Previously, on The GLOW: 1992: Agent Johnny Blue vs The Kid
After a failed attempt to catch up with the eco-terrorists who sabotaged the fireworks show, Johnny has joined up with Lanette. They are stranded near the park without a vehicle and with Johnny licking his wounds. The Kid has started to appear and has a interest in Johnny. As has someone else, who seems to have lead Johnny to the park for reasons unknown. And Upton’s family is actively looking for their missing kin.
About The GLOW: 1992: Agent Johnny Blue vs the Kid
Agent Johnny Blue is sent on a mission into mid-Florida to find Finley “Farsight” Estevan, a powerful remote-sensing psychic. His only clue is a hedge mage Maria “Madame Sinister” Salas, who seems equally powerful at reading the future using tarot cards. Estevan and Salas are involved with a backwoods cult trying to find the Illuminated Codex: a grimoire tied to a mysterious figure known as The Kid. Just exactly what The Kid is, why the cult is trying to summon him, and what Estevan looks to gain from it is unknown. At the same time, a group of four psychic young adults have decided to take it upon themselves to find Johnny because he has stolen a powerful relic [and lost it]. Also, there are eco-terrorists and a missing man. This is the story of Johnny’s worst case ever and his biggest failure.
Content Warning: Occasionally very foul language, lots of smoking, quite intense violence, drinking, gambling, non-graphic sex, drugs, criminal behavior, and black magic. References to slavery and racism and related concepts show up. The GLOW is a world of spiritual torture and weird horror.
Part of The GLOW series of adventures.
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.
First Post in the New Blog | Format
This is the first post played in this blog since the great migration started. The good news is that I have had several hours of fixing old content that got moved over to learn a few tricks that I would absolutely had not known if I had just jumped straight in. The bad news is there is still a lot to learn and some of the initial posts will have to be reworked some time in the future.
I have a mental image of how to work and line up the posts to mostly not get in the way of my mental model. I am not 100% sure how well it will flow, though. I figure I will stick with it throughout this post and get a better idea.
The GLOW 1992: Agent Johnny Blue vs The Kid, Part 5 – The Kid by Moonlight
Setting the Scene, e5s1.
Chaos Factor: 7
Expected Scene: Billy and the others have become aware of Lanette’s absence and are trying to figure what to do about it.
Scene Test: 8
Actual Scene: As Expected
This is going “as expected” but part of my expectation is that the screws will increase for the next few sessions. In that light, let’s consult the Characters list to see someone who might show up.
1 + 4 → Maria.
She is known to be fairly powerful as a hedge magician, so it makes sense that can feel the kids and Upton, especially since they are bumbling around while Johnny — minus the Tongue — would be back in his ability to fully obscure himself.
Let’s find out why.
The card pulled [reminder: see Dixit: Mirrors for more information] → Row 1, Column 9 → a jester in a room full of tiles with jail-like bars at the bottom.
I think this is a case of an important reading of the question. If I just pulled it, I’d think maybe something like “to play the fool” but in this case I asked why. So I don’t think the fool is her. She is thinking of Johnny (I’ll say positively) and worried he is being played the fool and trapped in a game of symbols he does not understand.
With that being said, despite her loyalty to Estevan, is she doing this on her own? (50/50) → 14 → Exceptional Yes. Maria is actively interfering with the plans of which she is part.
All this can be kept for slightly later, since I think this scene will be meaty enough without her being in it. She can show up at the end.
Date: Saturday, July 4, 1992.
Time: 11:47pm.
Place: PREMIUM Motel.
Realization Hits
“This is bad, right?”
That’s Torey talking. He’s been on the left-most bed — nearest the door — and trying to swing between “nothing’s wrong” and “oh no” as a mood. Jayson is laying on the bed but Upton can tell that the long, lanky, lazy-as-a-mark-of-pride boy is actually equally as nervous as the rest.
Billy, whom even Upton finds himself thinking of as the leader despite all the evidence otherwise, is in the rolling chair by the desk. Staring down. Once 10:30pm hit, the group became aware that maybe, just maybe, Lanette was running late. Then 10:50 hit. Then 10:56. The way that when you have a time in mind for a person or a package to show up and it’s gone past and each minute after that is a little bit shorter.
Upton played it off that maybe she had found a nice black boy to settle down but immediately regretted the teasing. He had a sense that things were more complicated for her than these three realized but that she also deeply part of the team.
It is a positive to Upton’s character that not once has he worried too much about the car. Though if Lanette turns up alive in well, she had best respected it.
Now, nearly an hour since the sense of panic built up, they are all waiting up. Jayson and Torrey on the one bed. Upton sitting on the other. Billy at the desk. Worried but also trying to believe that any second she’ll walk right back in and be confused by their confusion. It has only been about an hour since she was supposed to be back. That’s nothing. She could easily have gotten distracted. Only, Torey has said what they were all thinking and it feels like it has changed the vibe.
