Mayday Plays - 🕳️The Dead Drop: "A Volume of Secret Faces, Part 1" - Episode 3

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

It's been 20 years, and just when your agents thought they were safe, here comes Vince and Sergio to pull them back in! This episode covers the scenario: A Volume of Secret Faces. We answer a listener... question, discuss Operation India Moon, Investigate Dr. Barbas, go over what your agents can find at The Dorchester House, and many more sanity-shattering secrets found in this massive scenario. Want more Dead Drop? The Patreon edition contains over 25 minutes of unreleased discussion covering A Volume of Secret Faces. You can get more by going to https://www.patreon.com/maydayrp, where any level gets you access to the unedited episodes. Make sure to leave your comments and questions in the chat below or message us directly on X (Twitter) @surgettrpg and @suddenlyvince Apologies for Sergio's less-than-optimal audio quality. We've got merch! https://ko-fi.com/maydayrp (t-shirts and stickers) Thanks for checking out our channel! We offer a bunch of art, music, and behind-the-screen access including Vegas By Night 1-on-1 sessions on our Patreon; https://www.patreon.com/maydayrp including access to our discord server! We started as a podcast! Listen to us @: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mayday-plays/id1537347277 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5vdTgXoqpSpMssSP9Vka3Z?si=73ec867215744a01 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mayday-roleplay Here are some of our other socials; Twitter: https://twitter.com/maydayroleplay Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/ Website: https://maydayroleplay.com/ Thanks for your support! 00:00 Welcome to The Dead Drop 01:04 A Volume of Secret Faces, Part 1 2:18 The Briefing 3:31 Home Pursuits 4:30 Veteran Packages 5:21 Estranged Bonds 7:21 Passing Strange 8:33 Listener Question: is 100% completion possible? 15:42 Millenium era campaign 17:00 Clarify cell status 17:48 Invitation fit for an opera 20:00 Meeting Dr. Barbas 26:45 Looking into Barbas 29:46 The Lion and the Scribe 32:54 Door to the Bookshop 33:44 Dorchester House 36:50 Media Inspirations 39:13 The Missing Agents 40:34 The staff of Dorchester House 42:57 Dr. Friend and the Library 43:44 The patients of Dorchester House 46:00 PC objective: Find Bael 48:11 "Must-see" scare: the cotton candy room 51:24 Attending the play 53:03 Clownin' around 58:13 Waking up and what's next 01:00:00 Outro

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello friends and welcome back. My name is Sergio and I am the handler for Mayday's Delta Green campaign doomed to repeat. With me again is the Ace of Derribondi of Handlers, Black Project Gaming's Vids. How are you friend? Hey man, good to be here. Glad to be back and of course glad to have everyone tuning in. If this is your first time on our channel, welcome to you. We're part of Mayday Rollplay. We play tabletop role playing games like Delta Green, obviously. And God, let me tell you, we got more coming, more coming up. Yeah, in fact, I think by the time this airs, our second season of Orpheus will already
Starting point is 00:00:39 be out. So needless to say, there is something for everyone, and all of it is available in podcast or video format completely free. So check it out. On top of that though, we've got our Patreon. We've got to plug the Patreon and Manloin Tain. It's been businesses of Booman with our Discord. I would be challenged to find a crazier corner
Starting point is 00:01:00 of the internet than our Discord. Let me tell you the discussions we get into there. It's great. You talk about found family and linking up with new friends and organizing games. I mean, it doesn't get much better than our discord. So that alone is worth the price with a mission. But then on top of that, Caleb is going
Starting point is 00:01:16 to be releasing one-on-one sessions for Vampire the Masquerade. I'll probably have some content coming out for Orpheus. And you got amazing videos like, you know, the supplementary material to our guide to Impossible Landscapes, which we're in discuss today. So there you have it. I'd really love it, amazing.
