Lost in Time and Space

You looked into the light. You fell through the hole. You read the words on the page.

Where are you now?

1. The Infinite Hotel

You feel the rough flatweave against your cheek. Open your eyes: it's red. A tacky red - a red carpet reserved for midwestern motels and cheap dentists' offices. You lift your head: there is a door. A wooden door with a brass handle and a key-lock. To your left and right, similar doors. Behind you, more. You are in a hallway - a straight line - and either way there are doors upon doors. It seems to stretch forever.

There are numbers on the doors. You know that they are numbers but you know not what numbers they are. It hurts to look at them, like gazing at a magnifying fractal ad infinitum. It gives you a headache. This appears to be a hotel, but where are all the people?

What is that in that uncurving distance?

2. Waiting For A Train

You're sitting on a bench. Across, you see the sterile walls of a subway station. There's an advertisement for Marlboro Cigarettes featuring a vintage blonde riding a fresh pack.

There is a track ahead of you, going left and right into darkness. At this point you hear a man's voice: "Yeah... Sometimes the train is late." He's sitting on a bench behind you. Has he been here the whole time? 

"It's a real stinker... But that's how things are, isn't it?"

Straight black hair covers his neck. His face is weathered like basalt. He wears a black hat matching his black shoes and a grey trench coat for the rain, of which there is none. He has an umbrella.

Have a conversation with this man. There are no exits.

Eventually, the train will come. But are you at the station, or are you on the tracks?

3. Dream Within The Dream

You wake.

You'd taken a nasty fall. Surrounded by your compatriots. But something's wrong. Something's off about them. Eventually, they remove the skin of their faces.

You wake.

It's night. The stars watch from above, blinking and twinkling in their distant radiance. Go to sleep.

You wake.

You are on a beach, alone. It's Lake Superior. You've never been to Lake Superior. You see something on the waves - long-necked and bobbing like the drinking bird. An island bearing a single tree floats by, unbound by gravity.

You wake.

4. Two Deserts

You feel a cool breeze. Your feet sink, just so. You are on a beach, and the waves of the ocean lap up against your feet with somber tempo.

Ahead of you is the sea. Behind, there is sand. You stand at the meniscus: a beach curving endlessly in both directions between wet and dry deserts. Your footprints begin to disappear in the tide. You feel thirsty.

Perhaps, you see something. Is it mermaids? Wreathed in seaweed. They sing to each other, but not for you.

5. The Mirror

You see... you. You are watching yourself. Like a mirror reflection in a dark hall of mirrors. There is light here, but you know not from where.

You realize that you cannot blink. You can't see your nose, or the blur of your eyelashes. You try and wave your hand in front of your face and close your eyes and it does not become dark. You watch yourself try these things. You watch the terror on your own face begin to form. Do you scream?

6. Ragged Claws

You are not but a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floor of silent seas.

You are barely a basal ganglia. No, not even that.

This isn't so bad...

7. Annulment of the Spheres

You stand upon the surface of a sphere. It curves in all directions. It stands in a void, along with you, alone. But not for long. Soon, there is another sphere, then another. More and more, spheres come streaming through the void, entering into interconnected orbits. They are brilliant radiances: stars contained within stars, magmatic planets, phasic nebulae, dashing comets.

They dance among themselves, you and your sphere within them, swirling about each other in gravitational ecstasy.

Then, a blinding light. Two of the spheres collide. An apocalyptic world-ending cataclysm: it produces sounds like the trumpets of heaven in Revelation: the noise of the end of the universe. It is followed by another cataclysmic crash, and another. One by one, then two by two and climbing, the spheres crash into each other, forming a great mass of gravitational annihilation.

Slowly, your sphere begins on its course towards the finality. At the end, you see the invisible strings pulling you in. A string for every sphere, tangled and ensnared. Something far above guides them to destruction. You wake.

8. Glaciers

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. 

Keep doing this.

A phalanx of ice and stone. It advances. It retreats. It waxes. It ebbs. With every inhale it swallows rivers, blankets valleys, swells, filling the crenulations like capillaries. With every exhale it shatters, breaks piece by piece - it falls apart and dissolves. Layers form upon layers like ice cream cake.

Breathe.

You sense something, an imperceptible scent. Breathing gets harder. Like an aperture around your throat slowly closing in. An asthmatic wheeze as the slow motion vice closes around your lungs.

Breathe.

Pieces start falling out of place. Every inhale becomes more shallow, every exhale more choked. Your lungs are hemorrhaging air in a death crawl towards annihilation. It's like breathing through a drinking straw. You're drowning. Gulping like a fish.

Don't stop breathing.

9. Your Life

You hear a woman screaming. She's in pain. It's white, white all around. There are people in the room: familiar people, and doctors. Are you one of these, familiar people, or doctors? They are not occupied by you. You are merely incidental. You are witnessing a birth. You recognize the woman. She is your mother, but much younger. The baby is you. You come out, screaming.

((If you should die during the adventure, this place will be revisited, along with your death.))

10. Melting

As you were, but... There's something familiar in the distance that was not there before. Some fixation of home: a city skyline, power lines imperiously carved through woods, fields of corn.

Your hands are mummified black. There is nothing left of them but unbleached bone.

