Alex, Gaz, and Abby have arrived. Can they solve the mystery about the Hayseed Farms Corn Maze Monster? Or is there anything to solve? Is this just a case of urban legends meeting small-town rumors?
About Alex the Dumbass VS The Corn Maze Monster
Alex is not actually a dumbass. He’s quite smart. He might be a genius. One driven by a need to (a) discover more about ghosts, (b) fight the forces of darkness, and (c) most importantly: prove all his old bullies wrong. How does a 20-year-old do that? That’s right! Youtube!
He is joined by his cousin, Gaz, and friend (and possible future cousin-in-law) Abby. Gaz is all about UFOs. Abby is about cryptids and folklore. Then you add in Skee as the camera-man and Alex’s other cousin Arnie who is running “health and safety” [sometimes with her baseball bat].
Our intrepid weird-hunters and beginning Youtube stars are trying to crack the case of the Hayseed Corn Maze Monster: a creature who may be connected to vanished kids and the downfall of the Hayseed family. Were rumors of a corn pile full of children’s teeth real, or just a local tall tale? And what was up with all the carved pumpkins?
Content Warning: Occasional foul language, some smoking, drinking, and violence. It is a horror game but probably NOT the goriest thing I’ve ever played. For now. Some elements are likely to be pretty-horror/weird though.
Part of The Alabama Weird series of adventures.
Uses the image oracles from the Tricube Tales: Maidenstead Mysteries and Tricube Tales: Ghost Banishers one-sheets, combined, with some custom items added.
This post is in the standard Doug Alone post style. See Anatomy of a Post for more details.
Attribution for the tools and materials used — including the splash art—can be found in the Credits below along with some details.
Kicking Off, Finally, and the Three* Types of Scenes
It is Monday, 7 September 2026, and I am finally getting a chance to play through the first scene or two [not sure how much will go into the first part but if you are NOT me and you ARE reading this, then you likely know].
I partially just wanted to stop off with a note about the three* types of scenes that will be played off in this campaign and how their meta-ish nature should help to keep it interesting for me.
The Just Like…Everyday Normal Scene
The first type, and hopefully the main type, will just the bog-standard everyday normal solo rpg scene. There will be a Chaos Factor (from Mythic) and a scene check. There will be dice rolls. Oracle checks of various types. You’ve seen these before and if you haven’t, well, you’ll get the drift pretty soon.
The only “new rule” here will be a photography check at the end of each one to see the quality of the film. At the end, the better the total across all scenes, the better their Youtube channel does.
The On-Camera Behind-the-Scenes Scene
I want to have one or two per part (the latter in cases where things are going a bit wild). These will be scenes where Alex, Gaz, and Abby [and/or some combination of those three, possibly with others] sit around and discuss the case as a group. They are meant to emulate the planning type scenes that ghost hunter shows sneak in there to do some narrative dump. That kind of thing.
In this light, these scenes will be like little check-ins for me. There will be no Chaos Factor scene checks. There might be some oracle checks, but the vibe is a place where I can just slightly bump the story back on track or even just mentally process stuff happening.
They should be understand to be semi-fictional scenes in the world. Pretenses to candor. Some, though, will be less planned than others. I’ll try and balance that.
The Behind-the-Scenes Behind-the-Scenes
The unspoken assumption is that the cast and crew and folks caught up in these mysteries are going through a whole life of the own off camera. In that light, there will be a few scenes — likely kind of short and centered around a single thought, dice roll, or oracle check — that will be content that was cut from the episode or never filmed to begin with. It will make sense when you read it.
These will should be in all caps with a quick note of something like “CUT CONTENT” or “OFF CAMERA.”
* The Other Type of “Scene”
There will also technically be a fourth type of scene where stuff completely off episode is shared. News clips. Interviews. Newspaper articles. Stuff where I create some artifact that is at least tangentially related to the campaign. Frankly, some parts might have lots of these while others might have none. Just vibes, mostly.
In previous games, these would be “lore” elements but in this one I want to try and make those feel a bit more organic. We’ll see.
Tweaking the Rumors
In “Session -1” for this campaign I mentioned three rumors that I came up with off the top of my head to add some spice. This is outside of the disappearances and such: the core mystery. The three pieces were…
- Animals were mutilated in the petting zoo.
- There were odd pumpkins and carved figures around the barn when Larry hung himself.
- There was a pile of corn with human/child teeth mixed in.
