Foreign.

Welcome to RPG Reanimators, a podcast for GMs where we dissect horror scenarios and campaigns and offer our experiences and advice to reanimate them at the table. I'm Lex.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Holly.

I'm Alex.

In this episode we are continuing our deep dive dissection of Impossible Landscapes, written by Dennis Detwiller for Delta Green. If you're starting here and haven't already listened to our previous episodes covering this campaign, once again, we strongly recommend starting from the prologue and working your way through these episodes as a series, lest you risk deep confusion about references to past episodes as as this chapter in particular is very interrelated to the previous chapter and also may have some confusion about certain things that we discuss, such as a new person being an author or things of that nature. If you would like a by the book summary and primer for this section, Bud's RPG review has several wonderful videos that we will link in the show notes of this episode. Now, without further delay, let's continue our dissection. In this episode, we will be covering the core chapter of Like a Map Made of Skin, the looming threat of static protocol, and the agent's scheduled stay at the hotel Brothel bin. Actually, I'm going to say that I lied because we are going to start with the tail end of Volume of Secret Faces. Assuming people's agents have escaped the Dorchester and have woken up somewhere in the quote unquote real world, they're going to be very disoriented and then soon receive an invitation by the Clockwork Child using this to open our discussion for the agents re entering and interacting with the real world. Do you all have any thoughts or advice on wrapping up volume and then leading into map here before we begin our full overview of the actual chapter?

I mean, usually starting this chapter, you should take a second to, you know, breathe and think about what just happened. It's very likely that after the chase, people pop out, they're going to go temporarily insane. They're going to lose their shit, they're going to run out of the immediate safe house that they're in. That seems like a given. It seems like every time I run, someone's just like, I got to get out of here. So, you know, take plan to take some time before you really introduce a lot of new stuff in this scenario. But it's really not too crazy because this whole part three is really just part two.

Extended.

Extended. Yeah, the director's cut.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that your players are going to be very frazzled and will need a moment to kind of catch their breath and taste some fresh air before you start really highlighting how weird the world is around them. This is a moment to let them rest and recover and then give them the creepy note from the Clockwork Child that will have, as written in the text, some instructions from Abigail wright to find J.C. lynns at Hotel Brattle Bin. Yada yada yada. There's a lot of things nothing is true except out is through. Love and kisses Abby.

So friendly.

So this ostensibly serves to give the agent some guidance in terms of going forward, but as we will discuss at length for this chapter, there really isn't any. This chapter is very open ended and the reason why we're kind of starting here is because you can start and run this chapter however you really want.

Yeah, you can really use this opportunity to plant your player characters anywhere after they get out of the Dorchester. Like whatever is most convenient to the plot. Like they just came out of a high tension situation. So in terms of pacing, you want to give them a little break because they're going to be chased all this chapter.

Yep.

I've seen people get dropped off in some demonic houses or I've seen I got dropped off in dead agents like safe house. So yeah, once again, whatever is good for the plot.

Yeah. And I like to add too that I don't think is written. You have it make sense why they got there. But I like to give them like Samu Gina's car and her car keys. Or have it be where it's like maybe we did just escape from the asylum and ran here and fell asleep. That's a great addition somehow together. Yeah. Because I like that question of, you know, we're out, but are we sane? Maybe we shouldn't be high. Like should we turn ourselves in? No, no, no, we shouldn't do that.

So here's another question because my agents suffered a fair bit of damage both within the Dorchester and during their escape and also from their fight with the lion. So whenever they start ch to see what happened, I described that the wounds that they sustained, like I think Holly's agent got straight punctured through the lung as she was kebabbed by the lion. And so it looked like the wound had. It was an ugly scar, as if it healed just by you staying in one place and not actually receiving any medical attention. Is there any environmental storytelling that you could give here to try and either emphasize that maybe you were in a hospital. The agents all wake up wearing hospital smocks that they were in, in the Dorchester, emphasizing that maybe the Dorchester was just a dream that they didn't quite wake up from.

If the story is that they attacked people at Dorchester, you could have people wounded, clothes bloodied. You could even have to tie in with being healed mechanically. You can even have those smocks used as rags to stop bleeding wounds.

Yeah.

So like, yeah, you don't remember using this smock to stop this bleeding, but once you unravel it out, it's, it's the Dorchester outfit. And that's, that's a real moment as well.

Getting into MAP as an overall chapter, what would you say is the holistic focus of it? What are we doing here?

It's just survival, right? Like you're just a desperate run and survival against what's going on. And you're like your world is kind of collapsing in on you at that point. Like everything is. I remember, you know, the one thing I posit, or not the one thing, but one of the things, One of the biggest things that I positively say about this entire campaign is I think it's really the only campaign where I as the player felt what my character was feeling. This deep paranoia of like, who can I trust? You know, where can I turn? And I felt this deep paranoia for my own character. I was like, shit, I don't know where she's gonna go, I don't know who she's gonna call. And that should be how it feels like you can trust no one but your fellow agents who are with you on this crazy ass ride because it is completely enveloped your entire life.

Yeah, I agree. And I feel like a main focus of this chapter is going to be getting your agents to feel like the rug is slowly falling out from under them. They should largely feel like there is this moment of safety whenever they first wake up. Things are mostly familiar. However, as the agents are waking up, they also secretly have received a gift from their benevolent king that they will have to discover the nature of themselves. Something that I really like about this chapter is it gives the GM full license to make the world start melting away around them and really start emphasizing that the real world is more dangerous than the night world. At this time, as they are going about and exploring more, they may see things that like reality seems to be breaking around them. People are going in and out of doors where they shouldn't. You know, there's stage extras, lots of fun little hooks that you can use for inspiration. And also they are going to be hunted by Delta Green. At this point, I recommend starting slow and then ramping it up until they are on the receiving end of a nationwide manhunt and they really don't have a choice but to try and dive into the night world for safety.

Right. Things are really coming to a head in the mundane world here. Right. So like Lex said, agents are developing supernatural gifts and they're being attacked and have the possibility of being attacked in broad daylight. So definitely.

Yeah. And I. I've had success too, where instead of having it be a slow build. Right. Is they awaken the house, they have a moment or two to regroup, and that's when they start hearing the helicopters overhead and realize they've been tracked here through wherever and they just have to get the hell out of town.

Right.

And then let it, you know, die down a little bit. But that's a good way to make players go, hey, maybe I shouldn't go home immediately and drag my family into this. Maybe.

Overall, I feel I could safely say this chapter is the most abstract for GMs to do what you will with and also work with your players with it because players can explore any of the locations that was in volume of Secret Faces. Be ready to flip back and forth through the book. One of my critiques of this chapter is I really feel like the Trevolino Mall encounter should have been here because it's entirely easy for your agents to slip into the Dorchester, realize, oh, shit, and then try to get back to Delta Green for safety. That's when you really have kind of everything hit the fan for them.

Yeah. Yeah.

This is going to be an interesting episode because there isn't a lot that we can cover as straight up here. Is this in the book? Here are things that we can do to fix it.

I just want to jump in. I actually think that's an interesting. From a scenario writing perspective that makes chapter three more successful than chapter four in my mind because it does allow.

The chapters are more successful than four.

Yeah.

But it is. This chapter is really about adapting to what your players did before. Right. So it's less about like saying this is going to happen. That's going to happen. Because how could you possibly know what the players are going to do? They're insane. In. In real life, in the game, it. They're all completely insane. Like I had one group just run off to a national forest. That's not going to be in the book. So chapter three, you just got to be ready to kind of jump around with whatever they're doing. Yeah.

And so while you were doing that, it's really helpful to keep certain key vibes and themes in mind for chapter three, things that we might like to call beating hearts. Overall, what would you say are some beating hearts and key themes that you would really advocate GMs to bear in mind when running this for their players?

