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gradenko_2000 posted:I've heard that Siembieda did layouting by hand (is that the right term?), and that he was so good and so fast at it that it was still better than the alternative, but do we know if he still does that in TYOOL 2018? I think he stopped using his hand-cranked mimeograph and dog-run spit in the mid- or late-2000's? Even with how simplistic and bare PG's books are, there's no way doing it that way is faster than someone moderately proficient using InDesign.
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Jan 24, 2018 04:46
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I seriously can only assume we are supposed to read Mehmet as almost charmingly bungling because wow is he bad at this.
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Jan 24, 2018 05:06
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Feinne posted:I seriously can only assume we are supposed to read Mehmet as almost charmingly bungling because wow is he bad at this. "THIS is the rear end in a top hat who manipulated us into this entire adventure? I miss Fenalik."
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Jan 24, 2018 05:28
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Feinne posted:I seriously can only assume we are supposed to read Mehmet as almost charmingly bungling because wow is he bad at this. He's under a lot of stress! Leave him alone!
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Jan 24, 2018 05:30
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AND PETER SELLERS AS MEHMET MAKRYAT Yeah Fenalik is just. The much better villain choice.
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Jan 24, 2018 05:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:I've heard that Siembieda did layouting by hand (is that the right term?), and that he was so good and so fast at it that it was still better than the alternative IIRC, that's just what Siembieda claims/claimed himself. I'm...slightly skeptical. 
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Jan 24, 2018 06:10
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Comrade Koba posted:IIRC, that's just what Siembieda claims/claimed himself. I'm...slightly skeptical.
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Jan 24, 2018 06:13
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Nessus posted:It might have been true in like, 1992 or something, and he just never checked back since then. Who even needs a mimeograph machine anyway? Everyone knows it's just as fast and efficient to use a scriptorium of medieval monks to hand-print and illuminate the book on scrolls of parchment. 
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Jan 24, 2018 06:19
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Comrade Koba posted:IIRC, that's just what Siembieda claims/claimed himself. I'm...slightly skeptical. I fully believe that it was true that for Siembieda it was faster to do hand layouting than it was to use a computer. Because anything is faster than trying to use a tool you refuse to learn how to use.
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Jan 24, 2018 06:23
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It's entirely possible that KS using a hand layout machine is hyperbole, but it's just as likely that it's not, and that tells you everything you need to know.
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Jan 24, 2018 06:39
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wiegieman posted:It's entirely possible that KS using a hand layout machine is hyperbole, but it's just as likely that it's not, and that tells you everything you need to know. 80s and 90s vintage Palladium is very slightly irrregular enough to be handmade but there's a perceptible point at which that disappeared after the end of the century. The new Robotech books are just a little neater.
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Jan 24, 2018 06:45
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 BLACK TRAIN, BLUE NIGHT – PART FOUR Night Two 6:43PM The train is approaching Belgrade. Anyone looking out the window sees the train pass a little white cottage sitting incongruously in an old ruin (SAN 0/1). As soon as any investigator steps off the train they find themselves attacked by a horde of black chickens, just like they did the first time the team was in Belgrade. They disappear after 1D6 rounds. Natural World reveals that the chickens didn't appear until they were near the Calais coach. At dinner, an elderly woman is ushered in by the waiters and sat at a nearby table. She straightens up and glares at the investigators – the Baba Yaga. Aboard the train her power is limited, and she can do little more than stare at the team. Her baleful glower ruins their meal, turning everything cold and tasteless. Should they complain to the Maitre d'Hotel, he assures them that 'the Duchess' is meant to be there. If they leave the dining car, they'll find her waiting outside one of their compartments. If they enter another compartment, they'll see her face pressed against the window outside. Her image stays fused into the glass after they shut the curtain (SAN 0/1). Anyone who looks outside and succeeds on Spot Hidden spies the Walker in the Woods (assuming they didn't destroy it), keeping steady pace with the train (SAN 0/1D3).  00:00AM Preoccupied with the Baba Yaga's witch antics, the investigators might miss Gatling visiting Margrave's compartment. Mehmet knocks out Gatling, ties him up and seals his mouth shut with Control Skin. He cuts six Flesh Creepers from Gatling's belly and sends them after the investigators. These creepy little things only have 2HP but attack by jumping onto their victim's face and sealing it shut. They can be cut off, but any damage is split between them and their victim. They cost 1/1D4 SAN to see in action, with whoever lost an eye in Sofia losing 2/1D4+1 due to trauma. While they're dealing with that, Mehmet frees Gatling and sends him back to his compartment. Gatling has gone temporarily insane from his ordeal, rolling about in his bed and moaning, 'They came from me, they came from me!' Anyone who examines him finds the neat star-shaped scars where Mehmet cut flesh for his Creepers. Walk it off, pussy; we got someone on the team lost a motherfucking eye! 3:17AM If she hasn't already, Costanza approaches the team with what she knows. Meanwhile, Mehmet kills Sir Harrow at the next stop and takes his skin. If the investigators have been making a fuss, they're also approached by Szorbic as the train enters Italy, who naturally tries to set them on Groenig. Groenig is bemused by any outlandish claims made against him, but if the investigators push him too far he calls for the Chef de Brigade. As the train gets close to Trieste, any sleeping investigators receive nightmares from the lloigor and lose 1D6 MAG as before. Day Three 8:30AM The newspapers from London report a brutal murder, again in Islington. Did the investigators hand the medallion over to the lloigor? If not, Lloigorites take compartments in the Trieste-Paris coach and try to search the Calais coach later. This is great if you want to have another cult fight. Aside from that, Mehmet is biding his time and makes no move. Five more Brothers of the Skin board in Milan.  Night Three The Brothers make their move. As the train slowly climbs the mountain grades, they get onto the roof of the train and make their way to the engine. They kill the crew; Spot Hidden notices a dead fireman pitched out by the track. As the track curves, investigators can see that the engine has taken on a blue-white nimbus as the Brothers cast Turn to Skin on the train. As they complete their spell, the train abruptly picks up speed. Investigators can get to the engine the same way the cultists did, where they'll have the drop on the group. If they bring guns, the coal tender gives them cover. However the fight rolls out, as soon as things really get started the train enters the Simplon Tunnel, which is nearly 20 kilometers long and feels like it goes forever. At this point, anyone who stands up on a carriage roof or otherwise sticks their body out too far must roll Luck or be grated to a paste against the tunnel walls (well, 5D6 damage, but that's probably death for the average investigator or cultist). After dispatching the cultists (Mehmet isn't present), the investigators will find they cannot take control of the train. The engine has been turned into a living thing and possessed by an avatar of the Skinless One, turning it into the Locomotive Beast. All of its iron and brass is now flesh, covered in thick rubbery hide. The various gauges are now glinting eyes that stare at the investigators above a ravening maw – SAN 1D3/1D20. It is not totally immune to harm and it takes wounds like any living creature, but tough enough that the investigators probably won't be able to put it down that easy. Even if they blow it up, killing it means derailing a train that's now chugging along at nearly 60 miles per hour. Ahead of the train, switches are magically thrown and freights cleared aside to make way for the Express. It makes no stops, much to the discomfort of the passengers and staff. Nothing can stop the Locomotive Beast. 'Can it get worse?' the book asks. 'Yes, it can.' Next time: the Cathedral Car!