Starting point is 00:01:33 Now, if you've watched our first two episodes, then you know that there is no way out but through. So I'd like everyone to open your red books to page 616 and read along because you found the dead drop, a guide to running in possible landscapes. Vince in our previous episode, we went over the night floors, the introductory scenario for impossible landscapes. And while it is a doozy, it pales in comparison to the next chapter, a volume of secret
Starting point is 00:02:04 faces. This episode will be discussing the first half of this scenario. There is so much to talk about that we had to split it into. We'll cover what I see as the holy trinity of this scenario, Operation India Moon, exploring the Dorchester House and eventually involving Delta Green. I've read the scenario for the first time. exploring the Dorchester House and eventually involving Delta Green. I've read the scenario for the first time. I'll be approaching our discussion like a handler who has got those first questions. Lots of dumb questions that we hope Vince will spin into illuminating answers.
Starting point is 00:02:37 We've also received our first listener question that we will be getting to eventually. Those of you tuning in, if you have questions about the campaign, you can submit them to us and we will answer them in the next episode or the soonest episode. Finally, as a warning, big time spoilers ahead, if you are a player in impossible landscapes, you need to make like Abigail Wright and disappear. But if you're interested in running or currently running
Starting point is 00:03:07 this campaign, welcome to the show. Okay, Vince, getting past all of my possible landscape puns, we need to talk about it. short, a volume of secret faces is the next phase in the characters, the agents, inevitable descent into and towards Carcosa. It takes up 20 years later. So 20 years after the night floors in 2015, we find the players brought together again by an unusual summons to meet with an agent calling himself Exeter in Boston, Massachusetts to look into the disappearance of several ostensibly Delta Green agents
Starting point is 00:04:02 that had been committed to the dorshester house psychiatric facility. And from there, kind of that inevitable discovery that they have not left the night world behind. And if anything, the yellow kings is beckoning them deeper into that myasma and morass of unnatural influence. And we begin, kind of right at the end, something we did not bring up at the end of the last episode is that the book encourages you to have a couple of home pursuits with the players to show this passage of 20 years.
Starting point is 00:04:41 It does, yeah. So the assumption is that the players will, you know, of course, have remained with Delta Green during this 20-year gap in some way, shape, or form. And so part of that is, you know, honestly, it's kind of a way to hit the fast forward button. This gap is a great place to kind of introduce other scenarios you may want to run with your players. If you're planning on doing a long more drawout campaign. You know, throw some new scenarios in there that to kind of show the passive time, show what they've been up to in that gap between night floors and volume. Otherwise, you can do what I did, which is we just went right into it and we ran this these
Starting point is 00:05:20 home scenes. So long story short short when it comes to this transitional period you've got essentially you choose one to damage veteran packages. Hard experience, you know adaptive devilence, helplessness, that kind of thing and then yeah, things man was not meant to know. You'll choose three home pursuits. There are some rule changes, like for instance, you'll get a 20% bonus to each role, and you'll double the gains and the losses in any bond and sanity role. I guess that's to make up for the massive amount of time. It doesn't make sense. You don't have three home pursuits in 20 years, so I guess that wouldn't make sense. Exactly, yes.
Starting point is 00:06:08 So while you're only technically choosing three home pursuits, the bonuses are kind of, in this case, doubled to show that wider expansive time. There is an interesting element, which is the estranged bonds. The scenario suggests that they lose a bond and then gain a new one. Can you go into some detail about that? Yeah, absolutely. So everyone will essentially lose one bond due to alienation, betrayal, or death. So something the book suggests is
Starting point is 00:06:42 that you take your agents, your players, bonds, and you ascribe symptoms to them. You know, they refer to it as poison bonds. So for example, you know, if it's a romantic relationship and example being a spouse or a significant other, some of the suggested symptoms are accusatory, addicted, shaded, or cheating, to kind of show how that relationship has degraded over time.
