Want my advice on making simple but interesting "zap and trap" adventures? Start with the location and design the ghost to match. Like the librarian ghost in Ghostbusters, most of my ghosts are designed to match specific settings, such as movie theaters or jazz clubs. (In fact, many descriptions specify real-world locales in 1990s Toledo, Ohio, but altering them to fit other cities shouldn’t be difficult.)

Bossie, The Meat Locker Menace

Undead Meat

Bossie was the favorite cow of Silas McGranger, an elderly Pennsylvania dairy farmer who barely made ends meet. Bossie got her name because she always mooed when Silas milked her, and he thought she was criticizing his technique, telling him how to do it right. (Obviously, Silas was in desperate need of some human friends.) Due to a bad business decision (he voted Republican), Silas had to sell his entire herd to the Mintz Meatpacking(TM) slaughterhouse.

Most of Bossie’s remains ended up going to the cafeteria of UT‘s Carter Hall, where they were placed in a meatlocker. Unfortunately, the dormitory was closing for the summer, and no one remembered to take the meat out before turning off the power. The next September, cafeteria workers opened the meatlocker and narrowly escaped being eaten alive by some really well-fed cockroaches. After the roaches were exterminated the cafeteria went about its regular business of poisoning students.

About a year later, however, a campus security guard reported seeing a partially decomposed cow (standing upright, yet) in the cafeteria kitchen, that seemed to be ordering the cooks around. Bossie, offended beyond reason (not that cows have much reason to begin with) that she was slaughtered for nothing, had returned from the Netherworld (Netherpastures?) and was making sure the cafeteria staff didn’t screw up again. The university administration, of course, decided that Bossie had to go, because she’s inhabiting a dormitory without paying tuition. Since the university doesn’t have Parapsychology Department yet, they’ll have to call the Ghostbusters.

Bossie is a Class VI Full-Torso Focused Ghost who cannot leave the dormitory she inhabits (although she has never left the cafeteria, she is not limited to it). The Ghostbusters will not be able to get much help from the students living in the dorm, as they’ve grown rather fond of her. After all, she’s driving the Hall Director crazy, and Mind Controlled cooks give larger helpings of mystery meat.

• Power: 4
• Ectopresence: 10
• Goal: Teach Morons To Cook

Special Abilities: Control Mind (victims are made to work in the cafeteria and don’t remember being Controlled); Deep Freeze (victims must roll their Muscle vs Bossie’s Power or be trapped in ice from the neck down. If a Ghost is rolled, victim is encased from head to toe and begins suffering asphyxiation damage. Character is trapped until the ice melts in 20 minutes, he makes a successful Muscles roll vs Difficulty 20, or another character blasts him out.); Summon Pest (cockroaches); Weapon Use (official Chopsu ™ Cow-poker/Meat Cleaver).

or, if you prefer Ghostbusters International:

Ghostbusters International statistics

Brains	1	Teach Cooking	4
Cool	6	Roar Menacingly	9
Power	4	Control Mind Deep Freeze Materialize Summon Cockroaches

• Ectopresence: 10
• Goal: Teach Morons To Cook
• Tags: Ectoplasmic, intelligent; walks like a hunchback, attacks
  with official Chops-Yu™ Cow-poker/Meat Cleaver

Design Notes

The second paragraph of Bossie’s story summarizes a rumor/legend that I really heard at the University of Toledo. I don’t really believe it, but it was worth making fun of.

An early draft of Bossie was submitted to Polyhedron® Newszine as an entry in its "Monstrous Mayhem&quot contest and won an Honorable Mention. A related monster (The Hicksville Reaper for It Came From The Late, Late, Late Show) won third place.

