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Coco13 posted:The man in the pallid mask said everyone attack and it turned into a ballroom blitz.
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Jul 29, 2023 05:55
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Lucky that the person who flipped out was someone who'd already been interviewed, so we didn't miss the chance to interview everyone. I wonder if there will be a special rule at the end of "gain 1 XP for each person you've interviewed", since nothing in this scenario appears to give XP the normal way so far.
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Jul 30, 2023 06:25
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It's good in general we're handling this scenario fast, at our rate one of two people we hadn't finished talking to flipping would hurt but still be manageable. I can see it becoming much more tense in a hurry for a team that maybe only managed to finish interviewing one person in time before reality started sickening and forcing either one person every three turns or getting stuck fending off party fiends long enough to scrape the clues off the walls.
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Jul 30, 2023 07:08
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Ignatius M. Meen posted:It's good in general we're handling this scenario fast, at our rate one of two people we hadn't finished talking to flipping would hurt but still be manageable. I can see it becoming much more tense in a hurry for a team that maybe only managed to finish interviewing one person in time before reality started sickening and forcing either one person every three turns or getting stuck fending off party fiends long enough to scrape the clues off the walls. Main issue is that, as we can see from Constance, the turned guests don't gently caress around. One of them is the kind of threat you need to be very ready to deal with, in multiples they will probably overwhelm you because your fighter(s) can't be everywhere.
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Jul 31, 2023 11:59
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The Last King: Part 2 It's been a hell of a party. We've chatted up the cast and crew of The King in Yellow, learning more about its production both past and present. All of this while beating back giant roaches, nasty ooze, and *shudder* actors. No offense, Lola.  The sooner we're done with our investigation, the better, as something terrible is starting to happen to the guests. It's started with the evening's host, turning her into some kind of skeletal ghoul, and it's bound to spread if we don't hurry. Our goal is to collect as many clues as we can and interrogate as many people as possible before we leave, so Yorick and Sefina will finish their chat with Ashleigh Clarke first. quote:>> Yorick parleys with Ashleigh, taking control of a clue. No reason to stick around and risk dropping a clue. quote:>> Sefina parleys with Ashleigh, taking control of a clue. That's another story card earned, we're doing very well!  This one seems a bit more vague than the other stories we've heard. Something about a path to Carcosa? Can't see why that would be important. Lola's got a different sort of interrogation to do. quote:Lola switches roles to Seeker! One easy test means that guy's out of our hair, and another tick gets marked in the Campaign Log. As for the remaining enemies, Dianne Devine moves on to one of the other guests, now that Constance is... indisposed. It's pretty much arbitrary at this point, so we'll stick her up in the corner with Ashleigh. Constance is a hunter, and could move to either the Foyer or Courtyard. As we're still a bit short on cash and in no rush to get into the last room, we'll move her to the Foyer, where we can either fight her or keep her occupied by evading her. - Round 7 - 1 of 3 doom once again.  Sefina draws another Young Psychopath, but rather than engage her, she'll pull out one of the tricks in her hand. Think on Your Feet lets Sefina immediately move away, and leave that enemy behind. Of course, that means the enemy will still be at Yorick and Lola's location, but that's okay. We don't have any intention of wasting time fighting her, so we'll have her engage with Lola, not taking any horror, with the plan of evading and just running away. Oh, where is Sefina moving to? The Foyer, naturally! Best to focus on the threat of Constance before another one springs up. And with Yorick's Ancient Evils, the clock is against us, as we're now just one doom away from another Sickening Reality card. Finally, Lola's just going to take a damage and horror from Fine Dining, rather than waste more time collecting clues. quote:> Yorick moves to the Foyer.  Resourceful is a great card for a Survivor. The skill boosts aren't anything special, but it lets him get back any other Survivor card from his discard pile on a successful test. For Yorick that could mean a weapon he's lost, or in this case, one of his best tools to protect him during important skill tests. Constance is down to 2 health, let's see if Sefina can finish the job. quote:> Sefina activates Shrivelling to fight Constance Dumaine, activating Spirit Athame to get +2 skill value (7 to 4). Chaos token is a -1. Success! Constance is defeated! The Victory 0 on Constance means we add her to the Victory Display upon defeating her, even though we won't earn any experience. This is just a way of removing her from the scenario, and will come into play during cleanup. quote:> Lola evades Young Psychopath (5 to 3). Chaos token is a -1. Success! Young Psychopath is exhausted. Can't forget to grab the clues on the ground here before we go! - Round 8 - Thanks to Ancient Evils the agenda is full again, so we get another bad card:   That is... horrifying. Ishimaru's a much bigger threat than Constance was; with a fight stat of 6, she's much tougher to take down, and she's no chump at evading either. Still, she doesn't hit too hard, so in the worst case we take a hit or two while trying to deal with her.  