Everything around you is melting. The flesh is gone, the organic is gone. The rocks and metals - the most permanent of things - are melting like butter in the microwave, unevenly with some indecipherable wave function.

The ants are coming to eat them as they decay. The enduring has become flesh and the flesh has become nothing. There will be naught but sand. Sand for all of time.

Underneath

In writing a horror adventure, I have fretted and pondered about which horror system to use, until I came upon the conclusion that I really just ought to write my own system. Underneath is that system, or at least its spooky skeleton. It is a rules light adventure system focused on investigation. To this end, it's going to assume that you're already familiar with how to run an RPG, and will simply provide the barest skeleton of a system for which you (the DM) can drape your own customization and DIY stuff upon.

Keep in mind, this is experimental, and will probably go through further iterations in the future.

Some core features of this system:

• There is no Investigation / Search check. Avoid using Instinct for clue finding. If the players decide to search an area, you should either engage in a conversation about what exactly they're checking, or you should simply tell them about the hidden things.
• There is no Initiative system. If something resembling combat occurs, there will be a tick-for-tack system. A player does something, you (the DM) do something, a player does something, you do something.
• Combat is a nasty thing, and if the players are smart they're avoid it whenever possible. Player-Characters have very little vitality and healing is exceptionally slow. Injuries are not uncommonly incurable and frequently escalate beyond control. Player-characters will die - they're easy to make again.
• Insight is the inverse of Sanity. It starts at zero and climbs upward. The higher the gets, the more you begin to see things as they truly are: monstrous and horrific.
• It is designed for a modern era game in mind, although I see no reason why it couldn't be adapted to other periods.

~~~~~

ATTRIBUTES

Investigators have FIVE ATTRIBUTES, put in terms of X in 6 chance of success. At creation, these stats have a minimum of 2 in 6 and maximum of 5 in 6, with exception of Insight, which starts at zero and has no maximum.

At creation, players have 6 points in which to increase their attributes, up to the maximum.

Example Arrays: 4, 4, 3, 3 ~ 2, 2, 5, 5 ~ 2, 3, 4, 5

RESOLVE...

...is used for violence, for intimidation, for feats of will.

Examples of using this attribute:

• Sucker punch a guy.
• Say: "I'll call Child Protection Services", and it doesn't sound like an empty threat.
• Amputating someone else's leg... Or your own.
• Sort through hundreds of stacks of old newspapers at an efficient pace.
• Beating someone senseless.

INSTINCT...

...is used for perception, for stealth, and sensing.

Examples of using this attribute:

• Sneaking past a patrolling mall cop.
• Creating a misdirecting sound to throw The Troll off your trail.
• Sensing a subtle change in wind direction or air pressure.
• Knowing that that smell means there's a gas leak.
• Innately noticing (without the player asking questions) subliminal messages in a film, or spotting an easy-to-miss detail.

BODY...

...is used for physical challenges, endurance, and recovery.

Examples of using this attribute:

• Outrunning the hounds.
• Balancing across a precarious rope bridge.
• Doing a pull-up.
• Healing a minor infected cut with a good night's rest.
• Going without sleep for three days and pressing on.

EMPATHY...

...is used for coercion, for spiritualism, for asking questions.

Examples of using this attribute:

• Communing with a Ghost
• Feeling the (emotional) temperature of a room.
• Noticing that the doctor has a tell when she has bad news.
• Sense whether the Spatial Anomaly merely finds you and and your companions incidental or is coming for you.
• Get a feeling of what someone's Insight is at.

INSIGHT...

...is used to see things as they truly are, and not simply how a 'normal' person rationalizes it.

This attribute is used differently than the others. It isn't used for rolling. It begins at zero and climbs upwards as one begins to see how things truly are. There is no upper limit. Many monsters, encounters, and sometimes important clues have Insight Thresholds, which are witnessed differently depending on whether one is above or below this threshold.

A player doesn't know what their character's Insight is until their Investigator goes to sleep. The number is kept secretly by the DM until this time.

The minimum Insight of the Investigators raises to 3 below the maximum Insight within the party. So if Investigator #1 increases to an Insight of 7, and the rest of the party had Insights of 3, when Investigator #1 gains their Insight, the rest of the party's Insight raises to 4 to reflect the new minimum.

Insight Can Be Gained By...

• Taking drugs like magic mushrooms or psychedelics.
• Asking the first two questions to the DM about anomalous things.
• Coming to important conclusions about mysteries.
• Coming to terms with something incalculable.
• Being around an Investigator with 3 more Insight than they.

Insight Can Be Lost By...

• Watching television or consuming media.
• Therapy.
• Watching someone rationalize horrible situations, like watching a news program.
• Taking drugs like alcohol.
• Roleplaying having your Investigator try to rationalize something anomalous they witnessed.

WHEN IN DOUBT, TALK IT OUT

If you're not sure which Attribute to use in a given situation, either allow the players to make their case or make a ruling on the spot. There is a reasonable amount of overlap between the attributes that could see multiple potential attribute rolls used.

DIFFICULTY

If a task is to be considered exceptionally challenging, consider halving the X in 6 chance of success, rounded up (e.g. a 5 in 6 will become a 3 in 6). If the task is to be considered easy or trivial, such as one within the purview of an investigator's occupation, then don't bother rolling - just make it a success and move on. This should never apply to fighting or interacting with monsters or the exceptionally strange - that is under nobody's purview.

INITIATIVE AND COMBAT

Whenever it becomes necessary to precisely dictate the flow of events, such as coming into conflict with a monster, fighting a wizard, or rushing to complete a ritual, things will happen on a tick-for-tack basis. Simply:

One or more Players say they're doing something. Adjudicate it.

Then, the DM does something.

It goes back and forth like this until the event is concluded.

In order to slay, drive off, hide, or run away from a monster that is pursuing, the party must score a number of successes equal to the monster's Hit Dice (HD). This is often done by successful Resolve, Instinct, Body, or Empathy checks.

Resolve can be used for...

    ...hacking something apart with an axe.

    ...running at something with a primed grenade

    ...demanding a surrender

Instinct can be used for...

    ...taking a sniper shot from very far away

    ...finding something hidden

    ...hiding

Body can be used for...

    ...outrunning something quick

    ...carrying an unconscious person to safety

    ...breaking down a door with your shoulder

Empathy can be used for...

    ...exorcising a ghost

    ...asking questions about the potential motives of a monster*

    ...calming a crazed animal or person

 *(i.e. Is it looking for something? Was it human? Does it recoil at the religious symbol? Is it afraid of something?)