What I want to do now to keep myself on my toes is to generate three more odd rumors and THEN discredit, immediately, some of them. I’ll roll 4d6 and each match will be a definite issue with the rumor (match meaning die has same number as number of the rumor). Two matches and the rumor is deeply flawed. THREE matches? Somehow the rumor did not go far enough to how awful the situation was… FOUR? Probably aliens. That would be a crazy roll.
After that, I’ll strike out a couple of the most disruptive or least interesting ones and we’ll have four weird clues as a seed.
Let’s use the Alex the Dumbass Image Oracle to generate some ideas:
- Rocking Chair + Lightning Storm
- Footsteps + Pocket Watch
- Steering Wheel + Video Camera
HMMMM… the first one feels a lot like there was a strange storm going on that night. Lots of old folks out on the balcony watching cloud-to-cloud lightning. Second one I could take in a number of ways but I think the way I like the most for spooky vibes is there were a lot of white rabbits all over the Hayseed farm that night (despite the blood, despite the storm). Final one, the Hayseed family car was found crashed a mile from the farm and there was a videotape that the Leftfield police office confiscated. There are rumors about who made the tape and what it shows.
That makes the final list look like this:
- Animals were mutilated in the petting zoo.
- There were odd pumpkins and carved figures around the barn when Larry hung himself.
- There was a pile of corn with human/child teeth mixed in.
- A strange electric storm blanketed the area that night. A lot of people felt compelled to watch it.
- When people arrived on the farm to cut down the body, there were white rabbits everywhere. Soon, they had vanished into the woods leaving only tracks behind.
- Larry’s car was found crashed with a videocamera on it and the details on the tape were deemed too sensitive to share outside of a direct trial.
Now, to roll 4D6 to alter/change some of those:
- 1, 5, 3, 2
A full spread. Nothing outright broken or much weirder than expected. Let’s take a look at some logic we can interject to cast doubt.
- Animals in the petting zoo… official report is that there was simple illegally hunted deer corpses dumped NEAR the zoo, not actually in it.
- Pumpkins and carvings… the photos (even the ones published in the paper) just tend to show pretty normal jack-o-lanterns, even if there were a lot of them. Only rumor suggests there were lots more.
- Corn pile with teeth… there is a photo of a pile of corn but absolutely no proof that there were any teeth.
- A strange electric storm blanketed the area that night. A lot of people felt compelled to watch it.
- Rabbits… Jenkins Lucky Rabbit Foot Farm had reported damage to their fences and the escape of around a half dozen rabbits. Reports were exaggerated.
- Larry’s car was found crashed with a videocamera on it and the details on the tape were deemed too sensitive to share outside of a direct trial.
All that done, I think the final four I am going to keep are…
- Mutilated corpses were found near the petting zoo but reports vary if it was the animals in the petting zoo or just Gerald Hayseed dumping illegally hunted deer.
- Larry Hayseed seems to have carved a lot of pumpkins before hanging himself and video recorded a final statement, but the contents of the carvings and the videotape are up for debate.
- Corn was dumped into a large pile. It absolutely had no teeth, especially not children’s teeth, understand?
- Rabbits, possibly from Jenkins Lucky Rabbit Foot Farm, were out in some number the night Larry committed suicide.
I think that’s a good mix to get started. The others I’ll keep on the backburner if everything stalls out.
Setting the Scene, p1s1.
“BEHIND THE SCENES”
A quick couple of vignettes to establish some characters and set things in motion.
THEN, the longest of these “on camera but behind the scenes” shots since this one is essentially establishing the whole story arc…
[CUT CONTENT]
…the camera focuses on two people. A tall, thin man and a shorter-than-him but still relatively tall young woman. He bends over and kisses the dark skin on her cheek as she giggles. Her playful swipe at him bumps the glasses on his face and there are more giggles as she bends over to help him pick them up.
Camera swings to a blond man in a thin sweater who is chuckling at his two friends. “Hey, guys,” he calls, “I don’t think you are practicing safe distancing…”
The woman snaps her face towards him and then the camera. “Alex, if you don’t tell Skee the get the camera off of us right now, I am going to share the photo of that rash you sent me thinking I was Gaz. I have it…”
“CUT!,” Alex shouts. Cuts. Right as the screen blinks off, you can hear laughter from four people.
[CUT CONTENT]
Alex pulls out a cigarette from the pack of Salems, lights it, and then slides the pack back to Abby across the wooden picnic table. A light rain is pattering around. It is a May day, 2020, after a storm has left the campsite in a bit of disarray.
“Thanks, Abs…”.
Abby is pulling her own cigarette from the pack and getting ready to light it, but…
“Um, Alex,” a female voice off camera can be heard saying, “Doesn’t Youtube demonetize videos that feature smoking, now?” 1
“Shit!,” Alex says, “Hell. Cut! Cut!”