I think it's all about the manhunt, really. I think that's really what this truly is. They should feel chased, they should feel hunted. And, you know, it's an interesting switch of dynamics. If your players have played other DG scenarios where there are manhunts, but you know, you're on the opposite end of it, you are the target.

Yeah, it's really hard to disappear, I think, is one of the fun things of that manhunt. Right. You get to play around with a little bit of that, like, real world knowledge where you start saying things like using your credit card, where are you getting the money for this? Where are you getting new clothes? Lets them play with that little kind of spy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. You don't always get to play with that. And it's fun.

Right. So you have this, like, motif of being chased because you're being chased from everyone. You're being chased from the authorities, you're being chased by Delta Green, and in addition, you're being chased by the supernatural.

Yeah. And I think that that's where to Holly's earlier point, paranoia is a key theme that I want to bear in mind in this because it becomes. It starts as paranoia, and this world of safety is not as secure as we thought that it was. And then it turns into panic, it turns into fleeing from this chase. And. Yeah, it becomes a flight for survival, let's say.

It's almost like reading the King in Yellow makes you paranoid and see danger all around you, huh?

All right, so continuing our theme of overall notes for this chapter, let's discuss aspects of this chapter that we really liked and those that we didn't like. So first off, what are some positive things that we can say about this chapter before I get mean?

Well, static Protocol, which is the King in Yellow corrupted version of Delta Green that shows up in gas masks and shotguns and an infinite wave of dead bodies. That's a creepy threat. And you can really make hay out of a threat that the agents think that they can just shoot and solve and then have the person they just shot walk in the door and start blowing away with a shotgun, you know, it's scary. It really feels hopeless.

Yeah, I really like in this scene. In this chapter, you can put in some really great Chase scenes from Static, from the authorities, from Delta Green. Also a good opportunity for like small skirmishes and conflicts.

One positive thing I can say about this chapter is I think that it has lots of great inspiration for plot hooks and things that GMs can use to their fancy or just to try to drop in on players. I am very much like Slow Burn. Horror is my middle name. It's all hyphenated. And so I really liked all of the suggestions for just strange things that they may come across. Like they talk to the cashier to try to rent a room for the night and then they crawl under the cabinet and that's how they leave. And it's just those like small moments of the world breaking around the agents. I had an idea for. At some point the agents are driving down the highway and I'm going to describe they pass the same billboard, the same red truck, the same copse of trees. And I'm going to keep making those notes until the players themselves start to feel paranoid. Be like, is this one of those repeating tracks behind me? And then they need to roll, drive auto because they're swerving all over the road in their panic. Like break the world around them. I have tons of fun with.

Yeah, we'll get into it a little bit at the end of this. But I. I like the hotel as a moment before the.

You know there's a lot of part of this chapter.

Damn it. But I'm gonna talk about it. It is an exient. But I do like this is like a required. Yeah, yeah. It's structured very nicely as like you have a lot of danger and then you get a moment of peace. Which I think is a smart way to let you reset before the finale.

Yeah. And on Alex's note, let's transition from there into things we didn't like about this chapter. Like how the brothel bin is an exeunt which makes it sound like it's some non essential extra thing when it's the main fucking place they have to go. It's the. Ah, I don't understand why.

Well, to jump on that you're told you have to go to the brothel bin. Everything is pointing. You go to the brothel bin and you're like, great, I know I have to go to the fucking bridle bin. And this narrator has been telling me the whole goddamn time it doesn't exist. And I have no idea how to get there. What the fuck do you want me to do?

Yeah, a strong thing that I will say. GMs are going to need to Keep in mind for this, and something I don't really like about this chapter is that it does not give a lot of inspiration for guidance or carrots that your agents can chase to try and accomplish their goals. That like Nathan was saying earlier, the agents may just have to kind of go out and explore or do something in order to. To get there. So either you're going to have to keep the heat on them so they don't even have time to think about how to actually find the bridle bin because they're just running for their lives until you shuttle them in there. If you do want them to try to search for it, there is no guidance is given. And that can be frustrating because your players will feel lost and pressured with no clear North Star. And yeah, it's something that can be a struggle if you're not careful.

Yeah, it's just a railroad forcing them into the brothel bin. And it's like why we should. I would like to discuss options for how the players can trigger static protocol themselves.

Absolutely.

Just going around and standing and going,

what do I do?

What do I do now?

Yeah, I think this is a good chapter. If they haven't picked up and why would they have at this point? That the people that find Bridlebyn are those running from something. That is something that I've had a lot of trouble getting people to understand and I think is kind of that key element you need for this. Right. Is players need to realize that the reason they haven't been able to find the bridle bin is that they're not really in danger the same way that most people running there are. So if they can understand that that also lets you get past the railroad of. Then they can do something really stupid and get a chase started after them like say, bring a gun into the middle of a street and just start shooting in the air or something and they start getting swarmed and they kick off the static chase. Just something that gives them a hint of inaction they can do.

Yeah. Something that gives them control.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Agency and at least a goal to strive for.

Right.

Because if they feel aimless and pressured, they're just going to feel frustrated because you, the gm are not giving them any clear signal for something to do. And Nathan, you just gave me a really fun idea for that that I might want to bring up later, but I'll mention it now. Before I forget is, you know, we mentioned in the Night floors how in my conception the different residents of the McAllister were at varying Levels of kind of ascension by using some form of art to pierce the veil into the night world in Carcosa and kind of move upstairs. Big air quotes there. In the same way that as the agent's corruption increases, they go from interacting with Abraham as an invisible dog to being able to see him. Something that you could do as a very simple mechanic is allow them to find the bridle bin where it should be. They walked past it and couldn't find its location beside Washington Square Park. Again, this will allow them to play a game of cat and mouse with Delta Green and federal law enforcement trying to get from Massachusetts back to New York City to find the brothel bin manually. And at some point during that chase and pressure, you can trigger static and they will feel like it is a clean direction out there. You could maybe do this by having an NPC suggest something or you know, giving some an idea role or something like that. But I feel like that should be a default option. Honestly hadn't thought about it before though.

Yeah. Mark Roark gives them a call.

Yeah, I have some ideas myself and we can kind of talk about it later. I think that kind of depends on whether or not they remember that it's supposed to be across from Washington Square park, which is something they learn 20 years ago.

Yeah, and I mean that's a valid point. That was just a random idea that I had.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The beginning of this chapter spends a lot of time detailing options that the players to me are very unlikely to pursue. Why would they go back to the Dorchester? Why would they go Back to the McAllister? Would they go back to any of these places? I don't know. It just seemed like a waste of. Honestly, waste of paper. I think that there's potential in having that McAllister be a vector to the bridle bin.

Yeah.

That we can maybe explore in a bit. But it's like you need something to point them there because why would they go back without something pointing them there?

And to be like really picky, if they go Back to the McAllister, would you guys feel like it would be shortchanging the players if they just left, had some weird encounter and we're at the hotel, like do we really have to have the static chase or is that just a fun like key scene?

I do not think the static chase is actually necessary. I think that it serves as another aggressive bottleneck. Just like the players had experienced with getting them into the Dorchester at night and can feel too heavy handed that it can be cool if you have an opportunity to do it. Or if you just have an opportunity to show static as a threat that can pop out of any door, you don't have to have that scripted scene as written. Just again, work with your players and try to come up with something that is at least engaging and exciting. I feel like it is mostly essential for the players to perceive this place is not safe anymore. And then they will not try to be getting out. They know for a fact they have to keep trying to punch through.

I personally think it's fine. It just needs a little tweaking and work for it to really shine. Like anything.

Yeah, I think it's. I think it's going to come down to GM style. Right? Like, Alex, we know, is a very big fan of like pulp and violence and things like that and like high octane energy. And that's not a dig on you, Alex. Those are fun and I can see you doing that, like wanting that static protocol. Whereas Lex is more, you know, the slow burn horror, the psychological horror. I could see Lex being like, I don't need that. So it's going to come down to what the GM wants.