Injuries and total attribute damage are not revealed until the end of combat. Descriptions are made (i.e. the troll takes a bite out of one of your fingers), but the total cost in terms of attribute are not made clear until it's all over, or at least until there's a moment of respite for everyone to take stock of what's missing.

In this way, Players do not know the real power of what they're encountering until after the fact. This makes monsters and fights very, very dangerous.

INJURIES...

...will be varied and strange. Details for injuries should be listed on a given monster's data sheet or in an adventure iteself. Most Injuries will reduce one or more of an Investigators attributes. If any of the Investigator's attributes reach 0 in 6, then either something very bad happens according to the Injury, or you become generically debilitated depending on which attribute. If it was...

...Resolve, you become Surrendered: despondent, at someone else's mercy, beaten.

...Instinct, you become Unconscious: knocked out, asleep, blind deaf and dumb.

...Body, you become Incapacitated: paralyzed, unable to move, broken into immobility.

...Empathy, you become Disassociated: brain-fried, hysterical, unable to process and hide information.

If two or more attributes go to zero, then that investigator is DEAD. If an Investigator receives damage to an attribute two additional times when it's at zero, then the player permanently loses control of that character and they are thrown to the mercy of the DM: possession, death by exsanguination, what have you.

Induced Injuries or effects often target two or more attributes simultaneously. For instance: 

• if a cop is beating someone with a nightstick, they are dealing damage to the person's Resolve and Body. 
• if the cop pepper sprays someone, they are dealing damage to the person's Resolve and Instinct. 
• if the cop is engaging in 'enhanced interrogation' by playing loud music all night, they are damaging Instinct and Empathy.

EXAMPLE GENERIC INJURIES

FOLDING: -1 Body, -1 Empathy / Day. 

Upon Death become another FLESH CRANE.

Creases on the skin. A pattern begins to emerge. What happens if you fold it? 

YOU MUST FOLD IT. When it is finished, will you be something beautiful?

NASTY CUT: -1 Instinct / Hour

Body checks cause -1 Instinct.

Medical Treatment can cure this injury.

SHOT (Low caliber): -2 Body, -1 Instinct / Minute

SHOT (High caliber): -3 Body, -2 Instinct / Minute

RESTING AND RECOVERY

Investigators can recover 1 Attribute Point per Day from a night's rest and/or from receiving medical attention (if the injury can even be addressed with modern medicine), up to their maximum at character creation. This is often not enough to keep up with a terminal or strange injury - it's merely bailing out water.

MONSTER TEMPLATES

Most monsters slip under the radar. They hide in plain sight, using the cloak of normalcy to hide their activities, or bang and scream against the wall separating them from everyone. Everyone, that is, except those with sufficient Insight.

Practice the language you're going to use to describe something horrific.

HIT DICE: Represents the number of d6's the monster gets in order to cause an Injury. Monsters can have many Hit Dice, or none. It also serves as the number of Hits required to bring it to heel: either shooing it away, banishing it, or killing it.

When a monster is attempting to cause an Injury, roll a number of d6's equal to its Hit Dice. Each die has a 3 in 6 chance of succeeding. For every success, it can deal one injury to one Investigator, or cause an even worse injury on a single Investigator.

Hit Dice also represent how many successful checks it requires to Escape, Hide, or otherwise deal with the monster. A monster of HD 3 which is keen on pursuing the Investigators and hunting them down may require 3 successful Body rolls from the Investigators to shake off. 

INSIGHT THRESHOLD: If an Investigator has Insight below the Insight Threshold of a monster, then it appears as a more rationalized form to that person: a ghost might seem as some swamp gas, a ghoul might seem as a hostile homeless person, a wizard may seem as an old man. Not infrequently, the behavior of the monster may change depending on whether Investigators are encountering it below or above its Insight Threshold.

INJURIES: Lists the injuries and consequences of what happens if a monster gets a Hit. These will be usually unique to each monster.

EXAMPLE MONSTER TEMPLATE: 

SUICIDE GHOST

Hit Dice: 2

Insight Threshold: 3

Will Not Pursue Runners.

Low Insight Appearance: Phantom Scream & Gunshot Sound

A scream from nowhere. Sourceless and unexpected. A gunshot with no source. Resolve Check or -1 Resolve.

Description: Weeping sounds around the corner. A shuttering figure. Gun limp at their side. Head like a gore-chanterelle. Blood flows from a gaping hold in the head like a garden hose.

Injuries

(1 Hit): Arm Possession: 

If the Investigator has no gun: uncontrollable weeping. +1 Empathy, -1 Resolve

If the Investigator has a gun: self-inflicted gun wound. -3 Body, -2 Resolve.

(2 Hit): Total Possession:

If the Investigator has no gun: uncontrollable weeping. -2 Resolve

If the Investigator has a gun: self-inflicted shot to the head. -4 Body, -4 Resolve. 

ITEMS

Investigators begin the game with a Smartphone, and two items of their request. These items must be reasonable and related to the backstories of their investigators. (For instance, a remote drone and a laptop are two reasonable items.) The party is granted one car which has the occupancy to accommodate all of them simultaneously.

Investigators may carry a maximum of 5 Items on their person.

SPELLS

Magic is dangerous. It is mysterious and arcane. The Cost of a Spell is hidden from the Players until after it is finishing casting. Frequently, the cost isn't even the same each time, and might be different depending on who's casting it. The Cost of a Spell is frequently dependent on some mysterious factor for which only the DM is to know.

EXAMPLE SPELL: FORESIGHT

Invoke the Middle Eye. See what the future holds.

Costs: Roll one 1d6 per times used, ever.

Takes one 1) Resolve 2) Instinct 3) Body 4) Empathy 5) Insight 6) Nothing

Effect: The Game Master rolls the next random encounter and shares with you, and only you, the result. You immediate gain knowledge of it - it's Name, Three Adjectives Describing It, and Attacks (if any).

EXAMPLE SPELL: WINDS OF A'AQUR

A'AQUR, that which chases the flashpoint of the end. The great entropic force bears winds of incalculable destruction. To wield just a tiny fraction is shattering. The winds of the North bear such heat and force as to turn its target to ash.

Costs: 1 Instinct and Body for every Day that's eclipsed since the start of the Everlasting Summer.

Effect: Deal 3 Hits to the target.

Requires 1 Round of preparation and chanting.

If this reduces the target to 0 Hits, it disintegrates, leaving nothing but black ash on the nearby terrain.

The Unicorn

((Content Warning: Horror, Pictures of Medical Birth Defects))

The following transcript was released in the month of September in the year 2024 as part of a police transparency initiative regarding the infamous Caulders serial killings, which resulted in the deaths of four young women between the years of 2012-2013. The release was the result of a decade of litigation spearheaded by community accountability groups in conflict with the Caulders family lawyer. Stephen Caulders IV, having since resided at Jackson State Prison, was found clutching this document during his arrest by Michigan state law enforcement.

