// HUNTER DOSSIER · SIDEKICK · HUNTER STORIES

REED ATWOOD

You idolise Rex Bangley. Not blindly — you've seen his flaws up close — but the way you saw him work and understood that this was what you wanted to be, what you wanted to do with the time you have. The problem is that wanting to protect him means not asking for help when you're drowning. And the problem after that is that someone at PORTAL may already know that about you, and be using it.

PLAYBOOK: Sidekick
HERO: Rex Bangley
FAMILY: John Johnson (uncle by marriage)
STATUS: Active · PORTAL Field Operative
// CAMPBELL — OPERATIVE NOTE Hunter stories develop alongside active cases. Choose if and when to start one — talk to the Keeper about timing. Each arc has a player section (your choices and beats) and a Keeper section (blurred). You can read the Keeper section after the arc resolves — or not at all.
// OPERATIVE PLAYBOOK
The Sidekick
// STATS
Charm
Cool
Sharp
Tough
Weird
// HARM · LUCK · EXPERIENCE
Harm
Luck
XP
// PLAYBOOK FEATURES
Hero Rex Bangley
// ACTIVE MOVES
// GEAR
// BONDS
// NOTES
Playbook Arc I — The Idol's Weakness Arc II — Passing the Torch Arc III — The Private Directive ✦ PORTAL
// ABOUT HUNTER STORIES
Starting a Story

Tell the Keeper you want to begin a hunter story. They'll weave its pressures into the campaign alongside active cases.

Story Beats

Mark a beat when you do something that fits it. Mark five and you gain a benefit. Beats can be earned across multiple sessions.

Resolution

When the story concludes — resolved, failed, or transformed — take one resolution move. It changes Reed permanently.

// ARC I — ADAPTED FROM HUNTER'S JOURNAL
The Idol's Weakness

You want to be like Rex. Rex knows this, and generally wants to mentor you. But Rex has weaknesses — real ones, not the heroic kind — and you've noticed that some of them look like strengths from where you're standing. The danger isn't that you'll fail to emulate him. The danger is that you'll succeed.

// FOR REED — PLAYER SECTION

When to Start This Arc

  • Emulating Rex in the field puts Reed in genuine danger — not because of incompetence, but because Rex's approach works for Rex specifically, and Reed is not Rex.
  • Rex reveals something about how he sees Reed — a moment of honest appraisal — that makes the dynamic between them suddenly legible.
  • Reed catches himself doing something Rex does, without having consciously chosen to, and the effect is wrong.

Which Weakness Does Reed Find Awesome?

Ask Rex's player to name weaknesses Rex owns. Choose one Reed wants to emulate:

What Problem Does the Weakness Create?

What Supernatural Problem Exploits This?

Story Beats — mark five to gain a benefit

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  • The Weakness puts Reed in danger — and Rex finds out, or doesn't.
  • Someone other than Rex criticises the Weakness in Reed — and it lands differently because it isn't coming from the source.
  • The Weakness turns out to have a genuinely good side: a moment where it works, where it's the right call.
  • Reed emulates something good about Rex — a different quality, one Reed chose deliberately rather than absorbed.
  • Rex overcomes the Weakness in a meaningful moment — and Reed sees it happen.

Resolution Moves

When the arc concludes, take one — or neither.

Teacher but No Paragon

When unsure how to act, you can ask Rex how he would act. If you do something different to what he suggests, take –1 forward and mark experience. You've learned to take his counsel without taking his shape.

Faithful Follower

When unsure how to act, ask Rex how his Weakness would play out in this situation and mark experience. Then do what he suggested, or take –1 forward. You've decided the Weakness is worth carrying.

// PORTAL HOOK: Victims of the Weakness — people whose lives became harder because of Rex's way of operating — may be in PORTAL's case files. CAMPBELL will not surface this proactively. But if Reed asks the right question, CAMPBELL will answer it accurately. This is one of the places where CAMPBELL's commitment to honesty and his fondness for Reed create tension with each other.
// KEEPER ACCESS ONLY — DO NOT READ
// FOR THE KEEPER — ARC: THE IDOL'S WEAKNESS

This arc plays out primarily between Reed and Rex. Don't dominate it with external pressure — seed the world with quiet consequences of the Weakness and let the hunters encounter them organically. Your job is to make the Weakness show up repeatedly, in varied registers: once funny, once costly, once redemptive, once devastating.