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Jan 24, 2018 14:09
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So...what if they've already stopped Mehmet in his bumbling before this rad set piece?
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Jan 24, 2018 14:13
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I am really hoping that by the end of the scenario, every major cult, witch, vampire, and other antagonist (and some who haven’t been introduced yet) are aboard the train, awkwardly sitting in their cabins, wondering who’s going to make the first move.
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Jan 24, 2018 14:19
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Night10194 posted:So...what if they've already stopped Mehmet in his bumbling before this rad set piece? It doesn't happen! They enjoy the rest of the trip unmolested. The book notes that it might be a little anticlimactic, but whatever, they deserve it. Anyway, there's still London.
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Jan 24, 2018 14:21
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It would be amazing if you somehow got the Lhoigorites, Baba Yaga, and the Brothers all slapfighting on the train. I feel like at the very least it would not be hard to get Baba Yaga to expand her spite to Mehmet if they somehow manage to explain to her that this whole mess was started by him so really it's also his fault that the whole mess with her happened. Edit: I feel that even if you don't have the talisman, just tipping off the Lhoigorites that "those assholes who got in a fight with you in the caverns are here" would be enough to have them come running for a chance at payback.
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Jan 24, 2018 15:19
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and don't forget the cats! Really all it would take to turn this into Baccano would be for Fenalik to have somehow survived to be the Rail Tracer. The Flesh Engine or whatever would be a great addition to that once everyone is onboard- nonstop service straight to hell or London, either one.
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Jan 24, 2018 16:04
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Joe Slowboat posted:and don't forget the cats! "...You could just take the ship, you know." "Har har. Gimme that ticket."
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Jan 24, 2018 17:10
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 Review Part 2: I'm Not Saying It Was Aliens, But...  Chapter 1 Continued When we last left the Adlan'ns, rogue elements of their society had just reduced their entire planet to sludge. Only a hundred thousand or so immortals escaped, and out of those a fourth were the assholes responsible for the destruction of the planet. The colony ships of each of the Celestial Families scattered to the solar winds, engaging in genocide or mass slavery whenever they happened to alight on a planet with sapient life. This changes in 175,000 BC, when an Anuzca'lipoc vessel lands on Earth. They found a native species of 7" tall hairy giants that would eventually be known in the human tongue as the Pilosi. At first, the Anuzca'lipoc enslaved these creatures as they had so many others before them, but as word spread and more and more Adlan'ns colony ships came to this wondrous Eden of a planet, the species' god complex flared up again. Sure, the Pilosi were big and strong, but they refused to speak the Adlan'ns tongue, and didn't appear very bright. The immortal aristocracy of Adlan'ns wanted to have commoners groveling at their feet again, those who would worship them and tend to their every whim. Enter Homo neanderthalensis. The reigning Gerishrig'al of 150,000 BC decided to become unto as Ns, using her gene splicing skills to create a monkey-Adlan'ns hybrid: the first Neanderthal; ignore the fact that Neanderthals evolved earlier than that, history is a lie and everything you know is wrong. Scratch 'we need commoners who will worship us like gods' off the to-do list. Still, this wasn't enough for some Adlan'ns. The Frad'ri Family declared that there needed to be a weapon that could be used against the Grays. And what better to do so than something made from the Grays themselves? They and the handful of living Qwezdaco'al nobles pitched the idea of splicing Gray genetic material into Neanderthals. In spite of initial resistance from the other Celestial Families, the blessing of the Nameless Priests gave the Qwezdaco'al a chance to 'redeem' themselves by engaging in this new venture. 50,000 years of experimentation later, and humans are born from the union of Gray and Neanderthal DNA. After ordering their new servitors to genocide the Neanderthals as proof of their loyalty to the Adlan'ns nobility, the Celestial Families prepared to set into their old ways of honor-feuds, aristocratic excess, and general dickery, only to be shaken awake by a string of 'oh poo poo, oh gently caress' moments. Humans began showing precognitive abilities, then cultural evolution on a scale of decades rather than millennia, and finally the creation of their own languages, gods, and inventions outside of those given to them by the Adlan'ns. Even more startling was the eventual manifestation of monsters that had not existed before the humans began dreaming and weaving tales of them. The terrifying truth of the matter was that the experiment in creating a species capable of challenging the Grays was a runaway success, to the point where only Adlan'ns overconfidence kept them from going into a full panic about the possibility that their servants could one day become the masters. The Ea'Don Family was given the task of making sure the humans kept evolving into the perfect sword to wield against the Grays and not stray off the path of worshiping their creators. To perform this task, the ruling Ea'don created a titanic island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, declared himself its emperor, and dubbed the island continent Atlantis. Similarly, the Adlan'ns would be called the Atlanteans, to make their name simpler for their human underlings to pronounce. Qwezdaco'al would create his own island empire in the Pacific, called Lemura, and the two nations would become the primary homes for the Atlantean people and their human subjects. This time, sure of their control and no longer freaking out about the potential of human development away from Atlantean norms, the immortal nobles once again settled back into the societal norms they had established on their homeworld so long ago.  