~~~~~

WHAT IS THE UNICORN?

The Unicorn is a supposedly mythical creature originating in the records of the Indus Valley civilization. It is described on stone tablets, stories, paintings, and The Bible as a pure white horse or goat-like creature sporting a single spiraled horn emanating from its skull. It is connected to a number of myths and legends, and is depicted across a widely throughout the centuries. (SEE FIGURE 1)

The Unicorn is a woodland creature, evasive and highly sought after by noble hunters for the magical potency of its horn, known as the alicorn, which is said to grant purifying powers when ground into a fine powder. According to the legends, a virgin maiden of pure heart is capable of luring and taming the creature, thus allowing its capture.

The ancient Greek historian Ctesias said that the unicorn resided in India. Modern historians have thus incorrectly deduced that he meant modern-day India, when in fact he meant The Americas. This confusion has manifested frequently, but became clear with the records of Christopher Columbus, who discovered the New World and called it by its true name. Thus, it is indicative that the Unicorn was not located in India, but in fact was located in America.

Before the Columbian Exchange in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Americas had no goats or horses. Therefore, the unicorn, whose myths far predate the Exchange, could not have been a goat or a horse. It was, and I have confirmed this, a deer. Specifically, a white-tailed deer.

Many artists of medieval and renaissance times had never seen a unicorn. And so when it was described to them, they would perpetuate the myth that it was horse or goatlike. The natural halfway between these two is the deer. Due to the nature of communicating information from the Americas to Europe in this time, this translation error was explainable. There is evidence, though, that at least one artist saw an actual unicorn in this time, and correctly understood that it was derived from a white tailed deer, and not a horse or goat. (SEE FIGURE 2)

Myths about the unicorn are frequently conflicting, but by reading between the lines we are able to formulate some important questions. In many paintings, the unicorn is depicted as having been leashed by a king's crown. In every depiction, the unicorn is always shown from the side, even though any humans present are generally seen facing straight on. (SEE FIGURES 2 & 3)

Why is this? It cannot be explained purely by artistic preference. There must have been a reason, and from my repreated studies I have been able to guess why: the unicorn does not have two eyes - it has only one. One large eye, square in the middle of the skull. It is a deer with one eye and one central horn.