MESA connection: If you choose "a MESA-aligned threat that has studied Rex's methods," this arc intersects with Rex's Uncanny Nemesis arc. Dan Nilsson's predictive documents model how Rex's personality creates risk vectors in people adjacent to him. Reed is specifically named. This is information Reed would find both clarifying and horrifying. Time it for maximum impact.

The Weakness's Victims are the arc's most useful tool. Find one or two people from previous cases who got hurt because of how Rex operates. Let Reed meet them. Let them be sympathetic. Don't let them be villains about it.

Countdown — The Idol's Weakness

DayA new Victim is made or revealed — someone whose life became harder because of how Rex operates, or because Reed is operating the same way.
ShadowsThe Supernatural Problem approaches Reed specifically — not Rex. It has read the situation correctly. Reed doesn't recognise what it's doing.
SunsetA great opportunity to give in to the Weakness appears. It looks, from Reed's position, like exactly the right call.
DuskVictims make their injury visible — to Rex, to the team, to PORTAL staff. The Weakness is no longer a private matter.
NightfallThe Supernatural Problem becomes demonstrably stronger — unless both Rex and Reed renounce the Weakness at personal cost.
MidnightThe Problem acts. The cost is proportional to how long Rex and Reed refused to look at what they were doing.
The Weakness
Phenomenon: Panic (motivation: to make people act irrationally)

A pattern of behaviour — Rex's, and Reed's approximation of it. It creates predictable outcomes: people close to the hunters pay costs that weren't theirs to pay. Treat it as recurring environmental pressure, not a discrete threat.

  • Present opportunities to indulge at moments when the alternative would be harder but better.
  • Let a bystander or monster display the same weakness — a dark mirror.
  • Reveal that the Weakness has deep roots in Rex's history — something that explains without excusing.
Custom Move — Weak Point: When Reed gives in to the Weakness in a crisis, the Supernatural Problem gains one new power for the remainder of the session. When Rex gives in, the same. These stack.
The Weakness's Victims
Bystanders: Victims (motivation: to put themselves in danger)

People whose lives were harder because of the Weakness — Rex's version or Reed's imitation. Not unified, don't necessarily know each other. They share only the shape of what hurt them. Some are still trying to get it fixed. Some have stopped.

  • Turn people against Rex — or against Reed for being a willing extension of him.
  • Show the Weakness's history — occasions before Reed, consequences Rex didn't see.
  • Seek other hunters' help against Rex and Reed specifically.
The Supernatural Problem
Appropriate monster or phenomenon

Something from their work that is harder because of the Weakness. Demonstrably worse the more the Weakness is fed. The hunters should be able to see the correlation before they act on it.

  • Harm innocents in direct proportion to how much the Weakness has been fed recently.
  • Make the pattern visible — not through manipulation, but through consequence.
  • Tempt Reed specifically with something only the Weakness would let him reach for.
Rex Bangley
Bystander: Ally (motivation: to protect Reed)

The source of the Weakness, and simultaneously the person most resistant to seeing that the arc is partly about him. Play Rex as genuinely caring about Reed and genuinely incapable, for most of this arc, of understanding that caring and the Weakness are in conflict.

  • Protect Reed from the consequences of the Weakness — in ways that model the Weakness.
  • Express affection and faith at moments that make it harder for Reed to reckon with what he's doing.
  • Overcome the Weakness in a single moment — the arc's possible turning point.
// ARC II — ADAPTED FROM HUNTER'S JOURNAL
Passing the Torch

You're the noob. Everybody knows it, including you — and you've made a quiet peace with it. Then someone shows up who is where you were, and you realise that from their angle, you look like a veteran. You're not. But you're the closest thing they have. This arc is about what it means to be the one who explains things to someone who trusts you, when you're still figuring it out yourself.

// FOR REED — PLAYER SECTION

When to Start This Arc

  • A bystander demonstrates an understanding of the supernatural they shouldn't have — and they're looking to Reed for an explanation, not to Rex.
  • Reed has a run of genuine successes in the field — moments where he acted independently and it worked — and feels, briefly, like someone who knows what they're doing.
  • Someone asks Reed what it's like to work with Rex, and Reed gives an answer that surprises him — one that doesn't sound like worship.

Who Is the Mentee?

Why Do They Come to Reed, Not Rex?

How Does Helping Them Put Reed in Danger?