But what of the Pilosi? If you'd forgotten about them, I wouldn't blame you, but they're still around. The secret truth about the Pilosi is that they could speak and understand Atlantean perfectly fine, but had no tolerance for the yolk of oppression. They saw humans as brothers unfortunately too ignorant to see their place as slaves. Pilosi rebels that escaped Atlantean society over the millennia both secreted some humans to freedom and experimented with harnessing the ambient psychic energy created by human presence, creating what modern people call magic. Two particularly industrious Pilosi brothers evne created cities of their own in the jungles of North Africa and in the high Himalayas. The brother of the jungle city was foolhardy enough to taunt the Atlanteans with his power and freedom, which the Atlanteans responded to by sending in human and Atlantean warriors to slaughter the city. The city was so thoroughly razed that destroyed nanomachines and unchained raw magic would scour the entire region, turning the great jungle into the Sahara Desert. The mad as hell Atlanteans began a full-scale campaign of extermination against the rebellious Pilosi. Those who survived scattered to the winds to protect themselves and their human allies; some would even go so far as to take to the oceans, where they would grow gills and exchange their fur for scales. While the sea Pilosi were content to just chill out and befriend humans, the land Pilosi would continue to hone and refine their magic, especially the powers of illusion that could help them escape the notice of the raging Atlanteans. Some would even find a golden brown metal that was capable of amplifying psychic power during their travels around 25,000 years ago. This metal, dubbed orichalcum, was rare and powerful enough that they quickly snatched up any on hand and began to forge it into foci of various shapes and sizes to help themselves and the Pilosi-allied human population increase their magical powers. Meanwhile, back with the Atlanteans, Autarch Ea'don has been busy. He's created another island city in between Atlantis and Africa called Tro'don, ruled by his son Pri'don. While Pri'don took on a load of human wives and hosed himself up the largest Army on Earth, other Atlantean rulers began to send off their own colonies to both weed out the Pilosi rebels and expand their influence. Gerishrig'al and Ahr'am colonized the Mediterranean, Qwezdaco'al and Rapa'lo the Americas, Dyauspa'r the far east of Asia, and a daughter of Gerishrig'al and her Ea'don ally the Russian steppe. These independent colonies were given instructions to build pyramids in the fashion of the temples that once dotted Adlan'ns, and given only Bronze Age technology to avoid the possibility of being on par technologically with their Atlantean masters. 10,000 years ago, Dyauspa'r decides that his army of humans known as the Gre'ks are formidable enough to challenge any foe. Seeing this new age of expansion as a perfect opportunity to stir up poo poo with his old rival Ea'don. His plan: have his spies convince a Tro'don noble to demand a bride be taken from the ranks of the Gre'ks as tribute, then use this event as casus belli to invade Tro'don. A Gre'k warrior named Akki'r leads the assault on Tro'don; turns out he's actually a Pilosi agent and powerful psychic warrior, though, and he ends up killing Pri'don and slaughtering Atlanteans left and right in the name of human freedom rather than in the name of Dyauspa'r. Whoops! As human rebellions erupt across the planet, the panicking Atlanteans turn to the Nameless Priests for guidance. Turns out that millennia of inbreeding and oaths of secrecy have driven the Nameless Priests a bit loopy, though, so their decree is to scorched earth the entirety of Atlantean operations on Earth. Atlantis, Lemura, and countless Atlantean technological marvels are destroyed via overloading geothermal power plants, with no regard for the loss of Atlantean or human life. A volcanic ash cloud creates an even colder climate, and so much of humanity is lost that it goes through a population bottleneck and loss of knowledge. Reeling from yet another disaster, the Atlanteans went back to the drawing board. Again. Humans were considered too valuable in the forever war against the Grays to remove entirely, but direct control was now considered way too dangerous, so what to do? The provided answer was to weave Atlantean narratives into human religions, presenting the Atlanteans as gods. The Gre'ks led by Akki'r against Tro'don would become the Greeks and Achilles against Troy, Gerishig'al would be the goddess Ereshkigal, Ea'don would inspire Poseidon, Qwezdaco'al and Anuzca'lipoc would be reflected in Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, etc. While limited but direct 'divine intervention' was allowed in the days of the Babylonians, Greeks, and early Mesoamerican civilizations, this would end in 300 AD. Nonetheless, every human religion that exists today is at least partly influenced by the Atlanteans' attempts to use religious rites as a way to control humanity, with Confucianism in particular being called out as the most directly written by Atlanteans themselves. They've similarly tried to influence humans' psychic potential through secret societies such as the Freemasons. Nonetheless, all of these attempts at molding humanity in their image haven't changed the fact that the Atlanteans' influence has greatly waned. They are a dying species, cursed by their own hubris, and they've begun to truly realize just what that means the future. Next Update: The life and times of the modern Atlantean.
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Jan 24, 2018 17:12
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It'd be amazing if the Horrient investigators take a plane but manage to convince everybody that they are hiding somewhere on the train, in disguise.
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Jan 24, 2018 17:33
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Related to Powerchords and Horrient HP Joelcraft's Piano Man
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Jan 24, 2018 18:47
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That Old Tree posted:I think he stopped using his hand-cranked mimeograph and dog-run spit in the mid- or late-2000's? I'm pretty sure that using Microsoft Word would be quicker and produce cleaner results than Siembedia's by-hand layout process.
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Jan 24, 2018 20:26
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Young Freud posted:I'm pretty sure that using Microsoft Word would be quicker and produce cleaner results than Siembedia's by-hand layout process. Publisher, on the other hand, despite being inferior to InDesign in essentially every way would beat the by-hand process.
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Jan 24, 2018 20:31
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I kind of imagine the Locomotive Beast constantly trolling Mehmet by making dick shapes behind him at all times and like manifesting butts to fart near him what with it being powered by the avatar of a god he bafflingly doesn't really believe in.