“Billy,” Upton asks, “you can see things. Can you see her?” He has felt his anger wind down a bit as he has hung out more with them. There’s something about Billy, in particular, that makes it hard to sustain a long term anger towards the fat kid trying to navigate his shift into adulthood. Had Upton known about Lanette’s thoughts about the way Billy’s powers insist upon others, he might have been wary and ready to leave. For now, though, he is unaware of the impact Billy’s power is having on him and the others.
As is Billy.
Billy, quietly, nods. He does not want to add worry on top of everything but he can sense something else flowing in the aether, here. Something larger and darker and more playful than he has ever felt before. If you were to fly a drone up, he thinks, you might see the Soulburn over the whole area turning like a hurricane. Slowly but surely. Reaching out and trying to grasp the threads right now is risking attracting whatever it is in the eye’s attention.
This is Lanette, though, and some risks are worth taking.
Let’s treat this as an “open” roll. Roll xd6 — in Billy’s case this will be 3d6 — and then figure out if he had a easy, normal, or hard success with it.
3, 2, and 6
This gives him a hard success, but just a singular success. He’ll know one hard to get piece of data pretty well but not all the context. We can chalk this up to his fear of sensing the Kid altering the threads.
I like him being aware that she is with Johnny and “safe” but not quite knowing other context. Let’s pull a Dixit card to get a a bit of “vibe”>:
It’s a cracked wall with a tree’s roots growing out of it, though the tree itself is in the background. (9th Row, 1st Column)
I think a simple read works well here. Some place abandoned. Leave it vague to establish it more in Lanette + Johnny’s POV.
Hmm, and let’s just throw it to Mythic: Can Billy sense that this is the guy who took the Tongue? (50/50) → 59 → Yes.
“She’s with…a guy. Some place…not sure. Cracked. Rusty. Some place old, I think. Nature reclaiming it. I think the guy is the guy.”
“Which the guy?,” Torey asks from the bed.
“The one who stole the Tongue.”
Upton has been turning his head back and forth, trying to gauge how strong of a reaction to have right now.
“That’s bad,” Jayson says from the bed, eyes still closed.
Upton takes the cue: “Why is that bad?” He’s picturing international relic thief. Crazed anti-Glow mercenary. Kind of guy that might kidnap the kind of woman that Lanette is.
“Because,” Billy answers, processing Jayson’s thoughts, “if I can now sense him, the Forked Tongue isn’t there.”
“Maybe he stashed it somewhere. He ain’t going to walk around it 24/7, is he?”
Torrey jumps back in, “This is something strong enough it can be used to do extreme damage to The GLOW. You could walk downtown Mobile and cause millions of dollars of machines to short out. Folks might legit die. It’s not the kind of thing you would just stash. All the enemies of The GLOW would pay immense money for it. It would be like stealing a nuclear bomb and stashing it.”
“Wait,” Jayson sits up, sounding more excited than Upton has ever seen, “Billy. You said you could track the Tongue because it left scars in the GLOW. If he actually stashed it, it might be unprotected.”
Let’s do a Mythic test versus “Very Unlikely” on this. Exceptional Yes = Easy, Yes = Normal, No = Hard, Exceptional No means impossible.
35 → Yes. It’s a standard roll. I’ll say that Billy needs to get 8 successes total to make it work. A failure removes a success.
First roll: no successes. He stays at 0 out of 8.
Billy Tracks the Tongue (Normal)
☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐
“I think so, yeah,” Billy gives it some thought, “but not right now. We have to decide though, go after the Tongue or go after Lanette.”
Upton offers a solution. “Use your brain, boy. There’s four of us. We split up. Billy, you focus on going after this damned nuclear bomb. I can go and try and find Lanette.”
Billy nods. “You are about as local as we got, you know of any place that might have run down but still standing enough people could hide out in it? Plants reclaiming it? Near the place they were having fireworks?”
Hmm, does he? Let’s stick to Mythic: Does Upton know the place on Billy’s description/guesses? (Very Unlikely) → 43 → Yes.
Ok, let’s build a place. Lots and lots and lots of ways to do this, but to keep the Dixit experiment going, let’s work with that (two cards):
- A girl rocks her grandma in a chair (8th Row, 7th Column).
- Stalks of film growing out of vases (6th Row, 1st Column).
A retirement home. One with lots of flowers and happy memories, not a bad place. Shut down due to money? (50/50) → 47 → Yes. A place that was great for its residents but eventually ran out of cash for whatever reason.
1d6 decades ago = 3. 30 years. So maybe slightly before the GLOW arrived.