I believe I have discovered the reason. Cyclopia is a rare condition present in vertebrates that results when the brain doesn't cleave into right and left parts. It has been witnessed in cows, goats, and even humans. (SEE FIGURES 4 & 5) This birth defect often results in miscarriage or death hours after birth. Not so, I've found, in deer. Deer with cyclopia, according to my findings, are capable of living well into adulthood, and are capable of reproduction and mating just like other deer. My studies seem to indicate that only male deer are capable of surviving cyclopia, for I have never seen a cyclopic doe. These cyclopic deer, I surmise, actually achieve a supremacy during mating season, and are actually preferred among the does over their non-cyclopic competitors. Perhaps this is due to its ability to skewer contesting rivals straight through the middle during a charge. But perhaps, I think, this is due to some additional vitality granted by the cyclopia - something which pre-scientific societies ascribed to 'magical powers'.

If this is true, then this might explain the demand for the alicorn (the horn), which no doubt contains some sort of medicinal property created by the unique biological conditions of the cyclopia. Perhaps it is true, and the unicorn's horn contains the biological secret of immortality - some chemical organic cocktail which has purifying properties. Perhaps, stem cells, or even the long-sought psychic ability? Alas, more data is needed.

But why the crown? What is the significance of those royal leashes that have kept the unicorn bound in its various depictions? Perhaps it ascribes the divine connection between royalty, God, and the unicorn. Only a divine object can control such a magical creature. Regardless, this gives ample opportunity for further investigation.

For instance, is it possible for there to be a human unicorn?