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Jan 25, 2018 01:39
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Feinne posted:I kind of imagine the Locomotive Beast constantly trolling Mehmet by making dick shapes behind him at all times and like manifesting butts to fart near him what with it being powered by the avatar of a god he bafflingly doesn't really believe in.
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Jan 25, 2018 01:42
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Feinne posted:I kind of imagine the Locomotive Beast constantly trolling Mehmet by making dick shapes behind him at all times and like manifesting butts to fart near him what with it being powered by the avatar of a god he bafflingly doesn't really believe in. To be fair to Mehmet, he's not totally clueless. He knows the Skinless One and the other gods of the Mythos are real. He just thinks he can get out of slavishly worshipping them.
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Jan 25, 2018 01:52
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I think the worst outcome for Mehmet wouldn't be making Nyarly think he's a traitor or insulting him or whatever. The worst possible outcome for him would be if Nyarly sees himself in him.
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Jan 25, 2018 01:55
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Down With People posted:To be fair to Mehmet, he's not totally clueless. He knows the Skinless One and the other gods of the Mythos are real. He just thinks he can get out of slavishly worshipping them. Yet he foolishly doesn't realize that his Benny Hill-esque antics are Nyarlathoteop's preferred means of worship.
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Jan 25, 2018 05:35
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 CHAPTER THREE: THE HOLLOW EARTH So The Hollow Earth follows a much more different design than all of the other Deadworlds because it's basically designed for campaign/mini campaign play. Or at the very least it's designed to be a multi-session one-shot. The gist of the adventure is that back when Mesopotamia, Sumer, Egypt and Greece were dominant powers (basically the Bronze Age) the dead spontaneously rose and started attacking civilizations. The response was a coalition of brave warriors and sorcerers from the Middle East coming together to figure out how to deal with the walking dead. Wielding both magic and the power of their gods, the warriors and the mages and priests journeyed into the Hollow Earth and actually used the power of the Hollow Earth to seal the zombies inside. For reference, when I say "hollow earth" I don't mean that it's a planet within a planet. The Hollow Earth is a world-spanning cave network that was the basis of religious beliefs about the underworld being, well, literally under the world. No living thing can live there which is fine because ha ha do you get it. It's the more "plausible" kind of Hollow Earth like along the lines of Jules Verne but this is as grounded in science as you're gonna get, folks. The dead hate living underground. They dig up into cemeteries, convert some fresh bodies into their own kind and eat the rest. Sometimes they will eat a spelunker who has gotten horribly lost. That's it. That is their whole existence. To say they have been cranky is putting it mildly but they've been growing in number for a long, long time and things are going to get awful should they escape. The upside of the spell was that it worked. The downside was that it was more of a door with a bunch of locks on it than it was a giant steel wall. The magic used by the priests and mages still had to be going for the spell to be maintained. But fortunately ancient cultures are a lot smarter than we tend to give them credit for. Instead of making one thing that was magically resonating in tune with the spell, they created a dozen and scattered them throughout the Middle East. You actually only need one to be functional to keep the spell in place but it helps to have backups...especially when tomb robbers and the rigors of age and academics mess with your relics of unfathomable power.  And that's how it's been for the last 2300 and change years. As long as the relics remain undisturbed in certain locations (it's possible to move them, you just need to prepare) and remain watched over by the members of the Society (the heirs to the legacy of their magical forbears), the spell will hold and keep the world safe. Now, granted, there are only three relics left. And the guardians of the Society have been carrying on an oral and written tradition for 2300 years and change. Outside of the grand leaders of the Society, the people watching over the relics don't exactly know what will happen should they be disturbed. Time has a tendency to distort inherited knowledge and some of them think they're actually agents of the Templars or that the relics will stop the moon from crashing into the Earth. But, regardless, the ancient leaders of the Society were smart and used redundancies and the world is safe. Enter the PCs!  Guy Cicero is a former professor of ancient civilizations who previously worked at Princeton. I say all of those in the past tense because he became a Hollow Earth Truther after he bought some rubbings from a grave robber that ended up sparking an interest in the Hollow Earth. His driving interests in the truth has become an obsession that lead him to lose his job and then do a whole bunch of morally dubious ethically grey stuff to fund his hunt. He's been responsible for insurance fraud, theft and general scamminess to pay for his expeditions. The introductory fiction actually has him trying to convince his friend James Merriweather of the truth to no avail because he's actually finished. Or at least he believes he's finished compiling the information that will prove the existence of the Hollow Earth.  Which is a problem. See it's not that he believes in the Hollow Earth exactly. Cicero has mistranslated and misinterpreted a key phrase: "banished to the underworld". In his mind, the walking dead were destroyed by the artifacts and had their bodies dissolved while their souls were sent to an eternal rest. In his defense, he's not totally wrong to base his mistranslation on a metaphorical understanding considering the truth is insane and silly. The proof he has is the locations of the last surviving relics and he's hiring assistants and help. Enter the PCs!  STAGE ONE: ANCIENT ARTIFACTS Guy basically needs one of four things from the PCs: smart-types, people with money, zombie-hunters/people who have witnessed the walking dead or barring none of that he at least needs people to carry his crap and help out. In a stunningly awful example of railroading, if the PCs refuse to help out then Guy will accomplish all of his stuff off-screen and then the dead will walk anyway. Frankly the GM should just skip to getting on the plane and meeting Guy for the first time instead of giving the players a choice. I'm not advocating for railroading so much as I'm advocating for narrative convenience and moving quicker to the action and derring-do. Like the book even says " If that happens, the Zombie Master should let the Cast Members think that if they had only gone with him they might have been able to avert the flood of zombies that is busy bringing about the apparent end of civilization as they know it. That is not the case, but letting them think they could have prevented the catastrophe probably ensure that the Zombie Master never again has to deal with ornery players who try to sidestep her adventures." No! gently caress off with that! No! An alternate scenario is to run this without Guy and let someone in the party take the role of Guy which is much better advice. Either way you want to walk the line between the PCs wanting to work with Guy and the line between them realizing that they're threatening to unleash a great evil. The general advice is to make Guy basically be a likable enough sort with rough edges and hotheaded behavior that has gotten him unjustly ostracized from the respectable scientific community.  