And so I feel like we've talked about the, the chapter overall and it's going to be kind of difficult to go step by step because as you all noted earlier, agents can go anywhere. So this is where the, the book starts to get a little sloppy, I will say. And the GM is just going to have to keep flipping back and forth because the agents can do whatever or they can go completely off script, so to speak. So getting into something of an actual section deep dive here. We started off with already discussing the agents wake up and they might have some dark gifts. They'll likely have some kind of motivation. There is a section in the book that assuming they will contact a bond, here are some things that you can do. There's all sorts of these real, like spooky world events that are happening here. Are there any notes or constructive advice that you could try to give to GMs for these agents getting back into the world, assuming they weren't exploded by

the clown, definitely allow them an opportunity or at least show them what has happened to their bonds or give them an opportunity to reach out to their bonds because that's. This is probably the last time they would interact with them in the normal world. You know, the last time actually being in Carcosa.

Yeah, I agree. I think that this is a, a great moment to highlight that personal horror of the bonds being corrupted and brought into this Carcosan world. As I recall, Holly's character was a good Delta Green agent. And I don't think you'll disagree. And I say that like, she also didn't get to experience a lot of the weirdness of the campaign because you were trying to keep your head down. You knew that you were infected and tried to avoid contacting your own bonds. So you missed out on a bunch of weird shit going on in the background until I just had to drop it right in front of you. It was the same thing with, with several other players that if your agents are not interacting with their bonds, do something to bring their bonds to them and highlight that kind of horror. Because again, this is a very unique experience for Delta Green and it should be very memorable for your players.

Yeah, that's a good avenue too, to kind of show the ruthlessness of Delta Green in getting in touch with the characters. Right. Is you might have your agents on the run and you're pretty sure they're not going to get caught. And their bond shows up on national television with, you know, subtle messaging that like, Delta Greens. Yeah, Delta Greens going like, this person's going to prison unless you show up for aiding you in your escape.

Yeah, I like that. I think what you could also do, and Lex, you briefly mentioned this, and I think this works, is, you know, when your agents wake up to have them maybe waking up to the sound of a ringing phone. And when they answer that phone, it's Marcus being like, look, I need you to debrief me on what the hell has happened. Meet me at the Trevolino Mall, this play, this time, this place. Maybe give them a day or two so that way they can like engage with the bonds, whatever kind of like gather their things. Marcus is like, I need you to gather all the evidence you have and we're going to take this all down. And then of course, like hit teams waiting for them, fucking static protocols waiting for them. And that can just like kick off the whole manhunt.

Yeah, I think that it's very likely agents may slip into the Dorchester at night. And Trivellino, frankly, feels like it should be more suited for this chapter as you are showcasing Delta Green as an actual threat because volume is too big as it is. And so just finding ways to compartmentalize what you need to focus on being able to actively recall. As a gm, I would plan on shoving Trivelino back here. Barring some exceptions from agents actions. I think that the threat of Delta Green and actual manhunts is. It's an interesting problem to have Because I think it runs a risk of your players getting too scared and not really exploring anymore and not knowing how to act.

Yeah, and it's. That's also tough because if they get. If they get too scared. Right. You lock them down. But if they're not scared enough, they say, oh, let's have a gunfight with Static Protocol.

Let's just keep fighting forever.

Which completely deadlocks that fight of like, well, I guess you all just die. And we do another hard cut to you being in the hotel, which is super unsatisfying, it feels like.

And that's also one of the problems that I had with Static protocol. And I think that it will be important for the GM to highlight the lethality and unwinnability of that encounter. Let Static miss a few shots and let your agents down. One of the Static members. And then they fucking get back up and keep chasing. Like, don't do the. A new one comes out the door because it just makes it seem potentially infinite, but that they can take on everyone. Have them be like the. The clockwork guy from Hellboy. And he gets shot and keeps on busting after them. Maybe sand is coming out of their jackets. Really emphasize again, this is a fight you cannot win by conventional methods and you need to run. I think that that could be something a lot more engaging for your agents, but it still leads to them hunkering down. In this early discovery stage. The next suggestion that the book covers is a lot of detail on Mr. Wild and repairing reputations and lots of suggestions for random favors and tasks that he can require of the agents through Ed Miller. Wist that at my game was really difficult to actually nailed down. My agent saw Mr. Wilde as the devil and actively avoided any kind of favors with them that they could possibly avoid.

Sounds like they weren't desperate enough.

So then how would you make that an offer? How would you have a lawyer from Knig come down to say, hey, here's a golden opportunity without them? Just like shooting the lawyer and continuing on? Again, that feels a little difficult for me.

I think that involves planting those leads earlier on in the previous chapter where you introduce the. The Knig lawyers from Ed Whist earlier on when they're offering the players and allow them to say, we're looking past all of this. Remember our deals in the past. We can still work something out. You want a getaway vehicle, you want guns. You can get all that. You just have to do a small favor.

Or that just gave me a fun idea. If you take a page out of Beetlejuice. And they start seeing ads for Keys, Norris Ingalls and Grant all over the place. They open a book, a flyer falls out, they turn on it, a TV turns on. It's some kind of weird ad. It's like, are you in trouble? Do you feel like everyone is hunting after you? Is your wife wanting to talk about this book in her new book club call Keys, Norris Ingalls and Grant. I like that we can solve anything for a price.

And I think one of the strengths of using Wild, too, and this might be like a cultural thing of, like, them. He's the devil. Is like. Well, no, because his favors that he asks don't have an impact on the agents. Right. Like, he is asking them to do weird stuff, but it doesn't appear to them to be actively harmful. Might be dangerous, might be stupid, but it's just a task.

Yeah. And something that. I can't remember if I mentioned it last episode, but I had planned that if the agents did die by the clown popping them, that whenever they all woke up at the end, the agents who succeeded would wake up. And then a few seconds later, the agents who were popped would wake up. And essentially, to them, they would have stayed in the Dorchester for months longer and gone through another full cycle of talking with Wild, talking with Bale, and then escaping the Clown. But as a result, they owed Wild another favor. And I would just emphasize that to the patient or to the agent. I mean, truly, are the two the same after all? And say, like, you will need to respond at a certain time or there may be consequences.

Yeah, I like that. Using Wild as a kind of entrance for that, you know, that agent into this, that works well for a new agent. Like, if you wanted to do a full replacement. When we played, we had somebody that got popped. So when they came back, one of their friends was Wild, and Wild was the one that got them into this. So that kind of short circuited and helped get that idea of like, hey, maybe we could reach out to him for help. You know, they're. They're involved now. Was that person maybe the restructured put together bits of the popped agent? Yes. But that's something they can find out later at the party.

Yeah. And I think that, you know, if your players are too cautious about contacting Knig, you can just be blunt with them and say, like, we know you're trying to get to that hotel. We know you're trying to find Abby. And it's like, let us help you, you know?

Yeah.

And Holly, that is a perfect segue. Into the next section. I wanted to talk about. How can we give the agents clues into how to find the bridle bin, that this is a time that they could try to do something to get to the bridle bin. Maybe keys. Norris, Ingalls and Grant can just open with that and just say, like, we just need. We need you to repair a few reputations along the way and then we can give you the keys to a hotel. Finding a way to make it cryptic and maybe rhyme. I don't know.

I think the Clockwork World is probably the strongest clue. Without outright telling them. Like, it makes sense that the players have to. If they see the Clockwork World, they're going to have to think about it and they're going to see all these miniature figures running and then getting into the Rondel then. So I think that's an appropriate clue that isn't once again, outright telling the agents, you need to be on the run. Yeah. As written, it's at Barbis House. Move it wherever you want.

I was about to say that really does sound like a good floating clue to keep around. Make it appear somewhere fucking weird. Maybe their car breaks down and they need to go to a mechanic by the interstate. And then by the time they say your car is ready, they go back and it's. That miniature world is on top of one of the jacks where the car is supposed to be, so that they watch it while they're there. And maybe as part of this, a little box can open up and give your agent some kind of physical clue related to the bridle bin to kind of lead them to the next place that they should go, when in reality it's just leading them closer to the static chase and things like that.