The camera is watching three people at a picnic table. Weak sunlight punches through gray clouds as bird call and a distant boat can be heard echoing across the lake behind them. The constant rain over the past couple of weeks has risen the water to near the picnic table and stained by the camper and the canopy in the shot with a bit of algae.
Still, the sensation is one of coziness and friendliness.
“Ladies and Pilgrims, Queers and Shayla Kirkpatrick, welcome to the first episode of Alex the Dumbass!”
The speaker is a 20-year-old white man wearing, currently, a thin white t-shirt under a green sweater that feels out of place in the relatively warm May day. His curly blonde hair stands out greatly thanks to the humidity. His arms have a number of bracelets and bangles with a few tattoos across his forearms.
“I am Alex D, the eponymous character in this drama, and am I am joined with my best friends and lovely fellow taunters of the dark domains! Gaz and Abby!”
Gaz is the tallest on camera. Likely weighing the same as Alex, he has around six inches on his blonde cousin. He is pale, with dark hair. Just now 19, he already has a few gray and white hairs in his head. He wears glasses and somehow looks both bent over and perfectly postured at the same time. His out of date suit helps to confuse the eyes between young-and-old as you watch him.
Abby is around the same height as Alex. She is a black woman nearing 21-years-old. She is practically dressed. Flannel to keep out the rain but thin enough shirt and shorts to keep out the heat. Shoes suited to muddy walks near the lake.
Though not clear to the camera, Abby is also the only one wearing bug spray.
“Now,” Alex continues, “it is to your dishonor that you don’t know me and to your discredit that you do not know Abby, but I bet you know Gaz. Why is that, my man?”
The camera zooms in on Gaz who suddenly seems nervous at the attention. After a few seconds, he seems to snap on his stage face and is suddenly a lot more confident and boisterous.
“My name is Gaz Delmont. My dad is the Eustace Delmont. I’m taking up the family business!”
Camera zooms back to all three. Abby is clapping and Alex lets out a hoot. This is a bit awkward and it feels pretty obvious that this was all a scripted bit.
After it, though, they get down to the current business…
In order to not simply replicate the stuff from the launch post and to avoid overexplaining so that some stuff is left for oracle checks, I’m going to give a summation here. In the actual video this would be around five- to ten-minutes. Some of the graphics that would show up in this portion of the video will be made by me IRL and then posted throughout the arc where appropriate.
…the map shows a hand-drawn camper around the upper middle-third of east Alabama and then a red line draws its way up to a dot on the northern border of the state…
Alex (voiceover with music by Scott Buckley playing, as images of old farms and old small towns show, almost none of which are actually Leftfield and very few are from Alabama…): “Leftfield, AL…home to the Falco zipper company2…and home to two brothers with a dream. In 1987, Larry Hayseed and his brother Bo founded the Hayseed Patch which later became just Larry’s and got renamed the Hayseed Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch…by 2000 it was the second most popular family friendly fall festival attraction North of Birmingham…”
Abby (a few minutes later, her voice over overtakes Alex’s while images of newspapers describing the missing children, Larry’s weird publicity stunts, and Larry’s eventual suicide are shown. Scott Buckley drifts into Kevin MacLeod and Karl Casey with deeper, scarier tones…): …Hayseed decided to lean into the missing children with a very ill-planned campaign. “You might just get lost!,” the posters said. Even though he hired child models and wasn’t using the missing children’s faces, they were strikingly similar… the three phrases at the bottom with exclamation points have highlighted letters… Carson Tyres… a reference to the missing children… Larry had clearly…
…according to internal files, Larry Hayseed had used the faces of the missing of the children as the basis for the 2010 maze!
Gaz (his voice takes over): …Leftfield has a long history of strange activity. Back in the 1920s, during the height of Prohibition, the area’s moonshiners were said to be protected by an entity called The Devourer… at the farm the slaughtered bodies could possibly be a left over to the old cult… could this be aliens?!
Alex turns to Gaz after the voiceover narration finishes. “Mr. Delmont, beloved cousin, what’s your plan of attack.”
Gaz looks like he is dropping a surprise announcement but once again the audience is at least somewhat aware it is scripted. “I have permission from Bo Hayseed, the current owner of the land, to come out and look around.”
“Good man!,” Alex says, “and what about you, Lady Absinthe?”
“Don’t call me…I mean, I’m going to go the Leftfield Library, find the oldest and wisest person there, and talk them about old legends. Especially what rabbits might mean to the area.”