Starting point is 00:07:08 And there's a few other examples in there too that give you a great starting off point. So you'll describe those symptoms to kind of explain how that relationship deteriorated over those next 20 years. Most interestingly though, one bond of the handlerlers Choice will actually die in mid 2007. From either an ad accidental overdose, a car accident, a mugging gong wrong, or suicide. An agent will gain a new bond with the same score, so it's not a complete and total loss that sets them up for a failure moving forward. But it's something to further connect them to the lore of impossible landscapes, because in 2007, if I'm not mistaken, I'd have to go back through the history of
Starting point is 00:07:48 the document, a play ended up being put on in Chicago that was essentially a new telling of the king and yellow, and so another little tie there tying the agent into that play into the yellow king, and showing that it had effects beyond just that individual and to their closest bones. There are so many clues that link to other clues in this that I didn't think it was possible to write something like this. It's really interesting, and maybe we should kind of get into it now because it does relate to the question that was submitted.
Starting point is 00:08:22 One of our patrons named Martha makes. They had a question regarding all of these extra bits and bobs that you can find in this scenario. Researching Dr. Barbus or researching the staff of the Dorchester House, there are so many avenues you can go down and I think it seems like the experience of a lot of handlers is the players will miss the majority of this. Martha had a question specifically, how might you empower the players so that they don't lose or they don't miss some of this information? information. What could you do as a handler to ensure that they at least have been given every opportunity possible to look deeper into some of these clues? That's a really good question. Honestly, when it comes down to it, I let the players drive the train. This can be as kind of rapid a descent as they want or it can be as long and meandering as they desire. At the end of the day, if some of these little tidbits are not
Starting point is 00:09:37 crucial story bits, they're more like the way I've always viewed it, it's kind of like visit, right? If you look at visit, which is another debt-willer scenario, you have that whole Jordan Springs storage component to the operation where the players can end up following down that Anseal-incorporated rabbit hole and end up finding this majestic treasure trove that is also right to frickin explode if they try to break in. But when I ran that, my players didn't go anywhere near Jordan Springs. I will also say it might be useful to have a player, or choose one of the players, depending on their background or what kind of character
Starting point is 00:10:14 they're playing, have been involved or in some way connected to the majestic Delta Green War that kicked off in the late 90s or only 2000s, to again kind of play up that paranoia. Somebody who's aware that they're in the late 90s or early 2000s, to again kind of play up that paranoia. Somebody who's aware that they're in the Cowboys, that's the whole point of the campaign is the players who's supposed to be in the Cowboys or the outlaws at this point.
Starting point is 00:10:34 So another area of paranoia, like you withstood the destruction of Delta crane by insidious forces both inside and out. So having a player that maybe in this 20 years time span has become more paranoia. I mean, shit, if you have a player who chooses paranoia, some kind of disorders on the long those lines, that's your, that's your, your golden ticket to exploit some of these, these little red, not necessarily red herrings, but you know what I mean. Those are two excellent points. I forgot all about the fact that the the air of this takes place
Starting point is 00:11:08 and they should be at the height of their paranoia. Yep. Okay so I think we've gotten through that difficult first hurdle of thinking about how how do you approach this. Let's get into the actual story here. Where do you want to start in terms of how the players might approach this? Let's get into the actual story here. Where do you want to start in terms of how the players might approach this? So a whole thing kicks off with each agent that was connected to the night floors, receiving an invitation at their residence.
Starting point is 00:11:37 How you want to play this? Because I got similar questions, and I realized handlers have gotten very similar questions from their players. You know, we're the agents all in the same cell over these past 20 years where they scatter to the wind in different cells and are just now being brought back together. I'd say it's entirely up to you. Again, this might be a little avenue for you to use to kind of play up the unusual nature of this operation.