I think you could also potentially alter the note from Abigail and say something like, you know, meet me. You know, a little bit more cryptically. I'm not on my toes right now, but, like, basically come Back to the McAllister and, you know, meet me in the place we first met or something like that. And they go back and the McAllister is exactly the way it was 20 years before and the residents are exactly the same people they were 20 years before. And maybe then you can kind of, like use that to. I'm not sure, like, the idea is not fully formed, but, like, get them to the bridle bin through that.

Yeah, that's a fun, like, other way to, like, have them dive into it. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I think giving other clues as well to people like JC Linz. And Mark Rourke. This is a good time too. Lex, you made me think of with your talk of wild. He has them. One of his tests is to research Elmer. It might make more sense to have them research JC and Mark and realize that both of them were on the run from people when they found the hotel. Right? Like kind of hitting this again and again, like they disappeared during a police chase. Isn't that interesting, guys? And that's when you look your players in the eye and you say, no, no, no, no, look at me. Isn't it interesting how they disappeared during a police chase?

That is a really interesting thought and I think that it could be a good recurrent theme for the players to encounter. If you did want to do this, as a gm, I strongly recommend you, like, keep a sticky note on your monitor. And remember that in Chapter one with Mark Roark, have him give an anecdote about running from the cops and then diving into this hotel. They didn't ask any questions and they said they bill me when I check out so I'm still fucking here. And then potentially give them some details about J.C. lynn's that he checked into a hotel again after a bank robbery and make that a recurring theme throughout. That could be something very interesting that requires a lot of forethought in advance. You couldn't really wing it if you just got to this chapter and say, by the way, you remember, you could

always do something like an excerpt from a play that's basically like, you know, the. The federal agents run from, you know what? Like, you know, you get the stage notes and then like, you know, the quotes or whatever. And then maybe they can extrapolate from that like, this is where I need to go or this is what I need to do.

Oh, maybe one of the agents wakes up and they have a folded piece of paper in their pocket and it can say the McAllister play part two. And it can be a page from that to hearken back to that handout from the night floors. But it will say at some point, agents on the run, static protocol enters. Agents flee to blank location. And at least use that as a potential North Star for them to try and follow. It's just, bottom line, don't let your agents be completely without a compass here because it' you're going to have a bad time. Because my players definitely did and I felt bad, but I had to scramble for a solution and ultimately just drop static on them because they were feeling like they were beating their heads against a wall. So I'm like, well, fuck It. And now they ended up at the brothel.

Then completely agree, they got to have a go.

And so assuming you are going to drop static on them, the campaign itself assumes that Static will be showing up to give them a Glasgow smile and cut them up and stab them, shoot them and everything before they eventually just try to, like. I don't know, is there a gaming term I can use for they just, like, storm in and try to gank them?

Rush.

Blitz. Is it a blitz? Yeah. Russian.

Yeah. Before they just try to blitz the agents into oblivion. So how would you focus on teasing Static in this moment of the chapter? How quickly do you introduce them? How strongly do you introduce them? And then how would we try to do that final chase scene in a thrilling, intense way?

Well, the way I personally paced it is during day one, where they have a bit of a break. They start seeing people at their peripheries, or, let's say, following them or chasing other people. And then maybe they might encounter 1 and then 2, and then 4, 8, 16. Yeah, until they just gotta, like, run.

Yeah, I like that a lot. Alex OF it's easy if you can show them absolutely nuking someone like Ian de Craig, where they, like, nuke him and then maybe rip a bottle out of his corpse and drag it away. That gives them the clue that static is dangerous. And around. And hopefully this isn't the first time it's showed up in the campaign. Like, you know, you've teased it at least a little before.

Nathan, I'm trying to remember if you were the one who gave me the idea to have a member of Static being a scarecrow in the middle of the field. So as the agents are driving, they're passing a field of corn and they see the scarecrow is this figure in a black trench coat with a gas mask. And the head turns to follow their car as they drive past.

I like it.

Weird fucking quick scene to showcase something very bad is happening and maybe have those manifestations get closer in proximity each time.

I feel like, you know, this would have to be something you consider before you start the campaign. I just feel like Static could have been, you know, signposted a little bit better. Like in previous chapters. I'm not sure I thought you were

going to say static could have been an email.

That it could have been an email. No, just in like. So maybe there are just things that you can drop into earlier chapters. Maybe the McAllister chapter, when they're still, like, learning about what's going on, that just really hints at what? What the hell These guys are.

Yeah, don't skip those. Like, treat them as a little bit more required manifestations.

You're thinking that and kind of an expansion of it. We didn't mention this in the previous chapter discussions, but this campaign suffers from a very common ARC dream issue that they make information too goddamn difficult to find as written. And in the case of this, I think Operation Bristol and stuff around previous static cleanups is terribly interesting. And because they competently covered their tracks, unless the players are thinking at the level of private investigators or federal agents. Yeah, it's really hard for them to find that information. So try to find ways to seed mission reports that they pick up in places that they definitely shouldn't. Or I tried to be very liberal in giving information to one of my players. And I'm like, it's more about the absence of information that tells you this was a government cover up and that's why there are no records of Chicago for this time.

Yeah. Or you could go the other route and maybe a Lynchian route and give them dreams. So the player who I've observed to have the most ties to static due to their behavior, they would get reoccurring dreams of, like them waking up in the car, like in the back seat, and there's two people in gas masks and trench coats, like turning around and saying, are you ready, kid? And then they just like ram that vehicle straight into the theater where they're playing song before travel. And they start shooting. Everyone, but everyone looks like monsters. And I'd have this reoccurring dream over and over again with the motif of are you ready, kid? And then once again, that squealing of tires and smashing that wall. But slowly those monsters started to look like people. So that's how you can show and not tell this background information that no one can really find out any other way.

I really like that a lot. Especially if you make the last one an environmental cue that maybe they're walking and there's a movie billboard or something. I imagine they're walking beside a movie theater and on the placard where it has the movie tit, they just read, are you ready, kid? The door smashes open, static chases after them.

Oh, that's so good.

I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Something I've seen greenbox gaming do as a post script to the campaign that actually I think would work well. Here is take a couple sessions out and have a, like, little side game of them being static protocol. And not to spoil too much for greenbox gaming, not a lot of people make it out and it's pretty bad. And that was a really good way to show off. Like, yeah, static protocol is messed up. You introduce that like, faction of like, okay, they're here, they're gonna kill any king in yellowish stuff, but they're also us. Kind of. That I think might work really well as like a kind of a meta thing. Right. Their agents may not know, but the players would.

I like that a lot. Especially in the last chapter. I really recommended to make Ophelia Seatree's house be an intermission that you could do as a one shot for your players. If maybe you're one player down and just need something to run for a week or two, playing through Operation Bristol could be a really good one shot that you can emphasize a lot of bloody combat. They're getting constantly bum rushed by people who peeled the skin off of their faces, attacking them with knives and broken glass, screaming, take off your mask. And like they will end up dying at some point. Or maybe they escape. Or you just describe them continually running and that that's where it ends. That their, their journey doesn't actually stop. And that can give your players some setting and world information without bending over backwards too much to give the agents that information. That way your players at least aren't confused.

I think the one thing I'm still kind of missing is how to showcase to your players that they need to summon these guys and run from them in order to get to them. Like, you know, it feels like we're just warning them that these guys are bad. You don't want anything to do with it, but it's like, how do you get them to understand that this is another piece of the puzzle to get you to the bridle bin? I don't, I don't know. Like, because if, if you're showcasing to me like these guys are terr. They're, you know, they're extremely deadly. It's like, great, then I'm going to try everything to not make them show up. I don't know.