“You mean the rumor that rabbits were flocking around the farm on the night of Hayseed’s death?”
“Not just that, did you ever see what the design for the 2004 corn maze was?”
Alex looks to the camera, slightly confused by also a bit happy. They are off script, now. “No…”
Abby holds up a print out from a color newspaper showing off the maze. It was a collection of rabbits and spirals. In fine print underneath the photo, a caption informs the reader that the 2004 maze was sponsored by Jenkin’s Lucky Rabbit Foot Farm.
“Holy shit!,” says Alex, “Awesome work, Abby!”
She smiles and nods as Gaz pulls her over for a kiss to the top of her head.
“How about you, Oh Captain My Captain,” asks Gaz, back on script but with a new hop in his step, “what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to ask,” and here he pauses for the camera to have time to zoom in, “to watch a certain videotape…”
Time to check how well this portion goes down. We’ll use Skee’s bonuses which is…quite a bit for first level.
- Photograph 1 + WIS 2 + Filmmaker Bonus 3 + d20 16 = 22.
The opening segment is a massive hit from the viewers.
Setting the Scene, p1s2.
Chaos Factor: 4
Expected Scene: Gaz explores the farm and finds something that gets his interest [TBD].
Scene Test: 7
Actual Scene: As expected
First question: does Gaz actually have Bo Hayseed’s permission? (Very Likely [he doesn’t seem the type to lie, just yet]) → 52 = Yes.
Ok, now to generate something that might be a bit of a surprise to Gaz:
- Image Oracle → Spectre + Newspaper
I’m not sure what to do with the newspaper, but first thought was there was some trash around. Trash that is pretty recent. Spectre immediately makes me think Gaz is going to find some ghost hunting equipment. Someone else is already scoping the joint.
And just to keep it “sexy,” the person seems to know about Gaz.
[GAZ] Getting there… second
An image of a barn is on the screen for several seconds. The atmosphere around the barn is Autumnal. At odds with the Spring footage.
[This is from a February recording to scope the area before COVID-19 delayed the project but also increased the scope]
The color green washes back into the frame as the sound of footsteps can be heard.
Camera follows Gaz Delmont as he walks across the empty ruins of the ones boisterous Hayseed Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch. The parking lot turning into rubble. The buildings starting to sag. Paint peeling. The famous cornfield now a large lot of weeds and trash. A few pieces of police tape still flap in the breeze, despite the decade distance across time. Gaz keeps walking until he he is standing under a pavilion. He lifts his hands and brings him to his mouth as he is looking around. Like he is lost in contemplation. Over to the right, as the camera pans around, the viewer gets the first glimpse of The Barn. Perhaps even more run down than the earlier shot.
Gaz: This was once a place where a hundred families could sit across dozens of tables of eat corndogs and funnel cake. Now an empty flat space. You can almost hear the laughter and the silence that followed.
Gaz is not the most charismatic member of the group so I want to see if he is selling these corny [pun!] lines:
- CHA check (d20 vs 11, but I’ll give him +2 because of how well the opening bit went) → 15. Still a miss. He’s being a bit hammy. -1 to the film check at the end.
Gaz and the cameraperson [NOTE: it is Arnie] walk through the empty pavilion towards the barn. Once again, Gaz hams it up a bit for the camera. He puts his hand on the double doors and gives them a push. The lock holds tight. [Gaz has the key, but it is leaving that part unspoken for now]
Gaz: Here is where, 10-years-ago, Larry Hayseed’s body was found. If you believe the rumors, he was surrounded by dozens…hundreds [Gaz gets a bit tongue twisted realizing he’s repeating numbers he just said]…um…many carved pumpkins and some other things. Did he carve them himself? Or was there someone, or *someoneS* with him in his final hours?
Gaz looks directly at the camera.
Gaz: What *did* happen to his wife and son?
Gaz walks around behind the barn until he gets to a door already open in a smaller (though still sizeable) side area.
Gaz: In here, you can still Larry’s old tractor which he used to give Hayseed Rides. Hay rides, a Halloween staple in Alabama, but these had a special treat. Larry, himself, telling stories. Spooking the kids. According to eye-witnesses, he was worth the $1 fee. You can almost still hear the laughter and…um, Arnie… shit… I’m repeating myself too much. You’re right. Want to go through it a third time? I promise to not…what?
Arnie’s camera swings over to focus on an electronic device on a tripod, sat up in a nook in the side barn.
Gaz is not a ghost hunter, but he knows Paranormal stuff…
- (Paranormal) 1 + (INT) 1 + (d20) 20! → Nat 20 (22 total) = Success.
