Sameplace in Time 7

 

Mission Log: Rats of the Black Death

Timeline: Venice, 15 March 1348 | Anomalous Target: Rth-thya-lyi (The Deep One)

🎭 Drop Zone: Piazza San Marco

The flashing neon skyline of New Angeles dissolves into a swirling grey mist. A moment later, your knees buckle slightly as a damp, chilly evening breeze catches you by surprise. The stale smell of smog is replaced by the brackish, salty tang of tidal waters mixed with the faint scent of wood smoke and roasting chestnuts.

“You arrive in Venice to find yourselves in a very large and paved public square, lined with grand palaces and buildings, and with many narrow streets leading away to the northwest, north, and northeast. It is early evening, and you are at the foot of a tall clock tower. Nearby and to the northwest are several very grand buildings, one of which appears to be a large church.

There are flashily-dressed guards who seem to be stopping crowds of ragged people who are trying to approach the church. There are two tall pillars to the south and slightly to the east, one of which is topped with a winged lion, and the other with an armored figure with a large halo, and a shield and spear. Through the pillars you can see water.”

Thanks to the ORUS-provided obfuscator chips hum-pulsing on your gear, the passing locals pay no attention to your strange apparel. Your wristbands hum into life: ‘Venice, 1348, Deep One, jewelry’ accompanied by a steady red 'Stop' icon. The spatiotemporal extrapolator locks onto the signature, pointing its glowing crimson arrow southwest, deeper into the maritime heart of the Serenissima.

[Temporal Intelligence Note]: The agents have dropped into the Piazza San Marco. The massive church nearby is the Basilica di San Marco, and the tower they stand beneath is the Campanile. The city is currently overflowing with desperate refugees who fled from the mainland following massive crop failures last year and a devastating earthquake in January. Furthermore, unbeknownst to the populace, a Genoese fleet arriving from the Crimea has just brought a silent killer to port: the Bubonic Plague.

🛶 Navigating the Serene Republic

The team checks their resources. While physical injuries have fully mended and consumable gear has been automatically replenished during the time-leap, the temporal jump has left them with just enough local Venetian coinage for a single transaction each. They must act quickly to reach the target location before the asymptomatic Deep One spreads the plague across Europe, triggering a secondary Dark Age that would stall the Renaissance for centuries.

The tracking arrow points directly toward the mouth of the Grand Canal, leaving the agents with two distinct pathways to intercept Maestro Rithialli:

📋 Tactical Approaches to Finding the Anomaly:

From the foot of the Campanile, how will the party navigate the labyrinth of Venice to locate the tavern where the Deep One is partying?

⏳ Ready to Alter the Fabric of History?

Enjoying the reality-bending exploits of our ORUS agents? You can jump into the timeline yourself! Gear up with your own spatiotemporal extrapolator, hunt down CthulWho's escaped anomalies, and protect the space-time continuum in this standalone Timepunk adventure.

If you're interested in playing this RPG, you can find it here.