This round's encounter cards aren't that bad, though the Maniac's effect is unfortunate for Sefina, who only had 4 health left before it spawned. She could use the Painted World in her hand to copy another Think on Your Feet here, but it's probably better saved for a Ward of Protection. Meanwhile, Yorick's Roach Swarm is trivial thanks to the Foyer's shroud of 2, and Lola's not concerned about Marked by the Sign thanks to her ability to soak up horror with Peter (she ends up passing the test regardless). quote:> Yorick activates Baseball Bat to fight Roach Swarm (6 to 2). Chaos token is a -4. Success! Roach Swarm is defeated. Rather than running away, Yorick's going to take on Ishimaru here and now. He's well-equipped to do so, with his weapon in hand and support cards in hand. quote:> Sefina activates Shrivelling to fight Maniac, activating Spirit Athame to get +2 skill value (7 to 3). Chaos token is a +1. Success! Maniac takes 2 damage. Lola pitches in her skill card since it's only useable where clues are, and they're all about to be cleaned up. quote:> Lola investigates (4 to 2). Chaos token is the autofail. Well they would be if the game would cooperate  Anyway, Ishimaru moves over and engages with Yorick. The horror from her attack defeats his Cherished Keepsake, and he takes the damage personally (if the Guard Dog soaked it, the damage dealt in retaliation would force Yorick to draw an encounter card). - Round 9 - 1/3 doom yet again.  I really wish Sefina would get one of the Ancient Evils, as she actually has the tool to cancel it. Instead, she gets an easy skill test, and Lola takes another point of damage. We might be forced out of here faster than we'd like. quote:> Yorick activates Baseball Bat to fight Ishimaru, committing Overpower (8 to 6). Chaos token is a +1. Success! Ishimaru takes 2 damage.  If the game wants to throw autofails at our investigation, we won't give it the chance! Of course, this leaves Lola without much to do. quote:Lola switches roles to Guardian! We're almost done here, so I'm really just digging on the off chance a Delve Too Deep comes up. Instead, she finds something else:  Crisis of Identity shows up once again - there's two of them in her deck so this is to be expected. And here, we get to see another rules quirk. See, her current role is Guardian, but she doesn't have any Guardian cards in play or in her hand (in fact, she doesn't have any in her deck at all!) That means the first part of the card forcing her to discard a card fails. And because of that, the rest of the card fizzles. Put another way, if a card says it does "X, then Y", it can't do Y if it can't also do X. That's all to say, this does nothing at all!  Anyway, Sefina's got one last guest to impress: quote:> Sefina moves to the Dining Room.   This is a decent spot for healing horror with, but none of the investigators have more than 2 horror on them. Instead, she'll spend some time talking with Mr. Perry about how much she, uh, loves capitalism! Yeah. quote:> Sefina parleys with Jordan (2 to 0). Chaos token is a -1. Success! Sefina takes control of a clue. Remember that if an investigator's skill value is negative, it's treated as 0, and players win ties! Only the autofail could make her fail those tests. When the Maniac readies, it'll engage with Yorick - this triggers its ability, dealing both of them a damage, and killing itself. Easy enough! - Round 10 - Once again the agenda is full, so we draw our third Sickening Reality card:   I don't think we fooled him, you guys. Now that Jordan's been transformed, we won't be able to parley with him anymore, and won't be able to interview him. His clues aren't lost, however, and are instead dropped at his location. Should be pretty easy to grab those before we go.  An interesting mix of treacheries this round. Corrosion is harmless for Sefina - she's got another Spirit Athame in hand which she'll happily throw away. Dance of the Yellow King is a Willpower test, which Yorick's at even odds for, but Lola will pitch in a Guts to put him up by 2. Unfortunately he pulls a -4, so the Young Psychopath we left behind runs over and attacks him (soaking the damage and horror on his Guard Dog, which bites back). Lola's taking another hit from her treachery; only Sebastien and Ashleigh are left as guests, and we have no interest in going back their way. quote:> Yorick fights Young Psychopath (4 to 2). Chaos token is a -1. Success! Young Psychopath is defeated, and Yorick plays Guard Dog from his discard pile. Didn't use the bat here as I'd rather not risk losing it to a bad token, and it was a pretty easy combat test without it. quote:>> Lola moves to the Ballroom, then the Dining Room. Jordan himself isn't much of a threat; he's just a big pile of health that takes a while to whittle down, but with two fighters