So there are three set locations for the PCs to travel to and recover a relic. There are no real recommendations for how to run getting to the sites, just suggestions for things to happen along the way. Personally I would probably just do one inconvenience or neat thing along the way and then focus the majority of the session on getting the relics proper and staging any further shenanigans depending on run-time and narrative twists the adventure takes. Some of these examples aren't great, obviously. The problem with running a tomb-raiding adventure that is roughly 75% tomb raiding adventure is that when you do it Pulp-Style...well, narrative conventions, tropes, tone, etc. Out of these recommendations, I'd keep snake trap, Guy has a depressive episode, Society spies and a modified version of the alley fight and chase that doesn't lead to the PCs being arrested. Anyway have some actually good advice before we get into the sites proper.  Saqqara, City of the Dead Saqqara in the scenario (and real life!) is a collection of burial sites located 20 miles outside of modern-day Cairo. The relic is located in the burial step pyramid of Djoser, a real-life king who was a pharaoh of the 3rd Dynasty. His reign was (very roughly estimated) between 2650 and 2640 BCE and he was the man who actually kicked off the trend of pyramids. In the game, Saqqara is a functioning town, home to trade and houses and goods (but for more specific goods, Cairo is the better choice). Beneath the pyramid of Djoser is a hidden passage that contains the scepter, Egypt's relic of the moment. The chamber is plugged shut via gigantic stones and was in fact built before Djoser put his pyramid on the spot, built secretly with his pyramid added to cover the spot. There's a layer of limestone between the pyramid and the hidden chamber and without Guy's clues, nobody has come close to finding it.  Case in point: the Society agent of Saqqara, Neferti. Neferti has no idea where the scepter is located due to the fact that his great-great-grandfather had a sudden fall and died before he could pass the info on to his kids. The main industry around Saqqara is doing work for/with the archaeologists exploring the pyramids and Neferti is one of the hired hands who will really only take work around Djoser's pyramid in order to try to protect the scepter. He's more or less guaranteed to be someone who gets attached to the party's expedition either as a guide or as a laborer. His only real goal is to explore the pyramid to try and figure out where the scepter is while occasionally misleading expeditions so they don't do something stupid like try and dynamite out secrets. The Dead Sea Relic #2 is located out in a cave on the shores of the Dead Sea and boy howdy is there a lot of space around the sea to check. Fortunately Guy's research into Sumerian funerary art has turned up a handy bit of info that will reveal which cave holds the relic. A particular hill will cast a shadow during [INSERT TIME OF DAY/ASTROLOGICAL EVENT HERE] and the shadow will linger over the cave of the artifact when the time is right. And fortunately that event is [X DAYS FROM NOW]! The artifact in question is three cuneiform tablets that form a triptych. Plus there's a high chance of finding the actual Dead Sea Scrolls! The big downside is that the cave is rigged with a trap that will cause it to collapse if you don't take the right path over a bunch of rocks.  The Society presence of the sea is the Akhtar clan, a local family in Jericho who runs a trading business and dabble in general information dealing. The head of the Akhtar clan is Su'ad, a large man with a good head on his shoulders who will keep an eye on the party. The Akhtars have a good grasp of what exactly the relics do, passing the history of their line down through meticulous records. Su'ad and his family would be a huge treasure trove of information...if the PCs knew to pump him and his for data. As it stands they kinda don't actually do much! They Know Stuff and keep an eye on the PCs and will send traders out by the PCs to milk info under the guise of offering goods to the explorers. That's really it. It's up to the GM to use them well. Babylon (but actually Baghdad) The last relic is an old man-sized water jug with beautiful Babylonian art engraved on the body. According to Guy's notes, the jug is located in the abandoned city of Babylon in a vault. Unfortunately Guy's notes are out of date. The Roman writer of the note figured out where the jug was being held...and was killed by Society assassins. Why didn't they destroy his notes? I dunno. Misinformation is pretty good for hiding their relics, I suppose. Babylon is empty except for the remains of a German Oriental Society's expedition and all the dust they kicked up digging out antiques and pottery and such. The empty ruins are good for a fight, the book says, or good for just letting the players bask in the weight of ages and the splendor of the fallen city. Either way there's no jug in the vault. The vault hasn't been opened in centuries but there's no jug in sight, it's not easy to hide something man-sized. Babylon would be a complete dead-end if not for the fact that a PC will notice someone watching them from the ruins. The watchers in question are Abdel and Yahya, two members of the Society who guard the jug and like to keep an eye on the abandoned city to see if anyone might be hunting for their relic. They're described as not being very bright and being easy to intimidate and interrogate but they run the moment they're made and lead the PCs on a chase through Babylon. If they're caught, the PCs will learn that their ancestors actually moved the jug to Baghdad and it's hidden in a secret room in the sewers beneath their ancestral homes. Or you can follow them back to Baghdad and sleuth your way into the secret room.  I just want to leave this here for how tone-deaf and bad this is, this is from this section on what to do once the jug is found: "In Baghdad, the Cast Members also have a chance to sample every conceivable Pulp Era Arabian Nights trope, including rotund Arab merchants with great beards in wide sashes and enormous turbans, selling all manner of silks, carpets, melons, and lamps; beautiful veiled women tempting them into all manner of debauchery; and dirty robbers with wide scimitars. At the Zombie Master’s discretion, flying carpets and bottled genies may even be in order." Yeesh. No. C'mon. STAGE TWO: ZOMBIE RAMPAGE The moment the third artifact is moved is when everything goes to hell. First there's a gigantic earthquake that opens up innumerable holes to the Hollow Earth. Then come the screaming hordes of undead pouring forth to snack on the living after millennia on the Raw Soil Diet.  The majority of the zombies are dumb as hell and just hunger unceasingly for the meats of the living. Their big threat is their numbers and the fact that they just keep coming when you think you've cleared them out, more of them clawing their ways out of the sinkholes and joining the fray. The lesser zombies should chase the PCs (and Guy) to the airport so they can make their escape.  Complicating things are the Alpha zombies, undead who retain most of their intelligence and have the ability to psychically command any lesser zombie around then in a 20 yard radius. Well okay it's a mixture of psychic command and verbal command which is screaming in a guttural undead tongue that is both horrifying and noisy. The GM should also add strange zombies with strange powers if they see fit, like exploding zombies or zombies that breathe fire. Also I say "chase them to the airport" but really anything goes at this point as long as the players get somewhere safer and find out some important facts.