Gaz: That’s an Janus 80. It’s… used to track slight shifts in EM and IR waves. Ghost hunter types swear it can track spiritual movement. Why is it here? It is still recording and these thing have a few days battery life at most. It must be…wait…
Gaz stops and stares at something on the ground, bends over and picks it up.
Arnie asks something from behind the camera. Without a lavalier, the audio is lost to the audience.
Gaz, in response, holds something up to the camera. His own face is on a half-sized magazine cover, not in the most flattering of lights. The Dixie Truth. Last quarter’s issue.
Eustace Delmont’s Son Gaz Joins Dad!
DETAILS INSIDE!
Gaz: Shit, Arn, I think someone has figured out I was going to be here.
How did it go? -1 for the hamminess. +2 for the twist!
- (Photography) 1 + (WIS) 1 + (bonus) 1 [total] + (d2o) 9 → 12 = not a great success, but has some interest building.
New Mythic Threads/Items
There are a few new things to add to our Mythic stack.
- Thread: The Other Ghost Hunter
- Thread: The Dixie Truth
Image Oracle Updates
Thought it might be neat to try out a few “default” oracle additions to the Alex the Dumbass Image Oracle. It didn’t exactly need it but I am curious to see about adding two types of “always on” images and how it might impact my game play going forward.
The first addition is all of the 22 Major Arcana Icon Set by Caro Asercion. Tarot is a pretty classic oracle in the solo playing space and while I have another tool for using the tarot more broadly is more like little sprinkles.
The second is an icon for a jack-o-lantern and an icon of a dice-with-question-marks. The former is a way of saying the currently situation is a bit more horror while the latter is saying the situation is a bit weirder. They are something like twist icons but outside of doubles a bit gentler. A bending of light, not a full mirror.
EVENT TRIGGER: Also, to go along with this, if I ever get the Corn icon AND the Maze icon in that order, it’s going to trigger a special event where the corn maze will suddenly be back. It’s a fairly rare chance, but I like giving myself a weird challenge that will likely completely reshape the situation.
Setting the Scene, p1s3.
Chaos Factor: 4
Expected Scene: Alex is talking to Samantha Eustace at the Leftfield Police station[, but something is up with the tape?].
Scene Test: 2, Altered…
Ok, let me think about this. Each of these introduction scenes was going to have a mild twist. However, getting an alteration almost makes me think that the twist is there is no twist? Eh…maybe. Let’s put it to oracle:
- Is the tape {missing | never existed}? (50/50) → 85 = No.
- Is the tape something else entirely? (50/50? → 41 = Yes.
- What is the tape actually? (Image Oracle) → Teacher + Bed…. = ohhhhh.
- {Bo | Rabbit Dude | someone else} → Bo.
- Was there any signs of foul play? (Very Unlikely, otherwise it would ahve already been discussed) → 35 = No. At least not that the cops are willing to disclose.
Actual Scene: The tape that was recovered was actually Janine having sex with her brother-in-law Bo.
I think this works ok as adding some drama to it. Previous scene leans it weirder, this scene grounds it more.
The Problem with Bo
The blonde police officer leans back against the chair behind the desk. She is formal but not dismissive. No one would mistake her as friendly, but you also feel like you might can trust her. Text at the bottom of the screen introduces her to the viewer as LEFTFIELD POLICE OFFICER SAMANTHA EUSTACE. She is young, fit, and tall.
Despite being only a couple of years older than Alex, the word that might come to mind is “patient” as you watch their interaction. Like she is a teacher being respectful of a high school student.
Just to get an idea of how well Skee (the cameraman in this case) is doing:
- (WIS) 2 + (Photo) 1 + (Bonus) 3 + (d20) 11 = 17.
A second tier. Bonus points at the end.
Alex: Officer Eustace… [here he pauses, possibly waiting to see if she suggests he calls her “Samantha” or “Sam”…. she does not] …I think a lot of people interested in this case are wanting to know if the videotape recovered at the scene verify the official report.
Samantha: Which people are interested in this case that care about the VHS? Can you give some examples of where the official investigation was insufficient?
I’m going to give him a CHA check to see if he stays unflustered and in “character”:
- (CHA) 15 vs (d20) 10 = he stays charming
I personally don’t know if he’s making up the people or if this a personal interest, but he is in control enough that he is not going to potentially throw anyone under the bus.
Alex: Sorry if that came across as me implying the police did not do a thorough job. That was not my intent [slight turn to the camera to show his face during this part] but let’s just say that when we were researching this case we heard about this tape and how it was never submitted as evidence. I would like to personally ask if you could share some details as to why.