Now a name. Might as well draw another card:
- Old man robot (5th Row, 10th Column).
The heart and the green-plaid sleeves stand out. Green Heart Retirement Center. Green is a name. As in the same last name as Tanya. Dun dun dunnnn…
Anyhow, built out in a once-nice park area near-ish to White Lake. Swamp is taking it fast.
“Could be the Green Heart. Old folks’ home. My grandpa holed up there his last few years. It was nice. Real food. Didn’t discriminate. Treated people with respect. Went broke because folks around here didn’t care much about it unless they had kin there. And we with kin didn’t have enough money to keep it up. That place has been rotting away since the 60s. You think they are there?”
“Yes. Maybe. Could be something else. Hard to tell.” Billy continues to talk in shorter sentences, his concentration too split. “Can you check it out?”
“I can. The three of you going after the Tongue?”
“No, I’d like Jayson to maybe go with you. I don’t know how dangerous this guy is. Just in case.”
“Can I go?,” Torrey asks.
“What, why?”
“I want to make it up to him. For the whole…” Torrey mimes punching himself in the face.
“That’s up to him.”
“Can I hit him back?,” Upton asks.
“Right now?”
“Just when he needs.”
Torey nods at this. Almost grins.
Just then a knock hits the door and everyone turns to stare at it.
“That could be her,” Upton says, not really believing that.
“She has a key. Also, unless Green Heart is next door, that’s a hell of a walk in a short time.”
“Maybe Billy was wrong,” Upton says, not believe it.
Billy shakes his head, standing up and staring at the door with something Upton thinks is fear. A second knock, louder than the first, fills the silence.
Upton walks forward. “I’ll answer it. Most folks around here have sense not to hit an old man,” glancing towards Torey, “but you three better have my old, black ass if any fool tries something.”
Jayson and Torey are up and leaning forward. Ready to go.
Upton opens the door and sees a short, attractive woman. She’s tossing a cigarette to the side and trying to put on a smile as he looks down at her. He has a strange feeling he has seen her around time before, but can’t place it.
“I’m looking for the fat one.”
Upton runs through a dozen responses and settles for an awkward chuckle. That and, “Billy boy, I think it’s for you.”
Billy steps up and sees Maria for the first time. “Yeah?”
“You need to come with me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t, a GLOW agent is in a lot of trouble. A lot of people are in a lot of trouble. Someone or something is screwing with things and I am not sure who.”
Billy nods to Jayson and the two of them go to follow her. After the door closes behind, Upton turns to Torey.
“Come on, punch bug, let’s use that fist of yours to break a dude’s rib and help out Lanette.”
A slightly funny coincidence and the name “Estevan”
Ok, very slightly funny. Maybe not funny. It just made me go “hee hee” for half a second. Today (29th of September) on Geoguessr’s “Daily Challenge” I got this location.
Part of the reason I chuckled at it is the name “Finley Estevan” itself. It originated out of simply poking at some random tables in Cezar Capacle’s wonderful Random Realities. I’ve stuck with it because I often embrace the madness and mistakes but to explain where the name came from, I had four name bits — (assuming I am reading my handwriting correctly) Lys, Est, Fin, Ven (or Van) — that I smashed up into two names and went, “Sure, Finley Estevan, print it and ship it!” Or, well, write it down in my play journal.
It wasn’t until I was typing up my handwritten notes that it occurred to me that “Estaban” would be the more regular usage of it. AND it would most likely be a first name. Just like Finley would most likely be the last name.
In general, Estaban Finley would be a much more logical name.
Ah, well. The GLOW is a weird place. Let’s blame Soulburn.
Setting the Scene, e5s2.
Chaos Factor: 6
Expected Scene: Lanette and Johnny are holed up in Green Heart’s ruins, discussing actions and…
Scene Test: 6. This is an interrupt. It has been a minute since I have done one of those. Let me refresh myself.
First, let’s generate an Event Focus → 57 → Move Away from a Thread. Ok. The Thread is “Lanette and Billy’s Growing Powers vs Relationship.”
This means that it will somehow be something that involves Lanette making a decision from her previous dilemma. Probably before they get to the Green Heart. So this is somewhere in the two hour gap.
Two pokes at the Event Meaning Table:
- 91 Threaten 59 News
- 32 Deposit 88 Support
Let’s pull a card to get a little more context:
- The robot with the orange scarf, again [3rd Row, 1st Column]
This time the bird nest jumped out at me more, so something…bird-ish. The Kid is playing games with the creatures in the woods. Johnny and Lanette have to work together — remember that Johnny only has one Resolve left — and this will help her sort her feelings for Billy.
Actual Scene: Johnny and Lanette try to take a break to patch up but are attacked by wildlife.