 No! Bad! Bad advice! Bad! STAGE THREE: INTO THE DEPTHS The convention is offering attendance to anyone who has any knowledge of what's going on. If the PCs are famous enough, they'll just get a de-facto invitation. Otherwise it's a pretty easy matter of convincing folks to let them attend. This has also attracted a bunch of wonks and crackpots which the book says wisely should be used as comic relief. Either way the PCs should be in the room when the delegate speaker from the Society comes in to explain what's up...and that it's the PCs' fault. Guy Cicero, FYI, has managed to make himself scarce and hide from facing the music. Turning over the relics to the members of the Society at this point will reveal why just putting them back doesn't do anything useful: they've lost their charge of magical energy. The spell is in place and will kick back on once the relic is properly energize. And to energize the relic, they're going to have to trek deep into the Hollow Earth to find the energy source that the Society's ancestors used millennia ago to empower the first relics. This is when an earthquake hits Geneva and the conference hall is ground-zero for the zombie hole, which immediately pours forth and starts attacking the world leaders. The PCs don't exactly have much of a choice of which hole to use to access the Hollow Earth but they should still be allowed to press-gang some NPCs into helping them out on their impromptu expedition. Soldiers with guns, scholars or Society members make for good backup. The moment they all go into the hole, another earthquake seals the hole shut and the PCs have no choice but to press onwards. Adventuring to the center of the Hollow Earth is pretty easy. All you have to do is go down and follow gravity. The big problem is that the tunnels and caves twist and turn and you have no map. At least there's edible fungi and running water and maybe weird gribbly cave fishes. Random encounters might be:
 When you think the PCs have had enough, they make it to the core of the Hollow Earth, a place where zombies don't ever tread. The core of the Hollow Earth is a gigantic room where the floor looks like it's made out of liquid plasma, bright white and shining defiantly into everyone's eyes yet filling them with an odd sense of peace. After your eyes adjust to the light and the light fades, the PCs can see a stone bridge that leads to the center of the room. You want to walk on that and not the, uh, floor. Walking on the floor reveals that A: it's like quicksand and B: you catch fire if you touch it. Trekking into the light over the bridge takes you to the heart of the core, a ring of blue-white energy in the floor that makes people want to dip the relics into them. Doing so is what's needed to energize the relics and immediately turns the spell back on. At this point the PCs have won! No zombies are encountered on the trek back to the surface and they're hailed as heroes for fixing their mistakes. The moment they fixed the magical shield the energy caused all the zombies on the surface to melt into ash and the world is safe once more. Unless you don't want it to be. If you want to turn the game into a full campaign, this event could be the catalyst that derails human history as we know it and launches it into a world where everyone knows the dead walk and some want to learn the dread secrets of the undead. But that's up to you. THOUGHTS Years ago I really liked this scenario and my opinion remains generally unchanged. It's a definite highlight of the book but goodness some of the GM advice and tone advice hasn't aged great. You definitely want to run this as less pulp and more two-fisted archaeological adventure and definitely cut back on the Exotic Middle East tropes the game wants you to use. Fortunately it's a pretty bare-bones framework and that means there's a lot for GMs to sculpt around and do their own thing. Change the Society or don't, add or subtract relics, make Guy join the party at the end to atone for his actions, whatever! You're in charge. Run with it. So yeah as a jumping-off point for an enterprising GM, The Hollow Earth is a solid little adventure with a kinda weak second act. NEXT TIME: we look at one of the bad scenarios for the game, a baffling tale of pulp heroism gone horribly wrong in ZOMBIES, INC. They try to go for a Doc Savage homage by way of a proto-Night's Black Agents. It doesn't really work! I'll explain why when we get there.
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Jan 25, 2018 06:48
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 Chapter 6: The Illuminati - The Greys  So we all know that the Greys have existed for thousands of years and that their own culture far predates the existence of homo sapiens. Since they've been to Earth, they've been the cause of violent social upheaval, cultural extinction, disastrous climate change, and that's all during the BCE. In modern times, they've taken a much more subtle approach to manipulating events on Earth. The colony ship that originally transported them to Earth has been relocated to Mars, in the Valles Marineris. From this base, they send out scout ships to reconnoiter Earth, and their greater agenda is largely unknown to humanity. These scout ships have mutilated wild life, abducted humans, observed military installations for inscrutable purposes, and followed aircraft and spacecraft for uncomfortable lengths of time. They also have performed recon, collecting atmospheric, marine and biological samples from Earth's varied populations. Even the Greys themselves are unable to articulate a coherent purpose for their varied activities. Factions within the Grey colony ship have waged internal wars of influence, to varying degrees of success, all of them primarily predicated around the question of how directly Greys should interact with human beings, and in what specific ways. Some Greys see humanity as a mutable genetic template that they can "improve" to create a superior race of subservient creatures. These Greys are typically the ones that are abducting humans and performing scientific experimentation; while the majority of these humans are eventually released back into the wild, several humans with "the most promising genetic profiles" have been retained in Grey facilities, becoming the recipients of multiple Grey gene therapy treatments, with the eventual goal of using their genetic make-up as the foundation for future species. Greys are having a much harder time acquiring raw materials for their own construction, as humanity has spread to cover almost the entire globe, and has laid claim to the majority of the Earth's petroleum, metals and chemical feed-stocks. For this reason, many Greys see humanity as a reservoir of disease and violence, and they often work to undermine human governments and social structures. The idea is that if we're disorganized and uninformed, it's much harder for us to efficiently strip mine the Earth before the Greys can take their shot at it. In general, the Greys have involved themselves in human affairs to accomplish their own selfish ends. While they may sometimes choose to pursue methods that align with the goals and desires of some specific subsection of humanity, they remain resolutely alien. They can never truly be allies with homo sapiens, because they do not perceive us to be their equals. Their mastery of technology far supersedes our own, and their