The whole run of Titanic: The Musical seemed to be under a curse: when it ran in Washington, D.C., the iceberg prop went out of control and flattened the diva Beryl Starsland in the middle of “I Will Always Love You.” When it actually ran on Broadway a year later, the roof of the theater collapsed, killing most of the cast. Given how bad Titanic: The Musical was, however, it may have been a mercy in disguise.

In any case, both of these tragic locations became the focus for hauntings. The Broadway theater’s mess was cleaned up by the original NY Ghostbuster team during the “Return of Gozer” incident; the Golden Swan theater in Washington, D.C., haunted by Beryl Starsland, remained quiet and unused for many years, until finally the D.C. Ghostbusters were called in to clean it up.

In both incidents, the GBI teams reported being attacked by “operatic ghosts,” accompanied by an overwhelmingly loud ghostly accompaniment of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” which seemed to arise spontaneously out of the theatrical environment itself rather than being tied specifically to Titanic: The Musical (which had no valkyries in it, thankfully).

Valkyrie by =SilenceV on deviantART

♠ Opera Ghost (Valkyrie)

Creature: Phantasm
Attributes: Agility d6-1, Smarts d4, Spirit d8, Strength d8-1, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d8-1, Intimidation d6, Notice d8, Stealth d8-1, Throwing d6-1
Pace: 5 (+1d10 fly), Parry: 7, Toughness: 9 (+3 armor), Charisma: 0
———————————–
Gear: Longsword d8-1 (Str+d8), Thrown Objects d6-1 (Str+d4, 3/6/12), Plate Corselet (+3), Medium Shield (+2, Parry+1)
———————————–
Special Abilities:
Ethereal: Immune to mundane physical attacks; Only seen if desired
Fear: Enemies roll Guts check against horrific manifestation

Text by John “The Gneech” Robey. Artwork by Sahar. Ghostbusters copyright Sony Pictures and used for fan purposes only. Stat block created by Hero Lab® (Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com). Savage Worlds is Copyright © 2004-2012 by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. All rights reserved.

When the Metro Authority called in the D.C. Ghostbusters to report a “dragon” was chewing up the rails between Roslyn and Foggy Bottom, in the deepest part of the tunnels under the Potomac River, the Gang in Grey had no idea what they were going to find down there… and once they did find it, they still had no idea what it was!

Turns out it was an electrophagic byakhoid, leaked into our dimension from the world/plane/whatever the group refers to as “Saturn,” during the incident of black slime portals opening up in the apartment of artist Klaus Furuhobendamengal, creating a lair for itself where it could feed off of the electric generators used to run the Metro trains. The byakhoid was chewing on the third rail so it could feed off of the powerful electric shocks.

Byakhee by ~christopherburdett on deviantART

♠ Byakhoid, Electrophagic

Unclassified (Non-Spectral) Transdimensional Servitor Creature
Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d12, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d6, Notice d6, Psionics (Arcane) d6, Stealth d6
Pace: 4/16; Flight 16″ (Climb 4″), Parry: 5, Toughness: 10(2), Charisma: 0
———————————————————————-
Special Abilities:
Arcane Psionics: Gain the Psionics arcane background
Impr Frenzy: Attack twice with no penalty on Fighting rolls
Claws: (Str+d4)
Electrophagic: This creature feeds on electricity. On any turn this creature is hit by an electrical or quasi-electrical attack (including proton packs), it gains the Regeneration (Fast) ability and 2 Power Points, which disappear at the end of its turn. (This only happens once per turn; additional hits are not cumulative.)
Fear -3: Enemies roll Guts check with Fear rating as modifier
Natural Armor: +2
Size +2: Adjustment to Toughness based on creature’s mass
Star Travel: This creature can fly between the stars.
———————————————————————-
Arcane Powers (10 Power Points):
Blast: Targets in Medium Blast Template take 2d6 damage; Double points adds +d6 damage OR Large Burst
Bolt: Single bolt 2d6 damage; Up to 3 bolts at 1pt per bolt; 2pts does one 3d6 bolt
Damage Field: Anyone touching target takes 2d6 damage, 2d8 damage on a Raise

Text by John “The Gneech” Robey. Artwork by Christopher Burdett. Ghostbusters copyright Sony Pictures and used for fan purposes only. Stat block created by Hero Lab® (Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com). Savage Worlds is Copyright © 2004-2012 by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. All rights reserved.