FIGURE 1

FIGURE 2

FIGURE 3

FIGURE 4

FIGURE 5

~~~~~

Stephen Caulder IV unfortunately committed suicide in prison. His body was found in 2015, having died from an "extraordinary brain hemorrhage"  according to the autopsy report. Details in said report provide a photograph of the scene, showing Caulder having "slipped and fell on the exposed post of his bed". A message was carved on skin of the legs and abdomen, reported by the decease's sister upon examination in the funerary parlor:

THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE EYE.  I SAW IT AND IT SAW ME. 

THE DEER LET OUT A BRAY AND IT CAME CRAWLING OUT. 

I WASN'T PURE OF HEART. IT'S COMING FOR ME. SARAH, GOD, HELP ME

ES - Ghost Ship Rumors / Map

Everlasting Summer

Did you know that 340 million years ago, the land that would be Michigan was under a briny sea? The State Stone, the Petosky, was formed from the fossilization of coral from this period. 

Did you know that coral polyps have mouths?

A ghost ship has washed up on Lake Superior's shore by the Venture township, some kind of cargo tanker - not a sign of the crew. Could it be connected to the rise of A'AQUR?

ONLINE RUMORS

1. Going to the beach? Look out for Petosky Stones - they're fossilized coral that're hundreds of millions of years old. Some of the best ones can be quite valuable.
2. The internet page about the 'historic' Sharps Point Lighthouse hasn't been updated since the early 00's. The entire page is just a picture and a title, no links.
3. Lake Superior is the deepest of the Great Lakes, with a maximum depth of 405 meters. It contains more water than all the other Great Lakes combined.
4. Lake Superior has its own version of the Loch Ness monster. Folks call it "Pressie". The lake serpent is frequently the fascination of cryptic hunters.
5. There are over 350 recorded shipwrecks in Lake Superior, with over 10,000 casualties attributed to them. In nearly all cases the bodies never washed up.
6. A video shows a man describing a picture he took of the Lake that shows a "hole in the water". It's quite blurry and grainy. He sounds spooked.

LOCAL RUMORS

1. Sometimes people say they can see the Ghost Ship out on the Lake, drifting against the wind. No no, not that old tanker that washed up, the REAL ghost ship!
2. Some guy named Zachery Bean started the legend when he spotted the ship through a rifle scope in the 70's. He swore until his death in 2009 that it bore the flags of the Royal Banner of France.
3. It's harder to see, but you're more likely to spot something weird on the Lake at dusk, dawn, or midnight.
4. A troll tends to the Sharps Point Lighthouse.
5. A couple of trolls (lower-peninsula Michiganders) went to explore that abandoned ship. They didn't come back to town. That was five days ago.
6. Don't be out swimming on the lake after dark. That's when people end up going missing.
7. Go out fishing on the Lake frequently, always come back before dark. You can never see the Lighthouse lights from the lake, though. Weird.

SPOILER SUMMARY

• SHARPS POINT LIGHTHOUSE - Strange lights induced by The Troll cause nearby investigators to become Lost in Time and Space, but only at night. It arrives at dusk once every three days to refill the strange oil.

• ABANDONED CARGO SHIP - Research team investigating nearby island discovered a cave containing live Hexagonaria coral from 340 million years ago. An incidental blood spill caused the coral to activate, gaining a hunger for salty human blood. Those infested with the coral become walking polyp-covered skeletons. The coral cannot tolerate freshwater, and hence has hidden inside the ballast of the cargo ship (which still contained water from the Atlantic). Those who enter the cargo ship will fall into a trap if the coral detects their presence.

• GHOST SHIP - The rumors are quite true, though rarely seen. A ghostly crew, captained by the 18th century New France officer Constant le Marchad de Lignery, patrols these waters. Cursed by The Foxes after burning their crops and villages, the crew serve out their penance by annihilating those touched by the coral, petrifying them with a mere touch. In this way they contain the menace. Anyone who becomes infested by the coral will surely witness the true Ghost Ship before shattering into dozens of Petoski Stones.

• THE LAKE SERPENT - Pressie isn't real. The growing presence of A'AQUR, though, is instigating a number of anomalies - holes, fishmen, blood swans, whirlpools, waterspouts. Any time one of these is encountered by a person with low Insight, it is rationalized as having seen the Lake Serpent.

Next Post: Beach Encounters

Everlasting Summer

The date is January 15th, 2030. Climate change has destroyed the last of the endothermic prison-seals containing A'AQUR, the Wind of the North. Political dysfunction and rampant misinformation allow the problem to fester: the breakaway event is reported but dismissed as propaganda. A'AQUR's cult operates in plain sight, wreathed in manufactured indifference. Tomorrow, another scandal is on the news. The stock market is fine.

But you know something is wrong. You've seen it. A small town in the Michigan Upper Peninsula known as Venture has been experiencing temperatures upwards of 30 degrees Celsius in the heart of winter: a never-ending summer surrounded by blizzards and choking snow. It has been dismissed as a meteorological anomaly, as proof that climate change is a hoax, as merely "Michigan weather". Video footage doesn't matter. Reporting doesn't matter. The Post-Truth world doesn't care. Nobody cares. Except you.

Credit: Aaron Peterson, 2017

WHO ARE YOU?

The Immigrant's Child

Your parents kept telling you to lay low, to not cause trouble. Draw too much attention to the family, and they'll risk getting deported. But this is bigger than your family. This is your home. Something is eating it from within.

Locals will always ask: "Where are you from?... Okay, but where are you really from?" It doesn't matter that you don't have a foreign accent and you were born in Columbus, Ohio.

Your Parents Emigrated From: 1) Vietnam 2) Guatemala 3) Afghanistan 4) Mexico 5) Iraq 6) Cuba

Bonus: You are bilingual.

The Climate Scientist

You personally witnessed A'aqur escape from its prison. You even taped it. You have pleaded with every person and entity you know: reporters, politicians, neighbors, ministers. You have been ignored as an alarmist nutcase. The truth is politically inconvenient. Someone is heading you off at every turn. Even your fellow climate scientists are starting to doubt your findings, as associating with you has become financial poison. You've lost funding. The rest of your science team has either gone missing, or committed suicide'. You're the only one left...

But you're not going down without a fight.

You Have an Ally: 1) Sympathetic eco-terrorist 2) Rogue climate scientist 3) Loyal canine 4) Local politician 5) Desperate intern 6) Ship's captain

Liberated Conspiracy Theorist

You wouldn't have believed it a year ago. A year ago, you were posting about how satanists have secretly taken over state governments and how having your teeth cleaned is how they insert the mind control chips. But then it hit home: your brother went missing. You began to unravel the real deal. It wasn't a relapse in opioids, it wasn't jail, it wasn't a satanic political abduction. The Cult hides in plain sight. They have your brother.