You know, I think, I mean, as it's written, you don't really have a choice. They just kind of show up. But yeah, I agree. I think it's more. It keeps the pace a little bit better if they have a way to do it or if you're. If you want to go the route of like just signposts that they're dangerous and drop it. You know what I mean? Like, if you don't want to do the investigation side of it, just start it. Like, go. Because yeah, otherwise you just sit around

with depends on your player group.

Yeah. Like what can you do?

Like I think if you want to seed some details to give them a clear compass direction to find the bridle bin again, then potentially have static get closer and closer. So that way it feels like they're in a race against time to get there and they could feel the heat. And as they are almost at the bridle bin, that's when you know, a car smashes into them, static gets out and then they have to run. And even though they don't follow their cardinal direction, they still end up at the bridle bin. And you know you can then transition them into there again. Everything in this chapter in a very loosey goosey campaign. This is the loosiest of the goosiest. And yeah, it's just. It'll be an exercise in thinking on your feet as a gm. So don't try to cling too tightly to anything that is written in the book. At this point, Before we head into the technically an exient of bridle bin, is there any other stuff that we want to talk about for like a map made of skin that could potentially help other GMs? Like I don't really have any information about the gifts aside from think of some gifts that are thematically appropriate for your agents and let them use it if they want. I can't think of much else. Alex, I love your idea to tie one of them to static because surely someone is going to be more interested than others in it. Maybe make them a repeater before most and have there be some combat encounter that they die. Everyone like has a sand roll for it and then that agent comes back again. But whenever they do change some personality traits like make them more bloodthirsty, give them more memories, make them feel like they are getting closer to static each time they die. So they don't just try to edge of tomorrow it but they. They worry about what happens if they pass a point of no return.

Yeah, I think my tips would be if your players are interested in exploring all the locales that they didn't I would not entirely remove but like ease off on the heat on them so they have the opportunity to get there. Mostly these are the first one or two days and then obviously signpost the ineffectiveness of fighting against static. Maybe instead of having blood have it actually be TV static, you know, to show that this is a supernatural, you know, threat that you can't just gun your way out.

Yeah, I feel like you could sort of Almost signpost that as one of the weird scenes in the McAllister. Like, you open the door and the Static Protocol guys are in the middle of a fight with someone else, and they get, like. They open fire on these dudes, and it's like nothing happens to them at all. And then they just absolutely gank, you know?

Yeah. That's where I really liked Nathan's recommendation to have their last kind of fleeing escape of the night floors in the McAllister. To be pursued by the king, flanked by the static dogs that are shooting at them. Because that's a way to showcase these things are tied to the King in yellow very directly. So if you see them, this is Bad News Bears that way, at least give them some context by association.

And you want to show, not tell them that they're under threat from, like, three different threats. I had a SWAT team go after the agents because of their atrocity at the Dorchester house. Supposedly, I've had DG in the ambulance scene engage them in, like, a parking lot where they had a fake ambulance from the book. And I've had Static Protocol obviously chase them into the bridal bit so they can see that, oh, wow, everyone is against us. We only have each other.

I think, like, if nothing else, you could always play with the actual title of this chapter and give them a map made of skin that is, like some kind of map to the brothel bin. Right. You'd have to think about it. But, you know, something that hints at,

like, where to go, maybe that could be something in Abigail's note that you can. Like, they need to dig up the body of Leland Fuller, of Emmet Mosby or someone. And that as they, you know, there happen to be shovels by the gravestone in that moment. As they dig it up, you know, the skin is weathered and dry and they can peel it off and that can give them the directions to it to give a very direct call out to the chapter. Cause it's a cool name that has no actual relevance in the events themselves. I like that suggestion.

I'm just envisioning they peel back the skin at the bottom of the grave, and it just says duck. And Static Protocol starts shooting up the grave site.

Nathan, you and I are sharing a brain cell, man. Because I was like, it has a map to, like, the Washington Square Park. Like, this is where you go to

get to the bottleneck.

And then underneath it, it just says run in all caps. And, like, Static Protocol starts chasing you.

Yeah. So for that chase, I was kind of curious, because as it is, there's technically two choices. You can fight or run. But fight doesn't do a lot and run just gets you to another scene. I guess that you progress forward. How do you guys keep that interesting and not just yes, gm, I would like my next scene now, please. Thank you.

Oh, they should always be running.

I think this is.

You're talking about the static chase, right?

Yeah, the chase itself.

I, I set that up quite nicely if I don't save myself. So for my brainstorming session, like, I was thinking on how do I. How do I make this chase exciting? Because you have this surreal element of the chase where they can go through anywhere, any place, any point of time. So I just picked out my favorite set pieces. I listed out a bunch of locations like, like French restaurant, shopping mall, public restroom, birthday party, subway tunnel. And then I like thought under each section, I thought about each thing that they could encounter. Like in, like, like I'm directing an action movie. So under French restaurant, I, I like typed in cloth tables, ornate chairs, dining cart service, glass chandelier, fine diners, silver platters, bar for like public restroom, tiled floor, mirrors, sinks, urinals, grace colored stalls, graffiti. You just have to think about all these objects and imagine what they would look like if they were under shotgun fire or like getting ran over. Obstacles for your players. And that's how you can have varied set pieces.

Yeah, I, I love that. And we'll also give another shout out to our episode on chases because I strongly advocate for this strategy in terms of mapping out something that can be thrilling, intense for your players in advance. That will save you a lot of brain power in terms of having to come up with these locations on the fly. That will naturally slow you down while you're gming. If you have a bunch of a la carte options prepped, then you can roll with the punches, have something to draw on and focus your efforts and your creativity on in the moment descriptions like you are a movie director to really keep everything caught in the moment, keep it exciting. And then whenever you may be running out of bullet points, you switch it to something else. You find one aspect of the environment that you can highlight. That maybe they're running through the French restaurant and they can see Ian de Craig is there with Adrian Darabondi on his arm and they're like, whoa. As they run past them. And then the only door that's open is the bathroom where they hear a. And they run into it and it's a dirty New York City subway bathroom. They run out into a crowded subway and getting through all of this stuff is. It's really difficult to be that creative on the fly. Give yourself time to mull on it when you have the brain power and then make your players think that you're coming up with it on the fly because then that's the fun of GMing.

So you're telling me you don't use the seven events in the order that they're suggested in the chapter?

I'm going to break with tradition and say no, in this case. I don't follow the book exactly to

a T. That's crazy, man.

It's almost like you're in charge and not the book.

This is your world.

Yeah.

I think you'll have more impact if it's actually a relevant location to the agents as opposed to just a deep cut or, you know, a reference to something that the agents probably don't care that deeply about.

One other way that, like a map made of skin may bleed over into volume of secret faces is the Encounter Group. Entry in volume is really interesting and also pretty unlikely for your agents to just take a stop by and discover it while they are investigating the Dorchester house and everything in there. So while they are back in the real world in map, it can be a really interesting opportunity for you to drop Encounter Group in maybe as a way to give them some extra information. Have any of y' all done that? Do you have any idea for how you could try and make it happen?

Yeah. So I dropped Encounter Group in this section because they did have that like one day period where no one was after them yet, so they wanted to follow up on the lead. And you can really get let loose with Encounter Group because you're at the point of this game where this is their last time in the mundane world so you can reveal more secrets that they could have found there as a way to just sweep up the pieces. Personally, I had a home group, so I did dress them all up in silver cultist robes and masks.

Hell yeah.

And I got an incredible scene afterwards where they were all equipped with like the stuff from Encounter Group because they got to keep the robes and masks. And they got ambushed when they're going back to their car in Delta Green, like as a way of telling them, oh, that's fun. I think for some reason they helped whist out and they got like an old fashioned 1920s Tommy gun. So there was a scene where they're getting shot at from the fake ambulance

rattle them boys taking cover in a

parking lot behind a car and I'm like, okay, what are you doing to one of my agents? He's like, I put my mask on and I take out the Tommy gun and I start walking towards them full auto. I'm like, holy shit, that was ballsy.