Starting point is 00:12:03 If these are people who haven't seen each other in 1015 plus years, and now all of a sudden they're working together again, that's something that gets them scratching their heads. So we received the invitation to the Gateway Bridge's restaurant, and if you'll remember, Deep Cut, the napkin upon which we found the the scribe and the lion, the the schematics sketched on where GBR napkins which did not exist in 1995 and now in 2015 the agents are being invited to that restaurant by Exeter. Do you usually leave the clues with the players like the handouts and stuff? Yes. I know you run it online and stuff like that,
Starting point is 00:12:45 but do you find that they often just like, we'll look back at it? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I had like a specific handout folder set up in Discord where I would just drop those things in there. And it was funny. Sometimes it would just over their head. And then one day somebody would just be scrolling through
Starting point is 00:13:02 and be like, holy shit, wait a second. But other times I would have to call for like an intelligent or like specifically when the player is actually ended up face to face with the line. And it was like you remember seeing something like this on an abkin 20 years ago. So yeah, sometimes you got it for the Yeah, sometimes you got it. But for the... But with the invitation itself, what's interesting about that is you can study the writing, depending on your art skills, you can examine the writing with forensics, examine the paper stock, again, depends on how paranoid your players are.
Starting point is 00:13:37 But then if they rip apart the paper, they find this hidden exemplar in the back, which is very strange, but then it has the symbol or the sigil of who is it, of Person, which the agents first ran into or would have encountered in Abigail Wright's apartment in the night forest. So again, Moore doesn't necessarily win anywhere, but it's more indications of something weird is going on. I think the players finding that ours go asia as soon as possible will really open it up to them. I feel a camera should try to encourage that they find that as soon as possible.
Starting point is 00:14:14 As long as they read it, as long as they read it. That's true. So one of the first things I gave my players when they went into the night floors was that one of the manifestations is a You know two arms that are you know alluded to belonging to Dr. Barbus Exit a door and drop a box and in the hallway and then close the door and disappear inside is the The high Gromantia, which is like another version of the Orsgoesia, so it would have, it would have, it would be something
Starting point is 00:14:46 that they would have access to that could do that. So you can give it to them early, they just got to read the damn thing. But yeah, so long story short, they get the invitation and they are called inevitably to the gateway bridges restaurant where they, they meet with Dr. Marvis, who introduces himself as agent exeter. And then there's a couple of avenues you can use to kind of find out who you're dealing with,
Starting point is 00:15:10 but we'll get to that. Do you just introduce his actual name or I mean, because I feel like a, yeah, an actual handler or excuse me, a case officer might try to hide their name as possible. How did you handle it? Yeah, so I just had him introduce as Exeter. He's stayed with Exeter, which another,
Starting point is 00:15:30 this is also weird, right? Is if you're familiar with the Delta Green lore, especially with the cell structure, most of the time agents are only gonna have contact with the cell immediately before and immediately after their letter. So in the case of M cell, they would ostensibly only have access or only have contact with L cell and N cell.
Starting point is 00:15:52 For them to have access to somebody with the name Exeter, and apply it there a part of ESEL, way, way outside of typical Opsack measures. So another indicator, this is fucking weird. I was wondering, you know, going along the lines of, again, getting them to look at those clues that they might not think of, you know, if he's, if Exeter is paying for the lunch or something like that, he could always make a mistake,
Starting point is 00:16:19 like put a credit card down, or, you know, in opening his wallet, there's a business card that maybe says a name. I just feel like getting his name to them would be beneficial as it leads to so many things. And absolutely does. Yeah. There's, so if they decide to do surveillance beforehand,
Starting point is 00:16:37 they'll see him arrive in his vehicle. They can run the license plate using their, the records they have access to and identify as Dr. Barbis. Because the implication here is that Dr. Barbis is already compromised. He's already insane. So, if he slips up and makes a mistake, then that, you know, hey, make us make a, you know, a search role to spot the last name of the credit card he lays down. Right. And with all of this discussion of like cooling in your players as much as possible,
Starting point is 00:17:07 I do have to say that the reveal that all of this is just a complete ruse of the king and yellow, is such a satisfying reveal that it really is kind of a delicate balance of doing this, but I do think the players will have to go pretty far down the road, grab and hold before they realize that it's all basically a ruse, but it's definitely worth kind of holding your cards, especially
Starting point is 00:17:27 can. 100% totally agree. But once I meet with with Exeter with Barbus, the whole objective, the whole task that they're presented with is that they are to invest the disappearance of however many agents, the book suggests that you pair the list down to the exact number of agents that you have at the table. The intent being to sow some confusion as to where these missing agents all along, where they always patience and doorchester, all of that.
