how many of frames that are out there. No evidence on how long it took this one guy to make one nor how long he was actually active his craft.
Personally, I know of a dozen or so frames circulating around the Society. Seen three with my own eyes. Ownership of these things isn't codified or regulated; a few outfits, big and small, have one in their arsenals. Others are passed around regions to where they're needed, obviously New England has a few. I'm pretty sure a few fancy Warders have a frame passed down in their family's tradition, but a frame isn't something you go bragging about. Great Circle owns at least one, available for emergencies.
Government probably has one, or a hundred.
Hunting or Procurement Methods: These are pretty nice pieces of art in themselves, the frames. Norman likes how they look, so keep an eye out in antique shops and auctions and the like. I know some of you guys have a hobby with bits of Americana, so look for the "E.H." initials and generally outstanding craftsmanship. These frames have actually been flagged for acquisition by the Great Circle; you'll be fully reimbursed and extra, so buy them.
And if you see one hanging on a wall in some estate, pretend the art is wonderful and exquisite and get it. Art for some of you is the guts of an AR, but pretend for the Society's sake.
And if they insist on keeping the frame, they're probably not a Norman.
Encounter Logs: If you've got stories, contact the Seattle DCC and I'll add them to the archive. No actual videos, though - a lot of Warders are barely getting these pages on their phones in the field.
Additional Notes: A few extra notes, from my personal experiences.
- These frames can sometimes work for indoor monitoring. It might be easier to "couple" the painting to reality without the wind messing with things, but if a spooky aberrant can watch you paint the hallway for an hour, they might work around it.
- If you're using a frame as an ersatz cell camera for an aberrant, make sure the painting isn't just blank grey walls with three shades of grey. Put an object in there so whatever you're keeping locked up will be rendered clearly.
- I haven't said this, but it's worth mentioning; any kind of painting will do. Example photo is watercolor, nickname is acrylic, oils work too. Sketches won't work, though.
If you've got more to add, again, contact the Seattle DCC. Written by Warder Gierson.