It's bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see how it works out for him.

It paid off.

I think you could also potentially use encounter group as a way to drop a hint, another hint about the hotel Brattleman. You know, something like, I keep having this dream there's this hotel, or even, like, not even there's this hotel I really want to get to, but I can't seem to find it and maybe find a way for them to, you know, hint at it.

Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah. I don't know. My first group ever, after they were done entreating the Angels to get them out of the 1400s, they grabbed Lundin out of the encounter group and were like, here. You're not going back in time to deal with Abigail. You're dealing with us now. Tell us what we want to know. So that was another, like, you can really get stupid with this section. It's fun.

And I think another way too, where we mentioned bringing the agent's bonds into the forefront of MAP is have them recognize that bond's voice in encounter group and very much give unpleasant information that things are not okay back at home. And then, of course, they can't find them after it's done. Or maybe they do and you can role play with that as you please. I really like the idea of trying to write up another weird excerpt that could potentially point them to the brothel bin again or give them a little bit of guidance.

You know, I have this friend of mine, an agent who's lost and doesn't know where to go. Well, let me tell you where I said they should go.

Oh, my God. So, okay. Related to something we talked about last episode where I really enjoyed making the list of missing patients be anagrams of the players names. Make one of the bonds mention, yeah, my partner keeps playing in this tabletop role playing group. They've been meeting for weeks on end and they don't know what to do and they feel like they're going insane. I wish they would just go to this thing or just look at that and give a meta narrative, big clue if they're feeling extremely lost.

That's nicer than what I thought you were gonna say, which is, how do I get a different part? No, hey, real life damage.

I resemble that remark.

Also, for people that haven't seen the Empty Man, I don't you know, we haven't recommended a movie, but there is a really good scene in the Empty man that you can steal for encounter group. It's like kind of that same vibe of the circle of chairs and people being weird. Highly recommend checking that out now. It's not a great movie.

It is one of the movies of all time.

It is one of the movies. It's got some good bits, it's got some dumb bits, but it's kind of king and yellow adjacent. It's a fun watch.

Oh, I believe that means it's time to check into our rooms at the hotel brothel bin. While this section is technically an exeunt for the book, this is the most strictly necessary part of, like, a map made of skin. And it's honestly a really cool section. You don't need to worry about endless hallways and keeping them trapped in the night floors and going from one room to the other, but you have kind of a map and the agents can. Can hang out for a while after the. I would say the latter half at least of Lamos is agents constantly running from a manhunt, from Delta Green, from static, like they're going to be exhausted and brought up in essentially should at least be a break. It is a breath of safety for them before they start getting stir crazy and investigating some more. So to start at the top once again, what would you say is kind of the focus GM should keep on this scene to keep it from feeling, let's say, stalled out after a while.

Keep them with a goal. Right. Like we talked about that before is at this point, they have Abigail's instructions, is they know they need to get to the Whisper Labyrinth. They know they need to get their bottle. That's kind of the clue to start bringing up again and again. Especially if they, you know, they're done their healing, they've done their recuperating, they're ready to strike out again. They should have some clue that, yeah, we need a. We need to keep going. We can't leave here onto the streets. We just. We got to keep digging.

Yeah. Static circling around the entrance like sharks. Yeah. If you make all the NPCs work towards finding their bottle, then the players are gonna want to find their bottle as well.

Yep.

Yeah. One of the focuses should be on how the brottlebin is kind of like a flower that has a sweet nectar that insects will keep flying into and then die in the nectar of it because they can't crawl back out. One of the elements of this chapter I find very interesting is it's talking about how time just seems to pass as they fall into this comfortable routine. And it can be a way that you can kind of gloss over some moments and make things seem very blurry around the edges to make the agents feel like they aren't in strict control, which is also kind of foreshadowing for the masquerade ball later on. Are there any beating hearts that we would like to really try to emphasize for the brothel bin at this stage of the campaign?

It's a respite from the previous chapter. They just got chased by static, had their lives endangered. They get to catch their breath, but they're not out of it yet.

Right.

This is. There's gonna be people where you can interact with in this hotel and more lore to find out. But yeah, but they're just. They're just not getting shot at. So it's good in terms of like the roller coaster type pacing where you have high 10 scenes intertwined with low intensity scenes.

Yeah, I. I agree. I think the beating heart for this is exactly that. That moment of peace that your agents are probably already kind of keyed towards not wanting to stay there long. But the place makes it pretty immediately abundant that it's like, okay, you realize you've spent five weeks here and you don't like. You just kind of snap out of it and go like, oh my God, I was supposed to be shooting that guy. I should do something. Yeah. That kind of feeling of being stuck is. Is an interesting one.

Fortunately, most of us by this point should know well what that's like living through Covid. And time just seems to pass in a blink and also at a craw. I would say a beating heart for me in this is the Brawdel bin should feel intoxicating in multiple senses of the word. It should be a great relief for the agents to be able to catch their breath in this. But the longer that they stay, the worse that this should feel. That they should feel like they aren't in as tight of control of their agents as they want to be. We're mentioning, like, this slipping time, but also they realize that they're drinking and interacting with these despicable people from the past, like Ian de Craig. I think that this is a time that you can give them a bunch of information as well, because they likely have many, many questions. And this is maybe the most chock full of, I'll say, relevant NPCs as any other location in the campaign. I think the Dorchester might technically have more NPCs in it, but they don't matter, by and large. So this one, make it an info dump, but in a fun, sociable, kind of boozy way.

Yeah, well, and in a fun way too. You can have the players start to realize that if they're looking into certain info, it doesn't matter anymore. They're too far in. So if they start going like, oh, why is so and so doing this? Like, how can I get my family out? It doesn't matter anymore. That's not the purpose. You know, like, all the people can kind of reiterate like, no, you just need to find your bottle. That's what it is.

As a question, would you have some bonds show up at the brothel bin or would you just have them in Carcosa? Like, as they stay there longer, you can be like, there's no point in looking for them. They're already here. We have a room reserved.

I think Carcosa hits a little harder, personally is. And it would make them want to stay in the final chapter. What I don't want is players to go. I'll just stay at the hotel. Because you know that there is always that danger that an agent just goes, well, my bonds here, it ain't getting any better. Yeah, let's. Let's hang out at the Automat and have our fancy meals every day.

That's a fair point. I think that something that I tried to do to stop my players from stalling out here at the brothel bin, as we mentioned in the Night Floors, I made Emmaline Fitzroy a much more prominent character in this and used her to not only convey kind of an overall meta story as she is a candidate for a phantom of truth, but also the dangers of the brothel bin that Emily knew she was going to be wandering around these halls and rooms in a fugue state for decades and has not been able to snap herself out of it and that she had to have the agents snap her out of this and keep things going. So that as the agents are kind of exploring, getting settled and talking with people about that time, they're itching to get back into it. And so, I mean, I recommend using Emmaline or you can have another NPC that the agents are friendly with and interested with. Like Mark Rourke can be one too, who will try to get them into the Whisper Labyrinth. There's various ways you can finagle it, but eventually, again, give them that purpose and direction as written. The staff like Elmer Lozette, and there's all of this stuff about the staff and the basement floors and their cramped Apartment spaces that I found a little odd in this part of the book.

Just a little odd.

I just kept asking what's the point with so much of assumes a lot of intrigue and like, needing to schmooze your way with certain staff versus others to find the place. And it didn't really hit for my group.

I found myself asking that a lot in this chapter, personally. Like the bazillion NPCs. And I'm like, Jesus, God, what is the point? Just, Yeah, I don't know. That's just. I understand that they're all part of this, like, rich story and the, like, the building of like, everything that happens with Darabondi and everything else. And I'm like, God, I just could not care less.

Well, right, like, why are they gonna reach out to Luisa, Reggie? Right? Like, yeah, they don't know these people. They're not just gonna grab a random person. Be like, hey, what's your name? What's your story?