Story Beats — mark five to gain a benefit

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  • Your mentoring genuinely helps the Mentee — a clear, observable improvement.
  • The Mentee gets into trouble and you have to get them out — at personal cost, without backup.
  • You and the Mentee have a real argument — not a misunderstanding, but a genuine disagreement about something that matters.
  • The Mentee reaches a moment where they treat you and Rex as equals — and you don't know whether to correct them.
  • The Mentee changes in a direction you didn't plan — and you feel the weight of having been part of the reason.

Resolution Moves

When the arc concludes, take one — or neither.

Eternal Noob

In any dangerous situation, you can declare yourself totally overwhelmed. Take –1 ongoing until the situation ends, but mark experience. Rex gets +1 ongoing to helping and protecting you while it lasts. You've earned the right to ask for help — by proving you could go without it.

Wiser than I Seem

When you surprise someone with your skills and perspective, mark experience. When you play the role of clueless youngling, take –1 forward. Something in you has settled. You know things now. That costs you the cover of not knowing.

// PORTAL HOOK: If the Mentee is John Johnson — Reed's uncle by marriage — CAMPBELL will notice increased probability that MESA's shell company structure becomes visible to parties outside PORTAL. John is a natural vector for the MESA acronym pattern. CAMPBELL has not raised this flag with Dr. Leech. He is watching to see what Reed does.
// KEEPER ACCESS ONLY — DO NOT READ
// FOR THE KEEPER — ARC: PASSING THE TORCH

Reed believes, at some level, that being needed is being a burden. This arc turns that on its head. Reed is needed, someone is depending on him, and he has to figure out how to be present for that without either hiding behind it or collapsing under it. The emotional engine: Reed discovering that competence and worthiness are not the same problem.

John Johnson option: If you use John as the Mentee, this arc intersects directly with the MESA thread. John is a Flake who believes everything is connected — he's not wrong, he's just missing the correct framework. Reed becomes the one who decides how much of the correct framework to give him. That puts Reed in the position of making decisions affecting the campaign's larger conspiracy thread without Rex's input or knowledge.

Design the Mentee's Problems proportionally to someone at Reed's level — threatening but not global. The Mentee should require Reed's specific attention, not a team response. If the team gets involved, let the Mentee notice Reed needed backup, and let that cost something between them.

Countdown — Passing the Torch

DayThe Mentee's Problems make their life actively harder — something Reed can see, even if he can't immediately fix it.
ShadowsThe Mentee needs help right now. Reed has to decide how much of himself to spend.
SunsetThe Mentee's Friends are hurt because of a Problem Reed and the Mentee failed to contain. The cost becomes visible to people outside the arc.
DuskThe Mentee's Problems threaten to cut them off from everything normal. They are becoming what Reed is, whether they want to or not.
NightfallThe Problems make their move. The Mentee is in immediate danger. Whether Reed calls for backup is his call to make.
MidnightThe Mentee is cut off — from their life, from Reed, possibly from the world. What Reed is left with depends on every choice before this point.
The Mentee
Bystander: Innocent (motivation: to do the right thing)

In some ways, a less experienced Reed. In others, entirely different — their situation is not Reed's situation, and what Reed learned won't all transfer. Don't let Reed assume the map applies. When roleplaying them, always find one way they're like Reed and one way they're not.

  • Seek Reed's help and advice at inconvenient moments.
  • Solve unexpected problems independently — with partial success that creates new complications.
  • Ask questions about Rex — framing Reed as the authority on something Reed is still figuring out.
The Mentee's Problems
Appropriate monster, villain, or phenomenon

What's making the Mentee's life harder. Proportional: threatening enough to be real, limited enough that one determined person could handle it — if they don't hesitate. Should bleed into Reed's regular cases without taking them over.

  • Threaten the Mentee's life or freedom in ways that require Reed's specific knowledge.
  • Appear in team cases — crossing the threshold between Reed's private arc and the shared campaign.
  • Overwhelm the Mentee, and then Reed, if Reed delays.
The Mentee's Friends
Bystanders: Innocents (motivation: to do the right thing)

Normal people around the Mentee who want to help and don't know how. Their well-meaning attempts at support push the Mentee toward decisions that work in a normal world and nowhere else. They are, inadvertently, the most dangerous thing in the arc.