Samantha: And then you asked my boss…
Alex: Right, Captain Mackey gave me your name and said to make sure this does not turn into…and I quote…
Samantha (picking up a print out of an email): His precise words to me were “to stop a bunch of conspiracy nuts for digging up old wounds for a long closed case with no loose ends.”
Alex: And that’s the official note, that there are no loose ends?
Samantha (leaning forward, looking right at the camera): There are no loose ends.
Alex: What about Janine? Gerald?
Samantha puts a VHS tape on the desk and Skee’s camera focuses in on it. It is an unmarked tape.
Samantha: You absolutely cannot record this. I ask you to show discretion when describing it. It’s up to your viewers to trust you.
Sometime later, Alex is outside the police station with the camera set up to record the traffic of Leftfield going by.
Alex: Well, Space Pilgrims, Officer Eustace had a point. The tape was not by Larry Hayseed. It was his wife, Janine. And well, Larry’s brother, Bo…
Skee can be heard saying something from right off screen, behind the camera.
Alex: No, it’s the truth. The truth needs to come out even if it turns this all into a broken heart. Janine and Bo were an item. Larry found out. And, well.
Skee says something else.
Alex: Yeah, poor man.
Check to see how it went. +6 from before +2 for good framing…
- (Skee’s film editing) 6 + (bonus) 2 + (d20) 18 → 26 = Skee is killing it.
Samantha Eustace: A Quick Past and Future Sight
Samantha Eustace joined the Leftfield PD in 2019 and genuinely believed in the mission. She did not consider it a perfect job. The community was poor. The people distressed. Every year the population was a bit less than last. However, she stuck with it.
She got along with her boss and had a family around town.
As COVID-19 ripped through the town and finished off several shops and factories, she volunteered to help out. To keep people’s spirits up.
In 2023, her cousin — Del Eustace — became wanted for burning down the Leftfield High School. Before he did, he told her there was a cult which worshiped “The Devourer” around town and that the school was being used to harvest victims.
In 2024, she was on the scene where Leftfield’s Golden Boy, Johnny Falco, heir to the Falco fortune (what was left of it) had his head bashed in by a couple of high school girls. With lots of evidence that it was self-defense on their part. Some old families wanted loyalty to the Falco name. They could accept that he was a murderer, but had trouble accepting he was murdered. Sam Eustace stuck by the girls and got them acquitted.
And after that, well, that’s a future story.
New Mythic Threads/Items
There is two new things to add to our Mythic stack.
- Thread: Janine and Bo’s affair
- Character: Samantha Eustace
Setting the Scene, p1s4.
Chaos Factor: 4
Expected Scene: Abby finds [something interesting] about the rabbit connection and makes a connection.
Scene Test: 10
Actual Scene: As expected
It’s been a few days since I have had time to play but I want to go ahead and get this one wrapped up so I can move to the second part where things should start to get a bit more weird/horror.
As with others, let’s fish for a couple of odd details to help provide some twists. We’ll save the meeting with the librarian until next time since this one has been a huge exposition dump and I want to balance that out.
- Image Oracle: Tarot – Lovers + Tesla Coil
Ok, the latter is actually a rare case of Woolcock editing an icon in Tricube. It’s been redone to look a bit like a Ghostbusters power pack in “Ghost Banishers.” For simplicity I kept the whole icon in place. While the Lovers card can mean exactly that, it broadly means something like harmonious union and opposing forces working together. Combined, my idea is that a union somehow involving trapping or zapping something.
- Are rabbits considered a good sign in the region? (50/50) → 41 → Yes.
The rabbits are something like a ward to prevent something.
- Is there a familial relationship between the two farms? (50/50) → 40 → Yes.
Janine Hayseed is (maybe was) the sister to Tam Jenkins, who runs the Jenkin’s Lucky Rabbit Foot Farm. There’s some local legend of calamity in which rabbits were considered a force to stop it. Roughly. I can keep it vague, for now.
Follow the White Rabbit
Abby is in a small room with a number of books in front of her, possibly overly so for effect. In the background of the video, you can hear some folks talking but it sounds muffled. The camera must be on a tripod or stand on the table because it catches her about chest height and you can tell by her eyeline she is tapping on some keyboard off frame. A desktop or laptop computer.
Just to establish a future scene.
- {GMAB93} (first name): Rachel
- Image Oracle (for last name): Steering Wheel + Cat
Rachel Wilco (wheel + cat)
Abby: Tomorrow I am going to meet with long time librarian and expert on local myths, Rachel Wilco, to discuss some of these things but first let’s take a look at some Southern and local folklore about the white rabbit and why I find it interesting in this story.