Starting point is 00:18:00 As eventually we'll get into doorchester where they can escape and they are suddenly the patients. Exactly. Yeah. The connection to the night floors though comes when you know as as Exeter is explaining their disappearance he shows them a footage or an image of a message left in one of their cells which says Abigail Wright has gone to see cross the waves to rescue me in a ship both tall and fine. She rounds the corner marking time. So of course the illusion of Abigail right you they never found in 95. It's that automatic
Starting point is 00:18:30 hook to bring them back in and make them realize that they didn't leave the Macalister building too far behind. One thing that we might want to cover though is the importance of Dr. Farvis. I mean it really is kind of key that if you get into him, you can learn sooner or later that he is either insane or a member of the court of the king and yellow, whether he is unwittingly helping. There's really a lot to learn by kind of looking into him. There is. And the way it happened with my players is obviously once we exited a volume of secret faces and moved on to like a matmaid of skin, it was obvious that they were led there, it was a trap, all their suspicions about it not being legitimate were correct, it kind of verified all of their worst kind of paranoid thoughts about what was going on.
Starting point is 00:19:18 So it was at that point they decided to look into Barbus because that was the origin point for them. And so that's what led them back to his place. I could see players, you know, following him home after, you know, after they meet with him at the restaurant, like, because if you've got all night and you're not going to be going to door test until the morning, they might be proactive and think, something's weird about this. Let's follow this guy. They follow him home and then there's a whole bit about what you see when you conduct surveillance on his house,
Starting point is 00:19:49 waiting until he leaves, breaking in, all the items you can find there. So there's ways to go about it. It really, it's, this is, well, some would, you know, I would say incorrectly argue that impossible landscapes is very real roadie. These early scenarios are still very much player driven and the direction they go and how quickly you get there.
Starting point is 00:20:11 Yeah, so let's say they go the digital route, I believe there's an email correspondence that they can have with the detective that work with Dr. Barbus, Emily and Skahann, am I pronouncing that name? Yes, Skahann, I believe, or Skahan. Yeah. So, I have one avenue of kind of learning that he's maybe lost it a little bit or things like that.
Starting point is 00:20:31 Yeah, so that's what they decide to actually look into Barbus. That's what they decide to actually start like looking into his name, researching his connection to law enforcement. Of course, they'll find out that he is, he's with the Massachusetts State Police. He, State police. They can pull strings to get his personnel records, but they'll eventually find out that he was on a leave-up absence
Starting point is 00:20:52 as a result of his encounter with Emily and Skihann, the detective. They had an old experience. Yeah, she saw him writing on a piece of fictine paper with an ill looking pen. She's worried for his sanity, he was completely deranged. In June of 2015, she entered his office unannounced and he attacked her, and that's kind of what led to his leave absence. And then what does the state trooper Michael Dawkin come into play? Is he the investigator of that incident or how is he connected? So he's just a, since Barbus is with the state police, he's just a state trooper who has worked with him for the past four years.