You tried to explain this to your other theorists, but you've been dismissed and ridiculed. You "took the blue pill", you're "compromised by the illuminati", you've been "truth-simped". 

You just want your brother back.

You have a very specific skill set: 1) Black web browsing 2) Insulting people on the Internet 3) False flag operations 4) Having encrypted communications 5) Being good at video games 6) Having a gun.

Independent Reporter

You know there's a story here. Not just any story, a big one. The biggest. All the clues point to something huge: the media silence, the denials, the manufactured normalcy. This isn't normal. None of this is normal.

Yesterday, someone made an attempt on your life. You didn't see who it was. Now you know for certain that you're on the right track. You're going to expose this conspiracy, and you'll get the Pulitzer for it, too.

You have a significant contact in: 1) The Catholic Church 2) The US Marines 3) Canada 4) NASA 5) The IRS 6) Major News Outlet

High School Teacher

One by one, the little screens have been going out. You, the overtaxed high school teacher, have watched with a slow-burn horror as your Zoom class for remote learning shrunk from an overpacked 31 students down to 16 over the course of the semester. They simply stopped connecting. You've reported this to your principle, your superintendent, to the police, you've tried calling their homes over and over again. Every time it's left messages or 'what teenager?'. Every time it's 'just the way it is with these rural kids'.

But you, having taught for 30 years, have never seen this in your life. Something is wrong. Something is terribly terribly wrong. You can't stand by as they pick off your kids one by one.

Your teaching subject is: 1) Biology/Geology 2) Math/Spanish 3) Physics/Chemistry 4) Music/Art 5) Gym/Health 6) History/English

Disillusioned Pastor

Times are rough for the church. Your congregants have been divided and conquered piecemeal for decades by scandal, drug use, disinterest, and poverty. The next generation of believers has been lost to the digital consciousness, and churches are being abandoned by the bushel. At your lowest point, when your faith has all but diminished, there arrived a sign from God: a town in Michigan, to whom winter never came. You rush there on sabbatical, confident that whatever is happening there will restore your faith.

You are having an affair with: 1) Gambling  2) A church councilor's wife 3) Whiskey 4) Liberation Theology 5) Gigolos 6) Christian Mysticism

Venture, MI

The town of Venture has a population of 200 people. It receives more tourism in the summer and fall, coinciding with sporting on Lake Superior and deer season respectively. Most of its population are retirees or folk who work in the shrinking copper or logging industries. The last time it made state news was in 1902, when state news was barely a thing.

Most of the stores are outfitted to cater to hunters and fishers in the summer and fall. There's no town hall, as it's only a township, and hence has no mayor. The closest government you'll get is in Marquette, MI. The township has one of everything: one church, one Motel 6, one Denny's, one lighthouse.

Source

This year, spring came early. The snows thawed in late February, and the flowers bloomed in March. Summer came and never left. It's been nearly 30 degrees Celsius since June, and now it's January. While the rest of the U.P. is dredged in literal feet of snow, this town has gone on like nothing has happened.

At this time, the sun rises every day around 8:30am, a sets at 5:30pm. 9 Hours of Daylight, 13 Hours of Darkness. The darkness has a summer heat, warm winds from the lake.

People in town go about their daily lives in a daze: when asked anything out of the usual, they'll reply along the lines of 'Well, that's the U.P. for you..." or "Yeah, it's weird." or just shrug it off. They live in denial. Some even wear winter coats, knowing it's January, all whilst sweating themselves into heat stroke while entirely being unsure why. This effect is pronounced primarily in adults. The more mature the adult, the more pronounced it is. Those too ignorant to rationalize why everything is happening (like the mad, the sick, and children) are capable of having perfectly normal conversations. This might explain why they're disappearing...

One can get internet access in town, particularly around the Denny's. Out in the woods, though, those bars will quickly disappear. The occasional landline still exists, particularly in retirees homes. That, though, is likely to be cut off as the Electric Cult usurps the local utilities. The closest highway is Michigan-US 41 at 4 hours away, and the closest city is Marquette 6 hours away (time lengthened due to snow), where one can find most things a city has.

Source: Eric Wallis

MYSTERIES / RUMORS

1. Missing Hunters

Wisconsinite Sarah Goodman has been begging strangers for help finding her brother Matt, who went missing after engaging in a winter hunting trip with his friend Harvey. She said Matt was acting obsessed, searching for something in the woods.

2. Perfect Pasty

Recently a roadhouse opened up in Venture, and already it's been the talk of the county. People have been arriving from as far away as Ohio to taste its delectable meats, especially its pasties (meat pastries). This tourism has virtually doubled the population of the township, and choked up the roads for half a mile around the highway. What could be so great about these meat pastries?

3. Ghost Ship

There have been centuries of legends surrounding ghost ships on Lake Superior. Recently, though, another one added to the list. An iron-carrying tanker was recently beached just to the north of Venture, with no crew present.

4. Orange Lake

Satellite images of the town provide evidence of a coverup: Venture cannot be seen from publicly available mapping software. Someone, however, missed the lake to the south of the town, which appears to be a drain for the nearby copper mine. That doesn't explain the giant snake-like creature floating in it... By the picture's scale it ought to be 200ft long at least.

5. Paulding Light

Observed when watching long power lines from a distance, it's frequently described as a train or car light coming towards the viewer. Rumor has it that the source is the ghost of a decapitated train conductor or bus driver. The number of Paulding Light spottings has increased, with locals in the Venture retiree village saying they're seeing it in board daylight outside their homes.

Secret Warehouses

 Technically, the Secret Warehouses aren't located in Wizard City. They're located in extradimensional space, making them unregulated law-null zones for the storage of unscrupulous objects.

The 14 5/8th's Street Gang, led by Aggravated Sal, manages these extradimensional locations by holding the keys of entry. A key is, simply, an object. It can be anything: a wand, a shoe, an actual key, a password, a thought, a person, a sandwich. When paired with its 'door' - essentially any other kind of object - an extradimensional space opens. Typically, these pairings have some sort of intuitive association, as purely random objects rarely tend to form spontaneous hidden spaces.