Abby holds up a book to the camera. A picture of Brer Rabbit smoking a pipe is on the cover.
Abby: Just last year, Emily Marshall wrote this book taking a look at the way the rabbit as a trickster god is prevalent in Black myth structure and likens the rabbit as akin to Anansi. Representing both an act of rebellion but also a sense of freedom. Rabbits survive, sometimes viciously so…
Abby holds up another book, this one with a much older cover3…
Abby: Over a century ago, James Mooney actually cited the rabbit figure in Native American myth as such…
The Rabbit was the messenger to carry all public announcements, and usually led the dance besides. He was also the great trickster and mischief maker…
Abby: And actually notes the rabbit myth is very wide spread. He goes so far as to list The Great White Rabbit (Mooney’s words) as “the hero-god, trickster, and wonder-worker of all the tribes east of the Mississippi from Hudson bay to the Gulf.” We see the rabbit in other myth structure, and other trickster gods. What about the White Rabbit leading Alice to Wonderland? Or characters like Loki? Or for certain people in my life, maybe The Doctor from Doctor Who? The trickster god can easily be thought of as negative by those who strive for law and order, the ruling class of animals, but in human society…
Abby talks for a few minutes, holding up some print outs and getting a bit much into her discussion.
There is an abrupt cut and now the lights are off and she is packing up.
Abby: Oh, I have gone over, today and they are needing to close. Tomorrow, I want to talk to Mrs. Wilco about the ways some of the local legends I was hinting at might specifically impact Leftfield and why Lucky Rabbit Foots is such a big deal, here.
How well did she set up her scene?
- Photograph (0) + WIS (3) + (d20) 15 = 18.
Despite it being a bit dry, she apparently found a way to sell it.
New Mythic Threads/Items
More things for our Mythic stack!
- Thread: White Rabbits in Leftfield Lore/History
- Character: Tam Jenkins (Rabbit Farmer and Janine’s Brother)
- Character: Mrs. Rachel Wilco (Librarian)
Setting the Scene, p1s5.
Chaos Factor: 4
Expected Scene: Gaz calls Bo and gets confirmation…
Scene Test: 7
Actual Scene: As expected
This is kind of for dramatic effect to stop the first part ending with a library lesson (despite that being fun). Gaz has two questions to ask and one I’ll leave to a lot of chance and the other I’ll weigh to keep the tension going. BUT, let’s see if I can find out one more odd thing for Gaz to find on the farm…
- Image Oracle: Handcuffs + Footsteps
- It was rabbits in the petting zoo, wasn’t it? (Very Likely) → 49 → Yes.
- Will Bo share this? (Unlikely) → 67 → No.
- Does Bo know about the other person researching the farm? (50/50) → 38 → Yes.
- Is he willing to share details? (50/50) → 45 → Yes.
Ok, Gaz is going to be meeting Bo to talk about this next part but we have a good plot twist to end on…
Confirming Things
Gaz (on the phone): Mr. Hayseed. Sorry…Bo. Good to hear from you. Yes, we are on the farm right now. Going good, thanks! Yes, we will show you our footage as soon as we have anything. I just have a couple of questions for you… first, the petting zoo… can you confirm or deny what animals might have been found in the… oh, ok. That’s just a rumor, then?
Gaz looks at the camera and makes a significant eyebrow raise.
Gaz: …yes, my second question… did you know that someone else was investigating the farm? You did?! Can you…yes, I can meet tomorrow. Umm, sure…that’s…
Gaz is distracted by something off camera. [Arnie is trying to point at something nearby]
Gaz: Bo, I need to head out for the night and get things charged up. See you soon…that’s right, bye, now. I will tell my dad you are a fan, yes… ok, bye… sure, I like biscuits and gravy… sounds good… sounds good… ok… I… right, bye!
Gaz shakes his head and pockets his phone before reaching over and taking the camera from Arnie and for the first time the viewer can see her where she is standing.
Gaz: Ok, Arnie, what did you find?
Arnie (sounding very nervous, crouching down to some old plumbing pipe in the relative dryness under the barn): Um, well…I just noticed there is a set of handcuffs. Handcuffed to the pipe. And, well…what looks to be a…well…
Weighted D3 to see how many sets of footprints, with 3 = “a number”
- {wd3} → “a number”
Arnie (continued): …a number of footprints. Fairly fresh. Well, visible. It’s very dry under here, maybe… (she pans off to silence)
Gaz brings the camera up to follow the footprints which fade as they get to the far door but not before angling off to the left. Gaz follows them out and as the camera pans up, they are aimed right in the direction of the old corn maze. Now just a field of weeds.