in the room it should be a pretty quick job. quote:> Sefina evades Jordan Perry (4 to 2). Chaos token is a -1. Success! Jordan Perry is exhausted. Hate to waste the Shrivelling charge, especially since Jordan heals up a bit, but that's the way the tokens work sometimes! We'll let him re-engage with Sefina, so she can blast away with the rest of her Shrivelling casts next round with abandon. It shouldn't matter much, we're not in much danger and we've seen everything the game can throw at us in this scenario-  Holy guacamole, Batman. Three signature weaknesses at once! That's such bad luck I'm almost impressed. Stars of Hyades, Sefina's weakness, forces her to lose a random card from her reserve (Ward of Protection, in this case). Naturally this reduces the options for her Painted World copies, but it also goes right back into her deck to be drawn again. Yorick's Graveyard Ghouls is a bit milder. With a good weapon in hand, this doesn't take long to kill (and another investigator can always help out). If we were in a hurry to move somewhere, this would be more dangerous, but we're more than happy to stay here and fight off anything and everything. Finally Lola's weakness rears its ugly head again, and this time it actually does something, since she's in Survivor form. Rather than losing either Dark Horse or Peter, she'll discard the Resourceful card from her hand (and discard a Fire Axe from her deck) to keep her board intact. - Round 11 - That was an eventful upkeep phase; hopefully we're outta here before another major threat shows up.  The encounter deck isn't going to let up on us; Sefina loses her Fine Clothes in play and another from her hand to Corrosion, and Yorick stumbles on another Maniac (the Guard Dog's retaliation means half its health is already gone). At least Tough Crowd won't have any effect since we're done with parleys for the scenario. quote:> Yorick activates Baseball Bat to fight Graveyard Ghouls (6 to 3). Chaos token is a cultist (-2). Success! Graveyard Ghouls takes 2 damage. All right, we have every clue on the board and parleyed with everyone we can. Now we just have to get out the front door alive. quote:> Sefina activates Shrivelling to fight Jordan Perry, activating Spirit Athame to get +2 skill value (7 to 2). Chaos token is a -2. Success! Jordan Perry takes 2 damage.  Not one to stick around where there's trouble, Sefina uses another one of her handy events to get out of dodge. As printed this would let her move straight to the Foyer, but this is almost as good. Jordan's down to 1 health, and Lola's got a good shot at taking him down right now. quote:> Lola fights Jordan Perry (4 to 2). Chaos token is a -1. Success! Jordan Perry is defeated! The threats are down, now it's just a mad dash to the exit! - Round 12 - There's 2 doom on the agenda, so we're safe unless we pull an Ancient Evils.  Nope, we're good! That last one presents a bit of a dilemma, since it respawns The Man in the Pallid Mask, and we could go and take him out again for another tick mark in the log. However, that would necessitate going well out of our way, and definitely isn't worth the risk. We're getting out of here while the path is clear! quote:If no resolution was reached and at least one investigator resigned:  Ironically, despite how thorough we were, we didn't earn any XP at all from the usual suspects. None of the enemies had VP, nor did the locations. However, we did manage to collect a whopping 23 clues, which means there's 11 XP to go around (plus Lola gets an extra 2 thanks to Charon's Obol). I'll figure out how to distribute it when I work on deck upgrades. But for right now, we have to figure out what to do with the information we've gathered... quote:Campaign Log
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Aug 1, 2023 01:54
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 It's time for another vote! Given what we've seen here tonight, the investigators must make a choice of what to do next. Should we:Go back inside now that things seem to be back to normal, and have another look around? Block the door to prevent anyone from escaping, and run to safety? Burn the house down? The other thing I wanted to address is something that's in this scenario, as well as another one a little bit later, which is the usage of mental illness as a plot device. The scenario we just finished included enemies that were called maniacs, psychopaths, and lunatics, and they were presented the same way as, say, ghouls or zombies might be. I won't pretend to be any sort of authority on the topic, but the current team behind the game felt that it did a disservice to everyone as it was originally printed. The Path to Carcosa was recently re-released as an all-in-one campaign expansion, with changes to all of these references. To quote the designer: This printing changes the "Lunatic" trait on many enemy cards, along with the card titles for several enemies, in order to better represent the story being told and to help pull the narrative away from harmful and incorrect stereotypes regarding mental illness. (Essentially, I was no longer comfortable with how those cards were originally presented, so I made the call to issue an extensive series of errata). The resource I'm using to access the game unfortunately only has the original printings of the cards, but if anyone would like to see any changes to the way this campaign is being presented, please do let me know!