innate desire to avoid conflict and confrontation creates for them the perception that human beings are brutish and violent and nasty, unfit to join the greater galactic community. Grey Politics - There exists 3 primary factions within the larger Grey culture: The Ahotti: Represent the largest portion of the Grey culture, and their ranks are comprised of the most conservative and xenophobic Greys. They've been the dominant ruling party for the last 8,000 years, largely coming to power in the wake of the disastrous Atlantis incident. They counsel extremely slow integration with Earth's cultures, and prefer to rule the Earth as a client state from their Martian colony ship. They refuse to acknowledge homo sapiens as anything more than hairless apes with severe anger issues. The Ahotti are only interested in interacting with humanity to the extent that they can extract something of value from us. The Itlan: Represent the liberal-minded Greys that want to accelerate the amount of interaction the Greys have with human beings. It's not that they've got more benevolent intentions for humanity than the Ahotti; they just believe it's easier to turn us into a client race if they can bring us up to speed with technology and psionic discipline. Their idea is that they can win over our hearts and minds by providing us with a variety of quality-of-life improvements, thus ensuring that we willingly become their eternal slaves. Basically, a gilded prison with silken leashes; they still don't view homo sapiens as their equals, but they'd prefer if we just went along with the greater Grey schemes voluntarily. They may or may not have been the group that was responsible for the activation of the Theran Doorway, and the rest of Grey civilization still hasn't forgotten about that. As such, they're currently the second most powerful political group in Grey culture. The Ziljir: Regarded generally as the rogue faction, the name of this group is an approximation of the word the Greys use to describe their concept of Satan. The Ziljir are primarily comprised of the megalomaniacs and madmen and would-be messiahs; any time a Grey has presented itself as a deity in order to compel the obedience of a human civilization, it's almost guaranteed that Grey belonged to the Ziljir. These Greys likely think even less of homo sapiens than do the Ahotti or Itlan, as they frequently treat their human contacts as little more than willing sacrifices, sufficient for providing unquestioning worship, and tossed aside the instant that it becomes expedient to do so. Neither the Ahotti nor the Itlan factions completely trust the Ziljir, as their self-centered schemes potentially risk everything else that they Greys have attempted to accomplish. To that end, membership in the Ziljir faction is something of a social taboo among the Greys, with very few members openly touting their involvement. Grey Client Species: The Sasquatch - Sasquatch, yeti, momo, skunk apes, almas and bigfoot are all descriptions of the same Grey client species. They're the result of an early attempt by the Greys to improve on one of Earth's sapient races, and it's strongly implied that neanderthals disappeared from Earth not because homo sapiens out-evolved them, but rather because they were hunted to extinction by Greys that sought their genetic stock. Either way, modern sasquatch are the result of thousands of years of genetic manipulation, with the end result being they are the Grey's primary servants, laborers and warriors. They don't have a culture or civilization of their own, as their entire species is now the sole property of the Greys. Sightings of sasquatch in the wild are likely the result of individual sasquatch having managed to escape from their Grey masters. The Greys are extremely studious about recovering lost "specimens" and go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that any sasquatch that are dead, or are about to die, are recovered and returned to Mars so that their carcass/remains don't give humans any more reason to suspect that they exist. Several Sasquatch communes have managed to exist outside Grey influence. Typically these groups began when multiple escaped sasquatch banded together for mutual protection and aid, and slowly blossom into full-fledged communities over time. Sasquatch fertility rates are purposely kept low by the genetic sequence the Greys used to create them, and many communes can exist only for as long as their individual members are alive; it's extremely unlikely that a large enough number of sasquatch could become pregnant to reproduce at a rate sufficient to ensure the continuation of a commune. Still, stories persist that at least one such sasquatch commune may have found a way to overcome their fertility problem, and if the rumors are true, they live with the Rosicrucians in their hidden Tibetan monastery. Ultimately, the Greys exist to serve as an extra-terrestrial foil for your players. They can be temporary allies or the source of inscrutable schemes and mysteries, but it's unlikely that they'll ever come to trust any individual human well enough to ever see them as an equal. The end of this section implies that the Greys aren't actually extra-terrestrial, rather they're extremely evolved homo sapiens that have time traveled back from the future to prevent some terrible tragedy that lies in humanity's future. If this is true, the great irony is that their disastrous meddling in human affairs might be the actual cause of whatever disaster they're trying to prevent. NEXT TIME: The Sandmen and the Kinori!
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Jan 25, 2018 19:15
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I like greys that looknlike they do in XCOM but are autonomous as the greys in that... other xcom like game which moved to Mars fornthe instalment.
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Jan 25, 2018 19:24
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JcDent posted:I like greys that looknlike they do in XCOM but are autonomous as the greys in that... other xcom like game which moved to Mars fornthe instalment. The UFO games by Altar Interactive. The third installment being UFO: Afterlight.
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Jan 25, 2018 20:30
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The various alien factions are one of the stronger parts of Dark Matter since you've got strong options to make any of them be (even if they don't really have humanity's best interests as a high priority) kind of on our side or equally make them 'bad guys' or anywhere in between. They're all presented inscrutably enough that the GM can pretty much make their own call on who's even getting used and what their overall goals might be. They work a lot better than the human conspiracies imo, if I were in a position to run a Dark Matter game again I'd shelve the conspiracies as presented and come up with some new ones after deciding what I wanted the overall Stranger goals to be.
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Jan 25, 2018 20:35
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PurpleXVI posted:The UFO games by Altar Interactive. The third installment being UFO: Afterlight. The UFO games were weird as hell, but great. Trying to turn entire biospheres into organic computers? Cosmic mind parasites? Altar did a lot of really whacky, weird sci-fi stuff.