Starting point is 00:21:30 So somebody who's had some interaction with him that may be able to speak to his declining mental state. And probably the two most important things about Barbus, I would say is that he built the scribe and he built the lie and those two things that you can find in his home. Because really all of this is just a warning to the players. Yes. Barbus is compromised and what you're walking into is going to most likely be some kind of a trap. One arm, yep, absolutely. But let's say they fall for that
Starting point is 00:22:00 trap and they go to the door, chest or house, just like the night floors, they have to go at night. And I assume that could be a problem with very paranoid players. What are some methods you recommend or that the book right might recommend to get them in there at night? So my players, I love them. They're just like, hey, let's spend the night. After day one, so it was like, okay, well, I don't have to get you here at all. So they actually have a section in the book called Getting Agents in the Dorchester House After Dark, which is great. There's a lot of great hints in there. So the first recommendation is to simply stall, play that you know there are secret areas that may exist within the Dorchester house
Starting point is 00:22:49 Facility itself that they can't get to kind of feed them red herrings to keep them kind of roped in Have time pass, you know Depending on who they talk to what they look for where they go To where eventually it's like hey, you know you look you look up and you guys have been here all day. Like, what did you think was gonna happen? It's where we're at night now. You know, the idea that a particularly out of the way area might be a good hiding spot for people
Starting point is 00:23:17 to kind of hide out until the heat dides down. So maybe that's where the missing agents are at. Something along those lines. Then you have false calls. If somebody is getting, if you've got a team that splits up, maybe they start one half the team starts getting calls from the other half saying
Starting point is 00:23:37 they're trapped in a door, chister house, come get them and then it all kind of brings them in. One is kind of just the proverbial, you know, rock over the head where you just have them sedated during the day and kept there until it's dark. And then the one that I think would probably be one of the most effective, because understandably the disappearance of Abby
Starting point is 00:24:01 and not being able to find her in the night floors is probably like a sticking point for a lot of the multiplayer and the characters, right? Like this is something they weren't able to resolve. So have one of the patients just absentmindedly mentioned that Abby lives in Dorchester house at night, you know, and kind of rope them in back that way. So it's okay, we got to come back a night, find Abby. And then... Although observant players should be able to recognize the pattern of at night, things are different here. And so they should almost have, or be anticipating that,
Starting point is 00:24:35 you know, whether they're avoiding it at night or whether they realize the only way to get answers is we gotta go at night. Absolutely, yeah. And I think, if you've got, particularly like paranoid and stubborn players you gotta go at night. Absolutely, yeah. And I think, if you've got particularly, like, paranoid and stubborn players who just are not, like, not gonna stay, after a few days,
Starting point is 00:24:51 maybe they are finally jumped, and they are finally sedated, or, you know, the corruption from the night world has reached such a point where time no longer works right in the doorchester house, and when it feels like 15 minutes, it's really been five hours and now it's nighttime so something along those lines. So really the staff and the patients
Starting point is 00:25:11 are all kind of clues into letting the agents know this is a source of the corruption. This is a way to get into the night floors again. Anything else really important that needs to be known about the these folks or should we get into just the fact that these players are meant to get stuck in here? Yeah, I would say the big thing to play up, especially once the players get stuck in there at night, is that they need to make contact with bail
Starting point is 00:25:41 because bail is going to lead them to the next phase. So whether that's through Mr. Wild, whether that's through Sunshine, whether it's through any one of the other patients, the intention should be to always steer them towards Bale, towards communicating with Bale. With that said, I mean, they're supposed to be trapped here. It should feel like some serious time has passed. I think at least 24 to 48 hours before they get that clue. So I would say maybe let some of the staff
Starting point is 00:26:14 and the patients really screw with them before you get that tidbit of head to bail. Yep, absolutely. I, we had some group therapy sessions with Dr. Maximo Friend. They got introduced to Cotton Candy Room, which was particularly, if you were to ask me for one of my favorite set pieces, that'd be one of them. The Cotton Candy Room, where the
