Paranormal Waste Repository
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"There are things under Myndd Duhb that even the Lord Protector isn't cleared for. Rumour has it some of the stuff down there even scares The Charmer … to be honest I have no idea why anyone would want to investigate the place too closely, but let me make this abundantly clear: anyone or anything crosses the perimeter without authorisation, you shoot them. No matter who or what they look like or which direction they are going. Shoot, and worry about it later."

Basic Information

What happens when the government - or The Conspiracy or The Agency - or whoever lay hands on something paranormal and dangerous and want to store it safely? Well, they send it to the paranormal waste repository - like a nuclear waste repository but with the added wrinkle that the contents may actively try to escape and are probably a lot harder to contain and at least as dangerous. Actually in all but the most divergent, overt fantasy settings the PWR is probably disguised as an atomic waste store (or something else mundane that no sane person would meddle with) to maintain The Masquerade whilst still having an excuse for massive containment.

The contents can vary from sealed evil in a can to very dangerous guinea pigs - because by the nature of the paranormal, there will always be some idiot trying to use it to their advantage.

Mundane defences (fences, minefields, CCTV, armed guards, vaults etc.) are liable to be substantial and given the nature of the site it will probably need to be secure against some or all of the following as well:

As with more mundane techniques, a mixture of active and passive defences will be needed and, unlike some places, the facility will need to be secure both coming and going. Where possible ward magic may be extensively practiced.

Those mundane techniques that are used will also need to account for the fact that potential intruders (and/or escapees) may be of supernatural character and thus harder to detect and/or stop - for example infrared motion detectors are unlikely to pick up an undead creature with a body temperature at or close to ambient and the sort of vampire that doesn't show up in mirrors might well not appear on CCTV either. Cameras might need to use esoteric techniques such as kirillian photography to detect invisible entities or the possessed … that sort of thing.

May overlap with and/or have some elements of a SCIF.

If the PWR isn't a bad place already, it's liable to become one.

Sources

The SCP Foundation are made of this and have applied significant levels of creative genius to hunting down and containing the wierd, uncanny and downright horrific from all over the planet.

Bibliography
1. Movie: Ghostbusters (1984) — An ectoplasmic containment unit is used to hold captured ghosts

Game and Story Use

  • Very stupid (or desperate) PCs may end up breaking into one of these.
  • A breach at a facility like this could kick off a whole campaign as centuries worth of occult hazards are all released at once.
    • The "hazards" not being as dangerous as promised might be a second act twist that sets the PCs investigating who put them there and why.
  • Even if only one or two entities escape - or someone goes on the run with an artifact (or hitch hiker) they picked up - things could get nasty.
  • PCs could make a career out of acting as supernatural bounty hunters, rounding up occult creatures and artifacts for one of these.
    • or, could end up recruited to a wainscott agency or conspiracy when the evil that they've temporarily subdued is collected by the staff from such a facility.
  • PCs with excellent connections could end up with research and/or user access to one of these places.
  • Alternatively a suitably weird PC could have escaped from one of these.
  • Organisations like Hellboy's BPRD often work with - or even out of - one of these and make excellent patrons for PCs in the right sort of campaign.
  • Of course, PCs may find themselves working for an agency that possesses one of these when regime change means that their new superiors now regard the place as some kind of armoury.
    • Or simply a waste of money - if the Masquerade is in effect, a budget committee that isn't clued in may struggle to understand why a nuclear waste store needs a fluent Ancient Egyptian speaker with a Communications PhD on duty at all times.
  • Potential for trouble if some of the paranormal waste ends up exactly where it wants to be, whether because the location itself is important or because there's something in there it needs.
  • If part of the truth leaks out, or the players disagree about how dangerous certain hazards are, there may be dissonance similar to Van Helsing hate crimes. A PWR containing intelligent beings is, after all, a prison that likely has at least a few inmates who have never seen the inside of a courtroom and whose offenses may not even be properly illegal.
  • As stated, a PWR can easily become a bad place. PCs may find that past a certain threshold, they go from being guards to inmates, with the site itself as their jailer.
    • This may even be acceptable losses to those in charge, as long as the effects are confined to the site boundaries. If it doesn't, building it was probably a bloody stupid idea in the first place.
  • After the end, a PWR's security is likely in bad shape. There's almost certainly work to be done re-containing whatever was in there.
    • This could be an explanation for some fantasy dungeons: a former PWR where the inmates are now running the place.
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