So I’ve decided to give Savage Worlds a bash for the next session (at least) of my Ghostbusters campaign, so see how we all like it. I’ve translated all the PCs from the UHM system (hardly an exact process) and started writing up a few critters for practice. I’m also writing up a rules summary doc for my players, with modifications for the setting.

I took some inspiration from Graywolf’s “Savage Ghostbusters”, but actually ended up using the gear stats from the Horror Companion (I love that SW has official stats for proton packs and ghost traps), with my own house rules for the application of psychomagnetheric slime. It’s very much a work in progress, as I get the hang for how SW actually behaves in play. I’ve got as good a grasp as I can get on the rules just from reading, but how a game reads and how it behaves at the table are usually two very different things.

One thing I’m undecided on, is the use of miniatures. Savage Worlds, for all its rules-liteness, is written with the assumption that you’ll be using minis, and while I like using miniatures for my Pathfinder game, I’m not sure I really want to be pulling out the mat and figs for busting spooks. Ghostbusters (when done right, anyway) alternates back and forth between freewheeling and terrifying, neither of which are really well served by counting squares; on the other hand, one of the fun things about Ghostbusters is how busting spooks is “just a job,” like being a plumber (or possibly an exterminator), and I can see how having the miniatures could make it feel more like blue-collarey work. (“Yo, Iggy, ya got yerself a nasty free-floating vapor at about ten yards, hit that sucker up with a capture stream and it’s Miller Time.”)

The fact that there aren’t easily-convertible Ghostbusters miniatures doesn’t help, but isn’t really that big a factor– I could easily make Cardboard Heroes-style figs if I wanted to. There have also been some really nice custom minis made, but that’s a bit of a stretch for my sculpting chops and would take forever.

I’ll poll my players on the topic (HEY PLAYERS: Weigh in on this! …That was easy.) and see what they have to say. I’ve certainly got plenty of monsters I could use as spook figs.

-The Gneech

Slimer, a.k.a. the Onionhead, a.k.a. the Sedgewick Spud, is a fairly baseline Class V Free-Roaming Vapor, believed to be a “remnant,” i.e., an ectoplasmic “echo” of a living person, rather than the actual spirit of that person. In Slimer’s particular case, it is speculated that he is the remnant of a well-known television personality who died of a drug overdose while staying in the Sedgewick Hotel. The television personality’s inexhaustible appetite for food, drink, and other earthly pleasures, combined with the highly PKE-charged architecture of the Sedgewick hotel, caused this spook to manifest with an ironically insatiable gluttony. For all of Slimer’s desire to consume all food, drink, candy, and so forth, it merely passes right through him and just ends up on the floor in a disgusting mess.

As spooks go, Slimer is fairly harmless, but that’s mostly a factor of his essentially benevolent nature. Barely even sentient, Slimer tends to be clueless and whimsical, with a cowardly streak– if he were more viciously inclined, he would be capable of being hazardous. As it is, he generally just trashes the place and covers everything with slime in the process.

♠ Slimer

Type V Full-Roaming Vapor

---

Creature: Phantasm
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d6, Stealth d8, Throwing d6
Pace: 8/10, Parry: 5, Toughness: 5, Charisma: -2
Gear: Thrown Objects d6 (Str+d4, 3/6/12), Slime d8 (Str+slime effect)

---

Special Abilities:
Quirk (Ghostly Gluttony)
Ugly
Ghostly Powers
Ethereal: Immune to mundane physical attacks; Only seen if desired
Fear: Enemies roll Guts check at +0
Flight (Ghostly): Spooks float around.
Ghostly Focus: Ghost may recover from incapacitated
Slime: Cover target in sticky slime

---

Arcane Powers (10 pp)
Entangle (slime): Restrained target suffers -2 Pace and skills linked to Agi and Str; Break free with Str or Agi; Single target costs 2 points, Medium Burst Template costs 4
Speed (panic): Doubles target’s Pace; Running is free with raise
Telekinesis (ghostly): Move single target weighing 10 lbs times Spirit die type (50 lbs with raise); Weapons use arcane skill and Spirit; Drop does Spirit+d6 damage

Text and artwork by John “The Gneech” Robey. “Slimer” and Ghostbusters copyright Sony Pictures and used for fan purposes only. “The Onionhead Ghost” originally created by Dan Akroyd. Stat block created by Hero Lab® (Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com). Some inspiration drawn from “Savage Ghostbusters” by T. Jordan “Greywolf” Peacock. Savage Worlds is Copyright © 2004-2012 by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. All rights reserved.