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Aug 1, 2023 01:55
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Burn it. As the old tabletop RPG aphorism goes: trust no one, touch nothing, burn everything.
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Aug 1, 2023 02:11
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Aug 1, 2023 02:45
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Go Back
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Aug 1, 2023 02:54
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Let's go back inside. What's the worst that could happen?
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Aug 1, 2023 03:29
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Aug 1, 2023 03:59
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StillFullyTerrible posted:Enemies can't attack while Exhausted, right? So her boost to fight wouldn't matter except if you wanted to attack her while downed? Fight is the difficulty to attack that enemy. They just automatically damage you if they attack, so a fight boost doesn't make them better at hurting you.
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Aug 1, 2023 04:36
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Yorick forgot his keys again, go back and get it. (although burning it down is pretty tempting too).
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Aug 1, 2023 04:47
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Go back, it's not like we can't take these fops if they get feisty again.
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Aug 1, 2023 05:20
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Go back. It's not daybreak, man, the party isn't over.
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Aug 1, 2023 05:38
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Block and run! This is some scary poo poo, best get the hell out of here.
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Aug 1, 2023 11:10
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Things seem back to normal and I want to discount the possibility that we just burst into a party, hallucinated the guests and host turning into horrible monsters, and attacked them all. Back in!
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Aug 1, 2023 12:48
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Whybird posted:Things seem back to normal and I want to discount the possibility that we just burst into a party, hallucinated the guests and host turning into horrible monsters, and attacked them all. Back in! That's exactly why I want to burn it all down 
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Aug 1, 2023 17:18
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It’s good we didn’t involve the cops because they might try to interfere with our arson.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:22
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Guys we can't just burn the house down! What if some of the actors escaped? We've got to go back in to finish the job. Phelddagrif posted:The resource I'm using to access the game unfortunately only has the original printings of the cards, but if anyone would like to see any changes to the way this campaign is being presented, please do let me know! inflatablefish fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Aug 2, 2023 |
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Aug 1, 2023 22:46
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Burn it. Delta Green protocols for handling severe outbreaks of The King In Yellow is to destroy everything infected.
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Aug 1, 2023 22:52
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It's a chilly night. We should light a fire to warm up. Don't catch a cold, now!
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Aug 2, 2023 07:07
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inflatablefish posted:I have no issues with the way you're presenting this campaign, but I'd love to know more about what changes the designers made if you have any examples. The actual changes are pretty simple. The "Lunatic" trait on all the enemies is now "Possessed," and some of the enemies have been renamed (so Maniac is now Seer of the Sign, for instance). Basically, leaning more into the idea that the danger is the result of the influence of some greater evil.
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Aug 2, 2023 17:42
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I'm not sure how I feel about that term change tbh, you don't get "possessed" by the play, it drives you mad. Speaking as someone with some p bad mental illness myself, I don't really feel like the new term is necessary. Also, isn't losing sanity when attacked by certain enemies literally a core part of the game? The stigma is already baked into the game mechanics. StillFullyTerrible fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Aug 2, 2023 |
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Aug 2, 2023 19:23
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Go back
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Aug 2, 2023 21:42
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Go back. How much of what happened do the people in there remember? Are the dead people even still dead?StillFullyTerrible posted:I'm not sure how I feel about that term change tbh, you don't get "possessed" by the play, it drives you mad. That was my thought as well. If nothing else I think calling them "possessed" rather than something more ambiguous like "twisted" by the play feels off? I'm guessing they see this as different from the game's inherent "sanity meter" healthbar because it's specifically tying losing sanity to becoming a violent murderer, whereas in this game an investigator who runs out of sanity is just knocked out of the scenario? (In contrast to, say, Mansions of Madness 1e, where falling to 0 sanity can make you attack other investigators or transform into a Maniac monster.) But it feels like an uphill battle in anything Lovecraft-related.