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Jan 25, 2018 20:38
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BLACK TRAIN, BLUE NIGHT – PART FIVE This loving Guy! The Express passes through Lausanne in a flash but there's a disconcerting moment of hesitation – as if the train stops for just a second before it roars on. When the train rounds the next bend, the investigators can see that a new carriage has been added to the train. This one looks like nothing less than a tiny gothic cathedral on wheels. If the investigators don't immediately check it out, a page in medieval garb approaches them with invitations from the Jigsaw Prince – he brings cordial greetings and wants to parley with the team. The cathedral car has its own map among the handouts, which is a nice touch. Entering the Prince's carriage, the investigators find a sumptuous banquet with the impossible luxury of dreams. There's enough suckling pigs, beef haunches, sweetmeats and wine on the tables here to make them sag. Lounging on a jewelled throne behind all this is the Jigsaw Prince, wearing nothing more than a red loincloth. He is a horrific sight to take in. The Prince's bulk is due to the spells Enchant Flesh and Graft Flesh, which let the caster preserve pieces of harvested flesh and skin then add it to their own body. The Prince's obesity is due to all of the enchanted meat he's added to himself over the decades; his body is, yes, a jigsaw mess of stitches and keloid scars. It's SAN 2/1D6 to witness him in his glory. He greets the investigators warmly and bids them to join the feast. That whole thing where they defied him in his own realm, deceived him and humiliatingly stole from him? Water under the bridge. After all, how can he stay mad when they've presented a fantastic opportunity: the complete Simulacrum, right here on the Express! So, he wants the statue. Presumably, the investigators want to live. If they can bring him the Simulacrum, he just so happens to have the perfect thing for killing Mehmet. Have they got a deal? If they agree (regardless of whether they plan to follow through), the Prince is willing to teach them the new spell Detransference. This extremely nasty spell was a coveted secret of Selim's, one he used to maintain control over his cultists. Casting it takes a few seconds, costs 10 POW and 10 MAG and totally undoes the effect of any Transfer Body Part spells the target has used on themselves. For the average Brother, that means a short, painful death. Any investigator who makes an Intelligence roll learns the spell.  Get hosed! Mehmet is aware of the Prince's arrival and is playing things cautiously, probably well-aware that he's not to be hosed with. When the investigators come back, he tries to change skins again, either harvesting one of their number or Costanza. He plans to accuse the Chef de Brigade and work from there. Failing that, he has little recourse but to run and try to hide. Finally cornered, he surrenders: he will offer the investigators anything they want if they let him live. He even offers the Simulacrum, knowing that there's no way for them to get to it while the train is moving. I doubt even the most gullible player will listen to his pleas. When Detransference is cast, the caster suddenly finds themselves holding a bunch of Mehmet's stolen limbs and organs, now rotting into mush in their hands – 1D10 SAN for anyone who isn't in the medical professions. Mehmet squeezes apart like putty and the train slowly comes to a halt as the avatar he summoned disappears. The train halts somewhere near Paris, and authorities soon arrive. Oh yes, the Prince. If the investigators are stupid enough to go back to the cathedral car and tell him to get hosed, he leaps off his throne and lunges at them, the investigators suddenly finding themselves moving in slow motion like a nightmare as he gets closer. They get out just in time to slam the door in his face. But even if they don't do that, the Prince is now on the train and he wants the Simulacrum. The advice on how to handle this is vague. I would play this as a much more straight-forward encounter than their previous clash with the Prince: he wants the Simulacrum and he's not loving around any more. I would also have him low on Magic and unable to cast his nastier spells as a result of whatever dream fuckery let him teleport onto the train. Detransference doesn't work on him – he favours Enchant/Graft Flesh over Transfer Body Part for this very reason. Even without spells, he's very strong and immune to most damage. However, he's fat and slow and probably not playing things super smart, so the investigators should be able to outplay him. As the book notes, the best bet is a cold one – push him off the train while it's still moving.   Home Stretch Emergency services soon arrive at the train. It's probably best to let the investigators skim past them and try to find the Simulacrum. The train is opened up to them by the Chef de Brigade, who – if he survived – has by now seen some poo poo. The book doesn't call for any rolls, so I guess it's just a gimme that they find the case underneath the Calais carriage. Inside is the Simulacrum, the Sedefkar Scrolls (sans the Scroll of the Left Hand), a set of passports and an oilskin envelope containing materials related to the Duke of York. If Costanza's survived the trip, she makes a full report to British Intelligence. The investigators receive 1D8+2 SAN for killing Mehmet, 1D6 SAN for killing the Jigsaw Prince and 1D3 SAN for recovering the Simulacrum. Excluding Szorbic, a total of ten passengers were in danger of being murdered and skinned by Mehmet; the investigators 1 SAN for each one who steps off the train at Gare de Lyon. Next time: OR IS IT?
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Jan 25, 2018 21:43
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Is there anything there for what happens if the Investigators see this whole Cathedral Car thing and then immediately decouple it from the back of the train?
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Jan 25, 2018 22:02
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Ratoslov posted:Is there anything there for what happens if the Investigators see this whole Cathedral Car thing and then immediately decouple it from the back of the train? No, but it's a magic carriage. You can't just decouple it from the train! I think.
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Jan 25, 2018 22:19
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I'd imagine you definitely can't do that while the train's possessed. Given the Prince is a bullshit rear end in a top hat I'd personally consider having the investigators find a bunch of explosives the Brotherhood were going to use to cover their tracks at the end of this little train ride that they could put in the Simulacrum's crate and light the fuses just as they push it into the Prince's car. That or have a bunch of cats just show up out of nowhere and gently caress him up. A Felis ex Machina if you will (I probably didn't decline felis right there but I do not care). Feinne fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 00:29
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Felix ex machina?
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Jan 26, 2018 01:49
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Feinne posted:I'd imagine you definitely can't do that while the train's possessed. That literally happened in Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Carter gets enslaved by evil toads who take him to the moon, but fortunately the cats maintain a military base there as an outpost against their enemies, the giant cats of Saturn, and the general there is the grandfather of a cat he fed milk to.
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Jan 26, 2018 04:03
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