Starting point is 00:26:37 Patsu is extracted from the eye. The group therapy session was really cool. The Patsu will become important later, but yeah, so yeah, you're suggesting you know make them live a day or two of Patience life here at the door testor house. Yeah, I didn't do that I kind of again like this kind of we just We were all gas no breaks for a little bit there But yeah play it up especially if you've got time and it's just something you're trying to draw out But yeah, play it up, especially if you've got time and it's just something you're trying to draw out. When time doesn't matter so much anymore, having it do all sorts of weird and wacky things
Starting point is 00:27:11 where it just doesn't really matter and sometimes five minutes of bass and it feels like five hours or five hours, it's only been five minutes. Continually mess with them, play up the surreal nature of the campaign for sure. Okay, so they find him, he suggests what they should see, watch a play, correct? Yeah, he leads them down into a part of the door, Kisder House, which is essentially the basement of Amastake, and leads them to a theater
Starting point is 00:27:40 where they sit and watch his play. The clown that, if a stew player is recognized from the very beginning of the night floors, there's the child-sized clown dancing with the paper dragon. They're seeing that happen once again on this stage. It's the child clown dancing with the dragon. And of you know depending on the corruption levels Bale can explain different facets of the King and Yellow Lord to them about what the play and what the dance is representing But eventually he's gonna instruct them like the the Patsu is the key you got to drink the Patsu To disappear and it'll be offered at the end of the play right the clown
Starting point is 00:28:23 I believe has a vibe or something like that? Yes, yeah. He'll drag the paper dragon out. He rips it open and inside is a thermosized glass container filled with that Patsu oil. It's identical to what they have seen referred to as Patsu. They'll twist it off. He'll say the Patsu is the way out. He'll drink it and disappear.
Starting point is 00:28:46 That's when the fun begins. The tiny clown gets bigger and then will chase the players, will chase the agents and will one hit kill them if you're not careful, which is what happened to the light. Literally just like boop them on a nose on the nose and they just turn into so much passive. Right, yeah, they literally explode. I lost two players during this chase sequence. So two of my four died during this sequence. Let me ask you this about the chase. How do you handle the fact that, you know,
Starting point is 00:29:22 at the end of the play, the clown is probably either on stage or maybe they run off stage, however you want to handle it. How do you imply that threat before the players, to give the players enough time, how do you warn them that this is about to be bad? Sure, a clown walking up to you creepily is weird, but how do you really imply that threat of you need to get away from this thing? a clown walking up to you creepily is weird, but how do you really imply that threat of you need to get away from this thing?
Starting point is 00:29:47 Definitely like with each step it takes towards you it gets bigger, because it's supposed to get bigger and bigger. The going from a small child like clown to something now towering and massive, bigger than your tallest agent, and kind of looming menacingly, playing up that sense of menace, that sense of threat.
Starting point is 00:30:05 Maybe it's in its body language as well, it's maybe cracking its nipples, or it's coming towards you, like it wants to touch you with its hands. Yeah. Yeah. Like a more feral kind of posture. You know, it's crouching down some because of its height, and it's, you know, its fingers are long. Just something to just, just, yeah, to really, to me, feral yeah, to really, to me, Ferrell is like the first word that would come to mind is like, play up that kind of Ferrell nature.
Starting point is 00:30:29 I like that idea. You could even have, but because I believe it's wearing a mask, right? It is. I like the idea of even hearing growling or something coming from behind the mask. It suddenly is changing. I like that there's a little note
Starting point is 00:30:41 that another player can drink the potsoo of one of the other players that just exploded exploded but we'll suffer from helplessness. Yeah exactly yeah. So you can have this here to clown chase sequence here. Oh god yeah it's it's an intense sequence and it should be there's a lot of different little areas you know you can you can highlight the shifting nature of backstage. They catch different glimpses at different times. Along story short, the Patsu disappears and reappears over and over again. After someone drinks it, it'll be gone, but then it'll reappear. Essentially, they got to make a lucro.