Well, let me tell you. Did I ever tell you I was struck by lightning? Seven times.

Did you know I'm a tarot lady?

Oh, boy. It kind of felt like a lot of that extra stuff was more about making callbacks to previous things they had done in other chapters. And it's like, you know, they already know everything's weird. Do we need to do. I mean, if you want to.

Sure.

You know, but that's all it is, is like, it's another callback. Ding.

But I think at this point, your players have been exposed to literally dozens of NPC names and have been trying to hash out who is important and who is not and why are there three different people named Mr. Ed in some form or fashion, then dumping more random NPCs on them, like, don't expect them to interact with them. You know, you can have Elmer lozed and the hotel staff be there and you know, be kind of quest giving NPCs that the agents can petition and be like, can you take us to the Whisper Labyrinth? And be like, well, if you do something for me first, you gotta get

rid of those rats in my basement.

Yeah, Level one quest.

Yeah, I agree. Like, honestly, this section is more. As the gm, I'm having a blast. I'm reading this. I'm going, oh, look at all these connections. Don't inflict that on your players. Yeah, they're not you. They haven't read the rest of the book, so they don't have context or care.

Yeah, yeah. That's always my rule of thumb. If something reads Like a very interesting story. It may not, in fact, hash out that way in an rpg.

That doesn't necessarily translate to a roleplaying game.

Yeah, yeah.

I do think something interesting that you can do with this I am experimenting with. In my current run, I latched onto Mark Rourke and other NPCs. Cannot tell a difference between the McAllister Smoking Lounge, the night floors, and their time in the Brothel Bend. So something that you can do is tease some elements of the brothel bin. Extremely early in the night floors, I had a wonderful time having my agents encounter the birdcage elevator with Charlie, the attendant, the weird, eccentric old man wearing a suit that's much too large for him. My players were immediately like, oh, I want to protect him. And then he drops them into the dark and leads to a marionette ballroom that they get all spooked by. But, like, you can find some elements of this to emphasize to your players that this is all bendy and connected, and it really feels like they may not have left as much as they thought. To that end, though, I don't recommend making it a big challenge for the agents to discover the weirder places outside of, you know, let's just call it like the bridle bin, lobby main areas, and their room. But let them find the arboretum. Don't make it difficult for them to start going through the basement levels. There's some fun things that they can do in there to. Are there any unique manifestations or errands that you would send your agents on at this point that could just be interesting, but not take up a ton of time or risk them stalling out?

I liked the sommelier's room, where they get, you know, shunted into the past and they have to break out of the, like, the monotony of it just because it was. Yeah, it was a fun way for them to be like, damn, how do I have to kill myself to get out of this scenario? So I had it at the McAllister, right? Like, they had just started, and everyone was acting like, no, you just started this investigation. And I had four agents that were like, I guess I'm gonna have to die. And, like, each of them found a different way to off themselves and. And, like, I. I hit it behind like a sanity check. I think there's something in the book written there. Like, they have to disbelieve it, some way to escape. But it got pretty tense. Like, that last agent almost didn't make it as he yeeted himself off the roof of the building head first.

So I'M glad that worked for you and your players, because, boy, I did not like the sommelier's room section as written. And that's where I've referenced this a few times now. I think that this can be a great opportunity to shunt your agents into an area you wanted to have them explore, but they didn't get a chance to. So with my group, whenever they went in, I mentioned that they go. And the room is very dark as they all walk inside. I ended the session there. At the start of the next session I had, everything is dark around them. And then they drive through the other side of the tunnel, and they are back in their regular DG clothes. And they are. A day before they know that they were put into the Dorchester, they're driving around. Emmeline, as an npc, was with them. So Emmaline was now Agent Dahlia and was part of their group in the car that they were tasked to investigate. Esther, Samogena, because there was something fishy about her and the Dorchester. They had reason to believe that there was some MacGuffin that they needed to retrieve from her home.

Okay.

As they drive around the cul de sac, you know, I mentioned that some of the houses feel like they're just staged and prop boarded up, that there's a lady walking her dog just in a circle all around, or someone's riding the bike without touching the pedals. And again, Holly playing a good DG agent, immediately took this narrative hook, light and sinker, and was just like, okay, well, this is what we need to do. They could try to disbelieve it and break the illusion, or they went through Samigina's whole house, didn't drink the tea. It was a close call, though.

You're still mad about that?

I am. I am. I'm gonna get my group this time. Damn it. And so they went through all of Samogena's house, and they found Henry's tape recorder, because I made audio handouts of his sections from the book.

You did a great job.

Thank you. I was really proud of them, and I wanted to show them to you, honestly. So I had that be kind of the MacGuffin that they needed to find. They duked it out with Esther, burned the building down. As they jumped out into blackness, they woke back up in the sommelier's room. So it was still an activity. It was still something engaging for a session. And then they could continue on, and the sommelier would then lead them to the whisper labyrinth. I don't really know if you need to have them do more than one favor in order to get this. Because I think at this point, your players may be interested, but they're also getting kind of tired, and you may need to start wrapping it up sooner than later.

I like the Mark Rourke one too. Like, I do. Like, there's a lot of ways to kind of skin the cat, so to speak, with how do you get them there?

Right.

They can get through the sommelier I like. You know, Mark Roark can come in and direct them with his little mining hat. You can even if they're not kill Asa on site, he can come and ask for their help. But I suspect most of your agents will just kill him on sight.

And I'll also say as a very interesting encounter. You know, I mentioned trying to get your agents to explore a bit. I love the arboretum underground with teeth all around it and there's plants and things. I will tend to have Barbas leave a note for him to say, meet me in the arboretum. He'll say, meet me alone or something so an agent can go and talk with him. Maybe others are interacting with Roark or something, because that is such an interesting scene that potentially, if they try to attack Barbas, you can have the glass crack, you have the teeth raining down on them, like that scene in Lord of the Rings, except that was skulls. But who's keeping track here? And, yeah, interesting moment may not lead them to the Whisper Labyrinth, but again, opportunity for an info dump and a cool set piece to keep your players engaged and entertained. Okay, well, it sounds like, you know, the quiet of this podcast is indicative of the quiet of being in the caves of the Whisper Labyrinth, as eventually, some way, somehow, somewhen, the agents will make their ways into the Whisper Labyrinth. Can I say whisper labyrinth again? Whisper labyrinth.

Wispa labyrinth.

Now.

Whisper Labyrinth.

I really don't like the light source part of this as written. I think that it is weird and tedious and why not make this something cool and a cinematic exploration?

Yeah, the mechanics, I feel, really bog everything down.

Yeah, there's no consequence, right? Like, if you say, oh, my light source dies, okay, I go in tomorrow with another light source. Is that fun?

You get booted out and then you have to go back and do it again. Like, Edge of Tomorrow is not a

fun rpg, but you can just do it. Like, that's the thing. Like, there's nothing stopping you from that. So I guess you can. If you're worried about the versamalitude of being in an insane hotel where you have to be like, of course it makes Sense that the batteries only last

8 hours for this scene in particular, I stole the battery life rules from the alien rpg because I think that the. The battery life is a super fun system. Essentially, you decide on a pool of D6s. I give most things four D6 and ask your agents to roll them at certain checks. For every six, you take one out of the stack. And if they lose all of the dice, then that light source goes out. And at that point, if they end up in the dark, then I keep emphasizing that there is something they can hear, something wet kind of pattering along. This place is full of Darabondi's drowned children in my run of it, and that if they run out of light or something like that, then they get hugged by all of these dead, waterlogged children that end up kind of causing the agent to die from hypothermia or something until somebody drags them out. Again, no real consequence, but it's spooky and gross.

That's. That's the whole problem, right? Like, the only real consequence at this point is going to be a sand loss. And boy, like, I think your players are going to be kind of tired of it at this point.