For instance: a gold-colored brick in a wall might be a door, and its key would be a gentleman's cane. Or a series of three dogs might be a door, and the key would be one slice of ham fed to each (the portal forming when the dogs begin eating in a triangle formation).

Why does this happen? Why is this the only way that extradimensional spaces spontaneously come about? How come children are especially good at locating new spaces? Why doesn't the Bureau of Spatial and Temporal Matters have a firmer grasp on these secret places?

From Raiders of the Lost Ark

In the 14 5/8th's Street Gang, secret meeting spots are held at a premium.  The most prized of these meeting spots are the truly secret ones: sealed documents detailing directions to the meeting location, either written by someone now dead, or laboriously recorded then forgotten by its finder using memory loss magic. These locations are bartered and shared like trading cards, with collectors forming entire decks or filing cabinets worth of safe havens to hide from rival gangs or the wizard police.

d6	Name	Details
1	Loyd the Voyd	Keeps a star-studded cloak close to the chest. Not a hair on his body. Eyes are swirling black vortexes. Under that cloak is the vacuum of space. Talks like a wind down an empty alley - all high pitched whistle and rasp.
2	Betty with the Deep Pockets	Trench coach, shifty eyes. “Gotta watch out for those 4th dimensional shamblers… They can be anywhere and everywhere!” Pockets so deep you could fall in and never be found.
3	Betty with the Mirror	Never looks at anyone directly. Always reflected through a hand mirror. Stylish and well-groomed. The reflection seems to have a mind of its own.
4	The Tall Hatter	Real short guy with a stubby chin. Wears a stack of hats two meters high. Bowlers, boaters, tops, cowboys, tricorns, piths, panamas, buckets, trilbies, hombergs, boonies, pork pies, fedoras, ushankas, and a single red fez at the bottom. Each one goes somewhere. Except the fez. That’s just a normal hat.
5	Broth the Sacker	Tall burly guy, bare arms with muscles like rebar and a big bird’s nest beard. Carries a bunch of burlap sacks for people-snatching. Put ‘em in the sack and they’re gone - fallen to who-knows-where like a reverse rabbit pull.
6	Aggravated Sal	Leader of 14 5/8th’s. Terrible fashion sense, red beard, short temper. Very short temper. Pockets full of space-vacuums and extradimensional-loaded battering rams. Critics will be unmade.

Secret Meeting Spots (d20)

Sometimes you need to set up a meeting, but you can't do that just anywhere in Wizard City. You need a place where The Police, The Secret Police, and the Ultra-Secret Police can't listen in on your illicit deal-making.

1. Equidistant Conference Room - Famously egalitarian non-euclidean design (those darn gnomes!) ensure that everyone seated is the exact same distance away from every other seated person. Standing up and sitting down is always a bit of a trip. Very popular with anarchistic groups.
2. Inside A White Sperm Whale’s Mouth - Surprisingly roomy, if a bit gooey. Do mind the tongue! Sperm whales are famous for never snitching to the cops, and their innate mind shielding, hence their popularity by criminal groups.
3. The Gym - Literally nobody goes here except Beemus The Wizard of GAINS, and he’s cool. Don’t mind the grunting that sounds like a car alarm falling off a cliff.
4. Inside a Wine Bottle - Pull out the cork and shrink yourself down. Pocket dimension inside. Fancy spaghetti and wonderful wine collection served.
5. Toilet Bowl Conference - Two-way scry through a toilet bowl. Very awkward with multiple people. Convenient, for all bathrooms are your oyster!
6. Kiddie Corner at the Bookstore - It’s like this little treehouse for toddlers with children's books on shelves carved like ladybugs. Of course wizards don’t bring their children to the bookstore, so now it’s mostly used by drug dealers.
7. The Infinity Hotel - Infinite rooms means infinite possibility! Just keep walking and eventually you’ll find a decent meeting place.
8. The Mall - “DO NOT GO TO THE MALL”, says literally everybody. But, Bah! That’s just for tourists. The Mall’s a great place for a secret meeting, as long as you pay mind to the Soul-Stealing Mannequins.
9. Secret Police HQ - They’ll never suspect an illicit meeting right under their noses. Like, literally right under their noses. Literally.
10. Some Guy’s Trench Coat - Not even extradimensional, just some really big trench coat that this guy rents out by the hour. Has just enough room for everyone underneath. May require riding on someone’s shoulders. Meeting typically held on the move.
11. Dreams - They’re monitored by the Police, of course, but you can still create a secure space by making the dream gross enough that nobody sifting through the backlog will want to look at it.
12. The Exsanguination Zone - Best for short meetings, as merely being in the zone drains your blood out through your skin, and nobody likes excessively blood-drenched socks.
13. District Quadripoint - The precise point at which the four districts of the city meet is technically a legal deadzone in which nobody has jurisdiction. Just need to be one-dimensional and you’re good to go!
14. The Past - Having meetings in the future is problematic, so why not have them in the past? (Don’t answer that.) Carries obvious risks of butterfly effect and whatnot, but what wizard hasn’t screwed up the time continuum at least twice?
15. The Portal of Endless Screams - I mean, you have to shout over the billions of otherworldly screams constantly emitted from the portal, but at least eavesdropping is unlikely.
16. District Council Meeting - You can say or do anything you want at these meetings, it’ll be on record, and exactly zero people will care.
17. The Knock-On-Wood Diner - Nothing says illicit deals likes waffles! Also, declaring good fortune will definitely get you jinxed if you don’t actually knock on the wooden counters. Blame the wood spirits.
18. In the Alley of the Rat Prince - The Rat Prince can detect when somebody is lying, and is sworn to bite them on the ear whenever this happens in his presence. He is, however, quite geriatric and moribund, and requires the assistance of several power-scheming rat-men to move. They all vie for this privilege.
19. The Hat Shoppe - Many secret rooms containing special secret hats. Built like a series of interconnected escape rooms. They say one owner is a retired “cleaner” for Locke-Key International, and the other is the head of the League of Felonious Gentlemen. Neither have ever been seen.
20. Balanced Atop The Dread Souffle At Le Restaurant Tranquille - A precarious meeting spot, to be sure, for the Dread Souffles unleash unspeakable terrors should they deflate. Best to have exceptional balance and heavenly etiquette when perched upon ornamental pedestals meant for silent birds alone, as bourgeois wizards nibble at its corners. Nobody will dare disturb you there. Must communicate in sign or quiet writing.

Step on in, why don'tcha?