Starting point is 00:31:21 And if they fail, the liquid is not there, or they simply can't drink it, they're too engaged in escaping, but if they succeed, then they can drink it. And then they immediately disappear. Is there anything else about this moment, which seems to be kind of the climax of the scenario that is important to understand? It sounds like it's basically get the players into the door
Starting point is 00:31:45 Chester House, make them feel helpless as they are trapped, and then reveal the only way out. Absolutely, yeah. It's starting to really re-emphasize the whole underlying objective of this whole campaign, the only way out is through. And it's a great avenue for them to kind of really realize that, you know, that sinking realization, that, you know, everything they thought they left behind
Starting point is 00:32:13 in 1995 with the destruction of the Macalester, they had never left. Okay, the players survive, they make it out, they drink the Patsu. What happens next to them? They wake back up in a totally random house, I believe. And a totally random house, yeah. On occupied residential area. And I don't know how to find a home. I got the impression the home was for sale. Like there's a real estate tag and stuff like that on it.
Starting point is 00:32:47 Yeah, it's still in Boston. It's like a residential area. Yeah, there's like a first sale sign out front. When they wake up the first thing they see is another sigil from the Ars-Goesha for Malthus this time. Of course, at this point, you know, when agents are in the night worlds, they don't sustain any temporary insanity or anything like that. But if they did go temporarily insane or they did hit their breaking point, that all comes home to roost a second they're back in the real world. I love the idea of like three or four agents all hitting their breaking points at the same time. So like neighbors can hear people screaming in this empty house. Maybe the police are called. Who knows how
Starting point is 00:33:23 bad it can get? Yeah, that's exciting. I think you can get real bad. Which is amazing. I love how bad it can get. But the next big part, the next big lead happens when this entity called the Clockwork Child, that the agents may or may not have encountered in the night floors, essentially is on the front step of the residents with this letter, with this note. Specifically. The door is right there. Yeah. Yeah, in fact, it'll appear to the agent
Starting point is 00:33:53 with the highest corruption rating in a manner in which it is visible only to that amount of window reflection in a mirror or a shadow in a hall that only the agent can see. Something like that. So it'll come to them, it'll approach them, it'll have this note. That's a pretty good suggestion is for when they are
Starting point is 00:34:11 in the Dorchester house, they should come across the clockwork child because then it will be obvious that this is a connection. Yeah, yeah, if they didn't encounter it, the night floors have it appear at some point in time and the Dorchester house for sure. Or just have it kind of continuously show up again and again, absolutely just an implication that this thing is connected to all of this. But it'll approach with the note that I'll essentially direct to
Starting point is 00:34:37 the players to find the hotel broughtle then find JC Lens bring him his bottle and it will be signed by Abigail, right? So the tracks are laid for the next scenario, find hotel brought up in, like you said, find the writer to give them the bottle. But there is a lot left to discuss about the scenario. There's the entire involvement with Delta Green that we haven't even gotten into yet. I think now is probably a good time to take a break and in the next episode we'll go into some of those details. We'll go into more details about a lot of these NPCs and this whole involvement of Delta Green and how you would handle it. But this was really illuminating and kind of helped put into perspective how you're going to handle this big scenario It's a it's a beast. It takes a lot of reading a lot of prep a lot of kind of connecting the dots and making sure you've laid the groundwork
Starting point is 00:35:34 to make it as kind of seamless I mean a experience as possible, but it's doable. It's it's such a great scenario. It's such a great, great experience for the players. So we're going to talk about all this stuff in the next episode. We'll go into more detail. Folks, if you are enjoying it, please subscribe to us. Our patreon is available at patreon.com forward slash MaydayRP, where you can find lots of stuff. These Patreon exclusive episodes that we are offering in tandem with these free episodes have maps and images from the book and details that you are not going to find in the free version. So please be sure to sign up at any Patreon level which will get you access to these more in-depth exclusive episodes. Vince, thanks again. I'll see you on the other side.
Starting point is 00:36:25 Thanks, Ravmy, man. We'll be seeing you.

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