I mean, at this point, too, sanity doesn't really matter. It has lost its relevance as a. As a resource to tap. Unless you want to make accessing certain things sand related. Maybe instead of rolling a D100 to find their bottle, make it related to sanity or willpower or something. I don't know. I think the finding the bottle rules are kind of weird as well.

They're not very interesting. Like, again, it goes back to the, what are you going to get? Like, what's the cost?

Right?

Is it's just sanity. So at some point, just be like, yeah, you find the bottle. Like. Like, you're just gonna sit here, wait till someone rolls a crit. Come on.

I thought you're gonna say, what are we doing here?

Yeah, what, What? This podcast in general. What are we doing? No, I think this is one of those. Like, the agents should be by this point interested in at least finding their own bottle and then the author's bottle or, you know, if they. JC Lynn's, which, whatever. They want to find it. So I think it's more interesting if you've prepped their bottles and the secrets within, because that's gonna make each person get a spotlight. They're gonna feel something. And, like, you can also have the bottle reflect some element of their character they don't understand or want to think about. Like, give Little clues that'll pay off in Part four, hopefully. Mm.

So I have a question. How would you generate the bottle secrets for each PC?

I tried to think of the thing that would hurt them the most and then put that in the bottle or, you know what I mean? Or if. If it's something that I want them to, you know, stay in Carcosa, it might give them a false hope of like, oh yeah, your family's here. You know what I mean? Like some. Some secret that either is really going to make them feel bad or no, just feel bad and make them want to stay.

Welcome home.

Yeah.

I think for me, these bottles are an artifact created by the present iteration of the King in yellow in Carcosa. This is kind of mid potential role change by Abigail trying to shuffle the roles around from the King back to the Phantom again as she nominates a new king and is trying to seal J.C. lynns in as the author. That's the current, let's say, configuration. So based on that, if an agent listens to their own bottle, it would give them some immutable truth that would guide them to fulfill the role that Abigail wants them to do in this moment in E. It kind of. It makes an illusion that like, oh no, your free will, it's not that it's really this, like this is your destiny. That is a truth that the bottle will tell you because it is a truth for this iteration if they don't bear in mind that they can literally rewrite all of reality and unreality if they change the author and things here. I would very much encourage GMs to play it fast and loose with. Do the players find their own bottle? A bonds bottle that you can tease maybe exist in Carcosa that like, if you find your partner's bottle, that's a pretty good indicator that GM is going to have that partner show up at some point later. So maybe you can try and save them. If they're traveling with Mark Roark, maybe make Roark find his bottle in my campaign of it. I didn't mention this in the past episode because we went quite long anyways, but I had Dr. Friend Leech his way into the agents minds and replace one of their bonds with himself. That like they remember Dr. Friend as that person in all of their memories. If they tried to project onto Dr. Friend that bond Squad actually grows and like it led to this weird. He could keep seeing this hallucination of Friend that was influencing him. So he found Friend's bottle at some point and then smashed it and that ended basically, friend. It ended the hallucination.

Oh, that's really fun.

So you can get kind of creative on that. Again, don't follow the rules as written because it boils everything down to a bunch of die rolls that players, if they are really inclined, can just say, nah, fuck it, I'm going to stay here and keep playing the slots until I win. Or if you don't want them to do that, have them find JC Lentz's bottle after a certain number of roles, like that is a default. Everyone can get maybe two rolls each and then educate from there.

That feels about right. That get you, what, eight rolls between four players, you know, max.

Mm.

Is there anything else that we want to cover here? Do you have any more interesting ways for them to exit the Whisper labyrinth or manifestations you want them to encounter while they're down here?

The way the bottle is on the plinth, I find this very interesting and I'm curious what other people ran into. Does everybody else's players always just go, it's a trap. We can't do anything with it? Because I've had that every time they go, well, now I don't want to touch the bottle. And it's like, just. Just pick up the goddamn bottle.

Yeah, I dropped that. What I did is just as my agents picked it up, it was one of the moments that, you know, they grabbed it. They're looking around and it's like, well, now what? And then they hear stone grinding against stone. And as the shelf that JC's bottle was on reclines back, the st carved shelves start resembling stair steps. And then they walk up them and into the gray skies of Carcosa. And that was their exit of the whisper Labyrinth for my campaign.

Yeah, I think, Alex, for the one I ran for you. I had the bottle be in the midst of, like, a lot of these golden children. And if I recall correctly, they lost their shit when someone picked up the bottle and started chasing the agents. So you get a little bit of a callback and kept things moving. Cause, yeah, I didn't want the group to just get the bottle and sit there on their hands.

Yeah, I don't like the tentacle monster as written because it's more of a callback to falling asleep in the missing room and going in the vent, which is super unlikely to happen to begin with. So I really like having Aces dead children be in this whisper labyrinth because it's gross and weird. Like dead, waterlogged kids climbing on the ceiling up above you and dropping down on you. No one wants to stay in there. It's a great way to pressure your agents to run away. If you want to do something interesting, maybe have them find Asa's bottle and decide if they want to smash it. Then describe who you find drowning children in a room here. That the drowning room is here in the whisper labyrinth and someone else is doing just that role. Yeah, you can do all kinds of stuff to spicy manifestations to bring in here.

Somebody's gotta drown these kids. If it's not gonna be Asa, it's gotta be somebody else.

If you want something done, do it yourself.

Yeah, I agree. And the. The labyrinth is a fun way to kind of give that, like, interstellar moment where they're, like, looking out of a bookshelf at themselves or Abigail or something, and, you know, they're slamming on it and being like, abigail, no, don't read the book. And she's, you know, getting her bookmarks out.

That's a fun one.

That's a great moment.

I think at one point, I had them discover a sliver of light, and they come back across that crack in the walls of the night floors. That's a very early manifestation they can encounter. So a fun callback they can do there. I also just had a random thought that. That Melonia and the gold bugs are supposed to be growing here because that's just kind of mentioned in the night floors and dropped fucking. Tell your players to munch on some bugs, like use the gold bugs or Melonia as a way to get them high and see an epiphany that can guide them to the brottle bin.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, I. I don't know.

That's.

I still don't understand. I don't understand that shit.

That's the consequence now of running out of light. Is a bug just flies down your throat?

Oh. Oh. The bugs are afraid of light. So as the light goes out, they keep trying to crawl up your nose and your mouth. Yeah.

You can mummify or you hear the swarming. Yeah. Like the buzzing of the wings of the beetles.

Yeah, I like that.

A.

And eventually, one way or another, the agents will make their way out of the Whisper Labyrinth and into the lands of Carcosa. An opening into the chapter of the end of the world at the end. So this brings our third chapter discussion of impossible landscapes to a close. In the next episode, we'll discuss the impossible landscapes awaiting the agents on the other side of the Whisper Labyrinth and what roles they will take in the masquerade at the end of the world of the end. Be sure to check out the show notes of this episode for links to purchase a copy of this campaign for yourself. Bud's RPG Review Overview for these chapters that we discussed, other RPG resources that we mentioned, as well as an invite to our Labs Discord server to discuss more reanimations. We also post these episodes and resources to our Patreon that's free to follow. Or if you like, you can make a charitable donation to help us stock more curiously shaped bottles within the hallways underneath the H. West Memorial Mortuary and Laboratories. And we would like to extend a special shout out of appreciation to our Patreon interns, Beth, Zander, Sawyer, Scott, Chance, Jan, Born to be wrong J.S. weston, Allison Sick, Daniel, Oliver, Cableman, Corey and Nick. Thank you all so very much for supporting us. So until next time, thanks for listening to RPG Reanimators where your games can

die or live at the Hotel Brattle Bin.

They brought the kid in when I was the attending. I had like a minute alone with him when the EMTs dropped him. He was bleeding out internally. So I opened him up and there was nothing there. I mean, he was empty. No organs, no blood, nothing. But it all worked out. When the nurses got there, they were back. The organs. Anyway, he died.