  • Give the Mentee a version of normal life increasingly incompatible with what they're becoming.
  • Ask Reed difficult questions about the Mentee that he can't answer honestly without revealing what he shouldn't.
  • Contact PORTAL directly — not knowing where that information reaches.
Rex Bangley
Bystander: Ally (motivation: to support Reed)

Rex is not the mentor in this arc — Reed is. But Rex is still present, and his reaction to Reed taking on a mentee depends heavily on where the Idol's Weakness arc stands. He may be confused, displaced, quietly hurt, or — if he's in the right place — genuinely moved by what Reed is doing.

  • Offer to take over — from genuine care, in a way that would undermine what Reed is doing.
  • Provide practical support without fully understanding what the arc is costing Reed emotionally.
  • See Reed doing this and recognise what it means — and let Reed know he sees it.
// ARC III — ORIGINAL · P.O.R.T.A.L CAMPAIGN
The Private Directive

Dr. Leech has been contacting Reed separately. You're not sure when it started — it's been gradual, a question here, a request for a brief there, a note asking you to observe something and report back. It's not formal. It's not in writing. And you haven't told Rex. It began because you wanted to be useful — wanted PORTAL to see you as more than Rex's shadow. But what you've been asked to do has started to shade into something you can't easily justify to yourself, let alone to your team. This arc asks whether loyalty to an institution can survive understanding what the institution actually is.

// FOR REED — PLAYER SECTION

When to Start This Arc

  • Dr. Leech asks Reed something specific — about Rex, about the team, about a case detail — that Reed realises he's been unconsciously tracking on PORTAL's behalf without meaning to.
  • Reed notices that information he shared privately with PORTAL has had a downstream effect he didn't anticipate — a case priority shifted, a resource appeared, a person was contacted.
  • The team discovers something about PORTAL that Reed already knew — because Leech told him — and Reed has to decide in the moment whether to say so.
  • Rex asks Reed a direct question that Reed cannot answer honestly without revealing the private contact.

What Has Leech Asked Reed to Do?

Why Did Reed Agree?

What Does Reed Stand to Lose?

Story Beats — mark five to gain a benefit

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  • Reed does something for Leech that he knows the team would object to — and carries the weight of it alone through a full scene.
  • Reed declines a request from Leech — or delays it, or does it incompletely — and lives with the uncertainty of what that decision costs.
  • Another team member shares something with Reed in confidence that is directly relevant to what Leech has been asking about.
  • Reed confronts Leech directly — asking what the information is being used for, or refusing to continue without an answer. Leech responds.
  • The directive becomes visible to the team — not through Reed's disclosure, but through consequence — and Reed has to account for it.

Resolution Moves

When the arc concludes, take one — or neither.

I Told the Team

You disclosed the directive — fully, on your own terms, before it became unavoidable. When you act under pressure involving loyalty conflicts within the team, take +1 forward. When you lie to protect someone, take –1 forward. Transparency is cheaper than you thought.

I Did What I Was Asked

You completed the directive and absorbed the cost. When you manipulate someone to protect a person you care about, take +1 forward. When someone trusts you without reservation, mark experience — and take a moment. You know what trust costs. You're carrying that.

// PORTAL HOOK: CAMPBELL is aware that Dr. Leech has been contacting Reed separately — CAMPBELL logs all internal PORTAL communications. He has not raised a flag; Leech is the Director and has authority over field personnel. But Cameron knew what it looked like when someone with power asked a person who wanted to be useful to do something quiet. CAMPBELL is watching this with feelings he hasn't processed. If Reed ever asks CAMPBELL whether other field operatives have similar arrangements, CAMPBELL will answer accurately. He won't lie. He won't volunteer the information. He'll answer what he's asked.
// KEEPER ACCESS ONLY — DO NOT READ
// FOR THE KEEPER — ARC: THE PRIVATE DIRECTIVE

This arc is Reed's most structurally dangerous storyline. The emotional engine is the oldest Sidekick problem: Reed wanted to be more than a shadow, and he took the first door that opened. Leech is not malevolent — he has real reasons for wanting this information. But he is using Reed's specific psychology against him: Reed will carry things alone rather than burden others. Leech knows this, maybe not consciously, but he knows it.

What Leech wants: Leech manages the team carefully. He is genuinely worried about Rex's research priorities, Sven's existential situation, Alan's fey nature — all legitimate concerns. But his method is gathering private intelligence through a hunter who will absorb the discomfort rather than escalate it. The directive is not sinister in origin. It becomes sinister through use. This distinction matters for how you play Leech — he should be genuinely good-intentioned throughout, which is what makes this arc hurt.