Ok, how well did THIS go over…
- (Photography) 1 + (WIS) 1 + (d20) 15 = 17.
People are really loving what is going on so far…it will be a hit.
New Mythic Threads/Items
The final in this fishing for Mythic Threads session…
- Thread: The handcuffs at Hayseed farm…
- Thread: Bo Hayseed is holding back…something
DOUG’S COMMENTARY
In the off-chance this is somehow your first introduction to my strange solo-play style: welcome. It was a lot, I admit, but you might be surprised I have cut several elements out already. There is a map for the farm. Missing posters. I was going to come up with a few newspaper articles. A few places around time. The second part will have some of the bits that didn’t fit in the first part.
This will probably the new normal for me posting stuff. I liked having the days to post and being able to build up a back-log but really it just ended up feeling stressful when I didn’t have that back-log. There are a number of older posts that are shorter with less breathing room because I was hitting a deadline. This style, where I just play a couple of days a week and get multiple scenes in: it’s nice. It also gives me time to think and then have all those thoughts dashed.
At one point, I thought we were going for were-rabbits. I really did. Or the kind of cult where people wear rabbit masks. It is now already running off in odd ways but ways I like. It’s fun to bring in my old library days and using old research skills to fill this more, along with my experience in making escape rooms and other events.
I assume this will be the kind of arc where we’ll have two lore-heavy sort of posts and then around Part 3 whatever horror has been brewing will spill out for at least a part. Maybe then settling until the last 1-2 parts will likely be much more a traditional RPG.
I’m really enjoying playing this, though. It is odd enough and I have no idea where the oracles and dice might lead it. I am interested to know.
CREDITS
Alex the Dumbass VS The Corn Maze Monster is played using Bloat Games’ Survive This! rules (especially Bloody University) with Mythic [Tana Pigeon, with horror variations from Mythic Variations and Mythic Magazine #40].
Other resources include the Gamemaster’s Apprentice 1e Base Deck and Weird Horror Deck (shuffled together). There is also the Alex the Dumbass Image Oracle [more details at the link]. Random Realities, Gamemaster’s Little Helper: Modern, Universal NPC Emulator, Table Fables: Modern, and The Book of Random Tables: Modern will all be kept on standby, along with actual facts about the state of Alabama and classic folklore.
ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION
The campsite is by Polina Kuzovkova via Unsplash+.
You will be shocked to know that all the elements of the map are handrawn.
The poster was a mix of a lot of elements and is about as dark as I want to dwell on this one (sorry to all the photographers and models!). Elements include:
- Photo by Amy Baugess on Unsplash
- Photo by Jeremiah Lawrence on Unsplash
- Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash
- Photo by Curated Lifestyle via Unsplash+.
The “too graphic” is just some color tweaked photos of cute lambs. Photo by Micaela Parente on Unsplash.
Corn Maze Map is my poor attempt to get the feel of such. There is a hefty bit of MasantoCreative’s bunny sketch blended with a photo of dirt by Detlef Hansmann on Unsplash and then using Elantro’s photo of moss as a green texture with warping and such across the whole to try and make it look like one of those shockingly unhelpful maps that you might see in a local paper.
Barn front: Photo by Roger Starnes Sr on Unsplash. The jab about it being earlier footage is because I could find a fair number of Fall/Winter photos of barns of that condition or Spring photos of much newer or much older barns. I went with getting the structure right over making it perfectly representative of the video. With a tease.
Barn side/back: Photo by Leslie Saunders on Unsplash
Pavilion: Photo by Salomé Guruli on Unsplash
Video tape: Photo by JC Gellidon on Unsplash
Rabbit was moderately modified from… Photo by Guillermo Casales on Unsplash
No children or animals were harmed in the making of this game. Thank goodness.
- I had to check this. Pretty much all of the characters (but Arnie) would be the artsy, smoking types but since we are largely seeing their Youtube output, I wanted to reflect that. Looks like July 2019 was when the crackdown began. ↩︎
- Leftfield was the setting for the Sinister Semester X posts on the OG Doug Alone blog and some of the stuff about the Falco Zipper company and the weird stuff around town will be references to that, but keep in mind this Alex the Dumbass story will be taking place around 3-4 years prior so a few details won’t be known and, technically, can’t be exposed… ↩︎
- These are both actual books. I am super-duper summarizing them and taking some elements out of context just to keep the story flowing but note that the rabbit has showed up in many, many cultures with elements of trickster | survivor | and godly messenger. ↩︎