Fighting God: TimeWatch and the Secret Enemy

men-in-blackBy Kevin Kulp

The baby had been born three hours ago, healthy and beautiful, and now it was asleep in its mother’s arms.

The three men pushed open her bedroom door, stood there in the doorway, blocking the gaslight from the hall. All three wore identical black suits. Their skin was sallow, almost gray, their jaws were square, and when they spoke through fake-looking teeth it was in a dull monotone. “You have created new life,” one said to the new mother.

The second spoke. “It grows up to act contrary to our desires.”

“Look at it,” said the third. “Memorize its features. You will have less exceptional babies that will not depart. You will not remember this one alive, not when awake. Time is about to change.”

And it did.

By the time the mother started screaming, the three men were nowhere to be seen.

Servants of a False God

In the investigative space opera GUMSHOE game Ashen Stars by Robin D. Laws, one of the playable races is the vas mal. This race of psychic, grey-skinned, large-headed aliens used to be called the vas kra. They were mysterious psychic consciousnesses that spanned the stars, evolved beyond the need for flesh, playing with worlds on a whim and guiding mortal creatures’ development when they so chose. All that changed when the Mohilar War began and the vas kra were de-evolved into a loathsome, frail physical form named the vas mal.

One of the interesting throwaway lines in Ashen Stars is that at least one vas mal has directly interfered with Earth’s development over millennia, playing the role of the devil and possibly pretending to be divine in other religious and supernatural roles as well. That leads to an interesting question. What would Earth be like if the vas kra never intervened at all, and what (if anything) are they shaping our history towards?

At least one vas kra (and not one with humanity’s best interests in mind) has decided to interfere directly with humanity’s history. It does so by creating physical servants when and where they’re needed, using them to alter time and historical events. Their process is slow, but they’re patiently playing a very long game, even if no one but they know what the winning condition is. Challenging their actions can be as dangerous as challenging the servants of a God itself.

Enter La Kreitaj

The most common servants of the vas kra call themselves “La Kreitaj,” which is Esperanto for “The Created.” They often impersonate divine servants – and from their point of view, perhaps they aren’t pretending. La Kreitaj are typically tall men and women who wear black, with sickly skin and unnaturally perfect teeth. They often wear sunglasses to hide their pure black eyes. They speak in monotones, show no fear (it’s thought they can’t comprehend it), and can’t technically be killed; a La Kreitaj whose mortal form is slain forms an identical form somewhere nearby within 30 seconds, although their original corpse remains. La Kreitaj who are slaughtered multiple times leave multiple corpses, possibly confusing law enforcement to happen on the scene after the fight in complete.

La Kreitaj typically carry out their duties with their Rewrite Time power, allowing them to change the past in fairly minor ways while standing in the present. It makes their actions particularly difficult to pin down during a TimeWatch investigation. No one knows why they primarily speak Esperanto. That’s either a joke from the vas kra who forms them, or a clue to a secret no one has yet deciphered.

La Kreitaj Stats

Defense: Hit Threshold 4, Health 8

Offense: Scuffling +2, Shooting +2; Damage Modifier +0 (iron-hard fists), +2 (futuristic beam weapon), Stun 5 plus Destabilize (Rewrite Time – see below)

Abilities: Tempus 15

Special Abilities: Clock Out (cost 2, no time machine needed), Exile (cost 2), Regenerate (cost 0; an identical La Kreitaj appears somewhere nearby within 30 seconds, with full Health and Tempus), Technology (cost 2)

Special: La Kreitaj have a unique ability known as Rewrite Time (cost 3) that they prefer to use over physically injuring a target. A successful weaponless hit with Scuffling or Shooting (Close Range) allows them to change something small in the target’s past, triggering a Stun 5 test as well as a D4/L4 Paradox test. They will typically use this to weaken a target before using Exile to banish it into the distant past and remove it from the relevant time stream.

All La Kreitaj have identical DNA and fingerprints – even when they differ in appearance, sex and personality.

Using La Kreitaj

In the same way that many TV shows have a “monster of the week” interposed against longer-running secrets that last an entire season, La Kreitaj and the goals of the vas kra that backs them make for an excellent multi-session mystery. They typically act in the background, making small and unimportant alterations in the timeline that add up to a momentous change at some point in the future. They resent interference and will act to remove it, although they’re reluctant to kill anyone who isn’t one of their targets.

It’s unknown what goals La Kreitaj have, and what the GM chooses is affected by whether they wish to fold the far-future timeline of Ashen Stars into the TimeWatch timeline. Goals might include:

  • Turning humanity into a vast army to be used by the vas kra against an enemy
  • Ensuring that humanity never join the Galactic Combine (or ensuring that they do)
  • Taking actions that affect whether the Mohilar war ever occurs
  • Prepping humanity for ultimate peace and global consciousness (which might involve the removal of free will)
  • Using humanity as a vast biological computer to answer a philosophical question
  • Raising a psychic food source to later be plundered
  • Focusing all of history to create a single, uniquely talented individual
  • The pure egocentric joy of manipulating an entire species
  • Dismantling (or even creating) TimeWatch

It’s possible for GMs to have La Kreitaj in play without initially deciding on what the vas kra’s true goal is; perhaps it really is ineffable, and the Agents only clash with La Kreitaj when they act against TimeWatch interests. Use this antagonist as a mysterious foil to complicate other mysteries and missions, and let them develop slowly as background threats. With their abilities, there’s no telling who or what they’ve affected.

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