Chief Rolling Die

Vengeful Indian Spirit

When the White Man came to Ohio, he brought with him many european vices, such as drinking and gambling. One native chief who became addicted to the latter actually bet and lost his tribal lands in a game of craps, forcing his people to move onto a reservation. Nicknamed “Rolling Die” by the white men, the chief was cursed by his tribe’s medicine man to haunt the reservation until all gambling had ended within its bounds. Although the reservation has been long abandoned by his tribe, Chief Rolling Die (a Focused Class IV Full-Torso Apparition) has haunted the area ever since, breaking up whatever dice games he finds.

Recently, however, Chief Rolling Die discovered the campus gaming club within his reservation’s lands, and lost any degree of self control he may have retained. Dice disappear, reappear, fly out the window at passersby, and so on, causing all sorts of trouble for the club. They’ll hire the Ghostbusters once they finish arguing about who gets to vote on the hiring.

Of course, the Chief won’t show up unless a game is in progress, and will probably disappear before getting caught. If the Ghostbusters can convince him that roleplaying is different from gambling, he’ll leave the club alone and go back to busting up floating craps games in the frat houses. Otherwise, he will flee when reduced to an Ectopresence of 1 and return in a few months, maybe with some other ghostly indians (he may be dead, but he’s still a chief).

Special Abilities: Command Indians (Native American characters roll their Cool versus the Chief’s Power. Indian ghosts make a Power vs. Power roll); Control Dice (subsumes Animate, Dematerialize Object, Poltergeist, and Summon Pest, but only works on dice); Possess; Terrorize (appears as a skeletal Indian).

• Power: 4

• Ectopresence: 10
• Goal: End Gambling on the Reservation

Conally Field, The Ghost of

Dejected Baseball Field

When Conally Field, the home of the UT Rockets baseball team was bulldozed to make way for a Rec Center no one really wanted, there was substantial hue and cry. Afterwards, everyone forgot about Conally Field while enjoying the the water slide, infuriating the shades of former baseball players and fans, who felt they were being dismissed as useless memories. (Well, they were.) Lately, those shades have been showing up every weekend, Whacking people with ectoplasmic bats and balls, running around diamonds that aren’t there, and spitting tobacco in the swimming pool. The administration wants them out.

That is, of course, easier said than done. The "players" that the Field conjures run around, Whack the Ghostbusters, and disappear while ghostly crowds cheer them on. Whenever the Ghostbusters zap a player (which reduces the Field’s ectopresence), the crowd boos and throw hot dogs at them. A stadium-sized spook (Conally Field is a Focused Class III Repeater) has a massive ectopresence and can disappear well before the Ghostbusters can contain it. The Ghostbusters would do better to exorcise the ghost by some arcane means, perhaps convincing the UT administration to break ground on a new baseball field, or getting the present day Rockets to play a game versus the yesteryear Rockets.

Special Abilities: Terrorize (decomposing baseball players); Whack (removes 1 BP from target).

• Power: 3
• Ectopresence: 50
• Goal: Bring back the Old Ball Park

Leadfoot

Class III Free-Roaming Full Automobile Apparition

The ghost called Leadfoot first appeared in the Rust Belt in the mid-1970s, during periods of gas shortages and new pollution laws. Still seen (usually near sunset or sunrise), driving a `66 Cadillac obnoxiously fast and spewing clouds of carcinogenic smog all over the place. Besides causing numerous accidents, Leadfoot can single-handedly cause a city to violate federal pollution violations, resulting in fees, fines, and task forces for whatever city he happens to be in.

Leadfoot provides the Ghostbusters with a good opportunity for a big-paying civil service job. With even stiffer anti-pollution laws about to go into effect, the mayor may decide to call the Ghostbusters the next time Leadfoot drives into town. In fact, the local EPA office might even call, anxious to dispose of Leadfoot before he undoes all their work. (Some franchises could use a chance to get on the EPA’s good side for once).

Special Abilities: Zip, Smoke (Blinds Ghostbusters who fail a See roll and aren’t wearing Ecto-Visors).

• Power: 3
• Ectopresence: 7
• Goal: Show People What A Real Car Can Do