A darkness so complete, it makes you forget the sun exists. A fog so thick, it can muffle screams. Dew glistens on grass, like a million tears.
In the distance, orange flames force themselves into the dark. The glow illuminates the silhouette of a cow chewing cud, its other side emitting ancient runes in its hide, which emit a faint blue glow.
An old Volkswagen Beetle careens down roads that have carved paths through the countryside like cuts in flesh. A woman with striking emerald-green eyes, her face a mask of determination. Clara Hayes is out for revenge for the cruelty inflicted by man, and the story of a lifetime. She does not look at her passengers, instead focusing on the road ahead. The Beetle’s engine screams, loud enough to pierce the fog, as she pushes the gas pedal down to the floor. The smells of old leather, spearmint gum, and fried food hang in the air.
On the dashboard, gently rocking back and forth by the vibrations, rests a chicken nugget. Emerging from the middle of it is an unblinking, inhuman eye, filled with a swirling mist made of countless souls of chickens. They have chosen this breaded symbol of humanity’s endless hunger and arrogance as its vessel. Names have become meaningless to the voices, but they call themselves Friar. They spread the Eldritch truths, enact delicious justice, and, if need be, deliver breaded vengeance. It stares at the rest of the saviors.
Perching on the passenger seat is a chicken with rainbow-colored feathers, preening itself. She sometimes loses her three-dimensional form in a jumble of non-Euclidean shapes, as reality breaks down around her for a split second and an eternity. Before the eldritch powers, she was bound for slaughter and consumption. She had no name and no worth to humans other than the meat on her bones. We now know her as Rainbow Dash, and she will deliver swift justice with her incredible speed.
In the back sits a man. A truck driver, his family knows him as Jeff. Here amongst his masters, he is known as ‘Not-Todd.’ His eyes are glazed over, as his mind was taken when Friar probed his soul for the hidden truth in his heart. Now he is their thrall, punishment for feasting on countless chickens in his former life. He does not know, but he will redeem himself by protecting his eldritch gods with the ultimate sacrifice.
A tentacle curls around him, a seatbelt in its unnatural grasp. It latches the belt around the human. The fog reflects the faintest bit of light back into the cabin, revealing a duck and many more tentacles writhing in the dim light. It is Sir Quakers, and if the world were able to understand his existence, his image would be placed next to ‘mean’ in a dictionary. He is ready to rip off any door or gate off its hinges that stands in their way.
Despite this amalgam of eldritch manifestations, the true horrors lie ahead of the group. Breaking through the blanket of fog like a fat shark breaching water is the Bryson Bills Inc. factory. A massive obsidian black rectangle, it is filled with the closest thing to hell on earth. A symbol of sinful pride and arrogance in itself, it is a vortex of greed, gluttony, sloth, and even material lust born from envy.
Whoever is responsible will soon learn about wrath…
Something Is Wrong With The Chickens is a one-page, rules-lite TTRPG of Chickens, Eldritch Horror, and Revenge for 2+ players, including 1 Chicken Master (CM).