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Aug 2, 2023 23:29
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"Tainted" or "Corrupted" would also work better than "possessed."
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Aug 2, 2023 23:52
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Fire! Fire! Fire!
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Aug 2, 2023 23:53
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StillFullyTerrible posted:I'm not sure how I feel about that term change tbh, you don't get "possessed" by the play, it drives you mad. Speaking as someone with some p bad mental illness myself, I don't really feel like the new term is necessary. Yes in the original work by Lovecraft this is true, I think the authors have tried to intentionally alter things a bit in ways I fear I might accidentally spoil something if I went into further. Interested in having this discussion again on the merits of it when we've gone through the entire scenario as I think it's an interesting one to have. Without commenting on specifics in the scenario they've tried to polish over some of the more problematic parts of Lovecraft's work before with their scenarios in general, like you might have noticed that the cast of available investigators to play are a fairly diverse bunch. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Aug 5, 2023 |
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Aug 5, 2023 23:07
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Also burn everything, it's the only way to be sure.
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Aug 5, 2023 23:16
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The vote is currently tied between going back inside and burning the place down, so the next vote wins it! (Or I'll flip a coin if it's not broken in the next 12 hours or so).
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Aug 6, 2023 00:20
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Burn it all
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Aug 6, 2023 00:22
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 it is!
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Aug 6, 2023 00:54
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Carcosa is Chambers, not Lovecraft, fwiw. Lovecraft did like his work and referenced it a bit, but it wasn't until later writers that it got fully rolled into the Mythos.
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Aug 6, 2023 02:52
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Interlude I: Reality's Shadowquote:> The investigators must decide (choose one): The thread voted, and to nobody's great surprise, option 3 was the winner! quote:You dare not risk stepping back inside that madhouse. But you can’t let the monstrosities run amok, either. You root through the open garage for a few supplies, finding an old hose, an empty gasoline canister, and some matches. Knowing what you must do, you first siphon some gas from Mrs. Dumaine’s Oakland 6-54A. You spread the gasoline across the front porch, inside the garage, and around the manor’s outer walls. From there, all it takes is several matches to start the blaze. You watch from the front yard as the manor is eventually consumed by the flames. The sounds of crackling fire and snapping wood and the screeching of dying horrors fills the street. Satisfied, you head back to your vehicle and tear off toward Southside, full of grim determination. A necessary evil; there's no way the police would believe anything we had to say, and we couldn't let anyone escape - not after we've seen what they were becoming. We'll have to reckon with our choice later; for now, we've got a lead to pursue. Contrary to what we'd thought, tonight wasn't the first night that The King in Yellow played in Arkham, and the current director was somehow involved with the last showing, several decades ago. If we're going to solve the mystery of what's happening in the present, we'll first have to learn about the past.
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Aug 13, 2023 03:52
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I've recorded and written up the next session, and once again there's a choice to make at the end. That means it's... Voting Time!  While searching the Historical Society for any information about the last production, we find some old newspaper clippings that describe events quite similar to the ones we'd heard about before attending the play - fires, strange weather, and so on. Mixed in with these and other information about the play, we find a strange trinket. It's a small clasp made from black onyx, with an unknown inscription. Do we: - Take it with us, it might be important. - Leave it behind, it belongs to the Historical Society and it would be wrong to steal it. Voting will be up for a day or so, and the next update will be up shortly after!
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Aug 13, 2023 03:52
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Take it Random trinkets like this are either the only thing that can seal the big bad away again, or something that will slowly drive us insane. Or both.
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Aug 13, 2023 04:04
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Take it. Random trinkets are both the cause, and solution, to problems. Maybe not our problems. But still. Shiny.
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Aug 13, 2023 04:05
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Take It. You never know when it might be useful. What's the worst that could happen?
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Aug 13, 2023 04:05
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Take it. What kind of self-respecting protagonist wouldn't loot a shiny trinket?
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Aug 13, 2023 04:11
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