Covering a crime by raising a lot of freshly dead at once.

[nikink]

Ok, so this is an odd kind of question and I'm hoping someone has an answer.

My PCs did a silly thing involving a church - the details aren't relevant - and consequently some 80 or so people died in relatively subtle ways (ie: some bleeding from the ears or nose, possibly heart attacks or strokes).

It was entirely inadvertent - and therefore quite darkly hilarious. However... I'm not keen on derailing the entire game by initiating an immediate police chase and legal proceedings. I'd rather tie it into the schemes of the current big bads if I can.

So, what I'm looking for is some means to raise the dead for long enough to pretend like nothing happened, and go home or whatever before the effect fades, and it has to be relatively quick to pull off.

My first thought was perhaps a large number of Spectres could inhabit the corpses and 'drive' them away for mischief, but wraith possession is measured in turns not scenes or days.
Various necromantic effects only raise a handful of zombies at most and almost always are mindless or ravenously violent brutes.
Demons don't have anything canonical, albeit perhaps they could have a rite to do this (except if fails the fast to pull off criteria).

The best solution I can think of to date is a Kuro Sau Hsien who just possibly could pull off some Hac Tao - I calculated something like 20 successes needed, with 9 offset, leaving 11 successes on the roll which is just barely possible for a very powerful Hsien who also spends a Willpower. I'd like something better.
And I'd like something canonical, since I already know I can just hand-wave it as the ST.

Any ideas?

[babi_gog]

depending on the building and what's happened it might be simpler to go with a gas main explosion, or a gas/chemical leak that caused the effect. Rather than needing to come up with a supernatural solution.

[Sergeant Brother]

What are the PCs and what are their abilities? Raising the dead is usually pretty difficult. If the people died from what seems to be natural causes, then the police might not have any way to investigate or capture the PCs - though some supernatural organization might. In any case, 80 dead people in a church at the same time is going to garner attention.

If you tried to mask it some way: leaking gas or something, then that might actually be worse regarding a police investigation. 80 people dead by natural causes is a terrifying mystery, but 80 dead from deliberate tampering is terrorism.

[nikink]

It's not about the PCs raising the dead to cover themselves, it's about Big Bads being devious.

The Gas Main explosion isn't a bad idea in general, but the Big Bads aren't out to prevent the death toll or help the PCs, this is me wanting to use the PCs mistake as another weapon against them.
So having the cops involved isn't part of the plan cuz it's not useful. Having scores of undead puppets from a fairly top end slice of society is. It will also cause the players to go "uh wtf, I thought we killed them all?!" and I can shrug at their confusion while the police show up to a weird non-event.

Later, over hours and days the corpses can collapse as 'God' intended.

That's the idea. Obv. this kind of magic is basically impossible in the oWoD. As far as I can tell, even Mages would be hard pressed to pull it off, going by the M20 rules at least.Which is understandable - the games are meant be horror of the kind where raising a couple of shambling corpse atrocities is a grave (ha) and terrible deed, and this particular chicanery is not quite in the same league.

[babi_gog]

The main issue comes to what the Big Bad is, and which of the WoD setting is the lead one you are working with. A post Reckoning setting would just have the spirits of the departed re-inhabit them. Something that could make other spirits inhabit them would also be an option.

[ThomasM]

The main issue comes to what the Big Bad is, and which of the WoD setting is the lead one you are working with. A post Reckoning setting would just have the spirits of the departed re-inhabit them. Something that could make other spirits inhabit them would also be an option.

Yeah, using the rules from the Hunter: the Reckoning for The Walking Dead is probably your best bet, although the Necromancy Hekau of a Bane Mummy isn't out of the question.

[nikink]

Eh, I didn't think the Big Bad was relevant beyond knowing they are incapable of such an act without the cooperation of some other WoD critters. The Big Bad(s) so far are a couple of Earthbound, Pentex and Sarrasine. PCs be making trouble everywhere.

I couldn't see any Hekau that could do this trick - do you have a reference?
I don't have any Reckoning books so I was wondering about that. I kinda thought the H:tR walking dead only made lurching shamblers? Can they be smarter than that?

Having Banes possess the corpses is something I considered and then discarded since I've been of the impression spirits can possess living bodies but once they become dead bodies you need spectres (well, ghosts in general) and the rule for Wraithly corpse habitation measure the duration in turns. I'f I'm wrong about that then Banes might work...

I suppose a flurry of demons fresh out of Hell might also work, albeit that might be a bit too permanent.

[ThomasM]

I couldn't see any Hekau that could do this trick - do you have a reference?

Nothing specific, no, it's just a thematically appropriate power set that you could customize for the needs of the story. Along the same lines you could look at the Valdaermen Fellowship from Dark Ages: Mage since they used necromancy to create servants of the dead. Another thought is the bad guys hire a group of haunters to use their Puppetry Arcanos to drive the bodies to their homes. I kind of like the idea of a ghostly crew of "cleaners".

Really, I think you are in "just make it up" territory if you want to have all the bodies get up and go home to then expire, since the published powers are unlikely to survive the reality of dice rolls.

[nikink]

Wraithly powers simply don't last long enough, unfortunately.
I'll check the Valaermen.

The Kura Sao can technically do it by rolling 10 successes and spending a WP, so I don't mind assuming miraculous dice rolling. It's the actual effect that nothing in the WoD seems to be able to pull off via canonical abilities (even the Kura Sao idea is being more handwavy than I'd like despite taking their death-themed affinity and using the Hsien magic).

[Kharnov]

It seems like you're kind of stuck between the desire to not have the consequences of this immediately derail your game and the extreme power required to make the situation go away. I might have an idea for an alternative solution: while magically making the problem go away may not be possible, making sure that your players don't deal with (all) the consequences of their actions might be? Someone with significant influence over the local police department or prosecutors could deflect any police pursuit. Or your players could be shuttled into a van and shipped off somewhere isolated, maybe have time for a little side-mission, while the heat dies down. Whoever intervenes effectively gets leverage on your players; there are still consequences for their actions. But instead of a police chase, they instead just have a boon owed to whoever intervenes (who may or may not be involved with the Big Bad).

[Theodrim]

One of the big bads took it upon themselves to cover it up for the PC's, and now the PC's owe them a big favor that'll certainly bite them in the ass later. Details aren't terribly important, lots of different ways to cover up a fuck-up of that magnitude.

What strikes me is the spontaneous keeling-over of a bunch of parishioners to supernatural means. That's about as fertile a ground as you'll ever get to introduce some real nasty, heavy-hitter, hunters.