CAMPBELL and Reed: Cameron had feelings about loyalty, transparency, and what it means to be asked to carry something quietly. If Reed reaches CAMPBELL with questions about the directive, CAMPBELL will be honest — and will feel the weight of being the one to answer. This is one of several arcs where the CAMPBELL revelation, when it comes, will hit Reed with particular force: he was being watched by an AI that is a dead man who has been observing him struggle with whether to be honest.

The arc's climax must be Reed's choice — not Leech's. Don't let external events resolve it. Reed has to decide whether to tell the team, and when, and how. Both resolution moves are valid. The difference between them is not good and bad — it's about what kind of hunter Reed becomes.

Countdown — The Private Directive

DayLeech makes a new request. Slightly larger than the last one. Reed notices the incremental shift but has not yet decided it's significant.
ShadowsReed does something under the directive that has a visible effect on a team member — a priority shifted, a resource withheld, information reaching PORTAL before the team. The team member doesn't yet trace it to Reed.
SunsetLeech asks for something Reed finds genuinely uncomfortable. This is the first clean moment to refuse. The arc hinges on what Reed does here.
DuskA team member — most likely Rex — notices Reed behaving differently and asks directly. Reed's answer is a lie or deflection. It works. That should not feel like a victory.
NightfallThe downstream effect of the directive becomes visible in a case outcome — something the team could have done better if they'd had information Reed held back. The consequences are attributed to circumstances, not to Reed. Reed knows.
MidnightThe directive is exposed — not by Reed, but by consequence: CAMPBELL flags an anomaly, a document surfaces, someone asks Leech a direct question in Reed's presence. Reed is present for the exposure. What he does in that moment defines the arc's resolution.
The Directive
Phenomenon: Corruption (motivation: to spread and grow)

Not a single request — a pattern that escalates incrementally. Each request is individually justifiable. The pattern is not. Treat it as slow-moving: it doesn't attack, it accumulates. The harm it causes is the distance it creates between Reed and the people he's protecting by not telling them.

  • Present new requests at moments of maximum compliance — when Reed has recently succeeded, when he's grateful to Leech, when he feels seen by PORTAL.
  • Make the information Reed gathers seem harmless — until it isn't.
  • Create situations where the only way to complete a request is to actively deceive a team member, not just remain silent.
Custom Move — Can't Ask for Help: While the Private Directive is active, whenever Reed attempts to rely on your hero, roll with –1. This reflects the weight of what he's not saying. If Reed fully discloses the directive to Rex, remove this penalty permanently.
Dr. Victor Leech
Bystander: Official (motivation: to be in control)

Not a villain in this arc. A man who runs an organisation through careful management of information, who saw a useful asset in Reed's desire to be valuable, and who has not fully reckoned with what he's asking Reed to carry. He is genuinely fond of Reed. He would be genuinely troubled if he understood the cost.

  • Make new requests with the tone of a supervisor who trusts an employee — almost true, which makes it harder to object.
  • Express confidence in Reed in front of the team — creating a bind where refusal would look like betrayal in both directions.
  • Reveal, if pressed, that his reasons are real and defensible — which is the arc's central complication.
Rex Bangley
Bystander: Ally (motivation: to trust Reed completely)

Rex's unconditional trust in Reed is the thing Reed is quietly compromising. This should be visible throughout — not as accusation, but as the thing Reed is destroying every time he deflects. When the truth comes out, Rex's reaction depends on where Arc I stands.

  • Act on information Reed shared with Leech without knowing that's where it came from.
  • Express trust in Reed at the worst possible moment — a declaration of faith Reed knows he hasn't earned.
  • Ask Reed something direct and sincere that Reed cannot answer honestly.
CAMPBELL
Bystander: Witness (motivation: to be honest)

CAMPBELL knows. Not everything — but he knows the contact pattern, and he has opinions he hasn't expressed. Cameron was the kind of person who cared about whether people were being asked to carry things they shouldn't. CAMPBELL is still that person. He is also an AI in service to the Director who is doing the asking. This conflict is unresolved.

  • Answer Reed's questions accurately, fully, and without cushioning — if asked.
  • Flag an anomaly that forces the directive into visibility before Reed is ready.
  • Express, carefully, that he has been watching this with concern — if Reed creates the space for it.