I think I’ve pretty much made the scene as is. The Event Meaning makes me think that her first thought, even outside of Billy’s influence, is to discuss with him what is up.
However, using a (Likely) level, let’s find out how intense the trial is → 60 → Yes, so “Normal difficulty”. Let’s make it a challenge using the same method → 75 → No, so only 1 point per each. It’s not a tough challenge, but there is some danger. Finally, just to find out the characteristics used, let’s roll 3 dice [one for each] and every one equal to or over 4 will be counted (otherwise the highest one, reroll ties) → 4, 2, 5. We get Agile + Crafty.
Date: Saturday, July 4, 1992.
Time: 9:45pm.
Place: A mile into the forest near White Lake.
A Murder for Crows
“Nurse, listen to me, I need you to do two things for me…”
“Who are you talking to?,” Lanette asks, sweeping her eyes over the dark forest. I doubt she can see much. I have sigils amping my night vision to “bright moments of twilight” levels, but she has none.
Did Lanette tell Johnny how she knew about the Forked Tongue? (50/50) → 23 → Yes.
Just wanted to establish some of her behavioral patterns.
She is still very green. I get the feeling her instincts are good and she might make a good agent, but this is definitely the full advanced practicum right now.
“Shhhh,” I tell her, not entirely seriously, and smirk at the glare she is trying to cook, “1) Figure out anything you can about groups threatening Gaston’s firework show at White Lake, there was a pair there…Nordic man and short hippy woman, both adults. Then, 2) Get me some place safe. No vehicle.”
Nurse mumbles the beginnings of more nagging questions and so I double tap the communication sigil to cut him off. I suspect that he is advanced enough to override me but to this day he has tended to accept my rudeness with brotherly patience. Which is to say, he’ll shout louder next time.
“You can stop shushing me,” she says, poking me in the back. Right near the painful bits of my body. Not hard for her to hit: a lot of my body hurts, tonight.
“True. That was Nurse, my PAL.” I leave it there, to see how much she knows.
Let’s find out, an open Crafty roll → 3, 3 → she hasn’t really heard enough about the structure of the Order to understand.
“Are you being an asshole on purpose?”
“Yes. But I was just poking to get an idea of how much they teach you on the farm. Nurse is his codename. PAL is ‘psychic-agent-liaison.’ He’s my Jiminy Cricket. Agents get assigned one. Well, most do. They help with cases and paperwork and such.”
“And you talk to him just anywhere like an imaginary friend?”
“Technically the talking is extra. I can just think the things I need and he can pick it up. It helps me sort my thoughts, though. Like talking to myself but the me that is listening is smarter and better and writing apologies.”
She nods at this and nearly trips again. I reach out and take her hand. She yanks back and then steadies her breathing before accepting my help. I somehow avoided having to explain why I had the dumb idea of stealing the Forked Tongue to her, because it now seems like an idea dumber than my normal — which worries me. Just showing up to talk to Scooter might have been a trap in itself.
“If you were at the camp, this means you are of the capability and personality to possibly work for the Order.”
“Yeah, so…”
“Are you planning on it?”
“Why in the hell do you think you can ask me anything when I don’t know you?”
“Fair. My name is Johnny Blue. Agent Johnny Blue. I’m on a mission. A potentially very dangerous one. You being with me means you are likely in trouble and I am just kind of curious if I am dragging a civvy along to their death or simply getting a pre-rookie killed. For my conscious.”
I feel her pull away from me and realize that was way too harsh, even by my standards, and so go to turn and apologize when I can feel the air shift. The Soulburn here is weak but it thickens. Reddens. Her face says she can feel it, too. To test I deactivate the night vision and sure enough I can see the forest trees even in the very low light. Only they are glowing in a red-magenta hue.
I can taste cinnamon.
“Lanette, we have to run.”
“Yeah.”
I pull her after me in a random direction and seconds later feel something slam into the back of my head. Another dark shape slams into my arm on the left.
“Are those crows?,” she asks.
I give it some thought as I increase my relative speed to surroundings. It hurts to do this right now but I need data to work with. After a few fractions of a second, I allow myself to go back down to normal speed. A few fractions of a second for her, around twenty seconds for me.
“Technically,” I flounder a bit to find the right words, “maybe. They certainly look like crows, but something has gone wrong with them.”
Let’s figure out with a couple of Dixit cards:
- Men in suits on a merry-go-round while kids watch [8th Row, 6th Column]
- A…sort of operatic viking (?) is walking his boar on the moon [6th Row, 9th Column]
The first, the dinosaur slightly in the back pops out. The second, the lunar surface. Birds going back to dinosaur. Alien.
Jurassic Park [the book] came out in 1990 and we know Lanette has read horror stuff, so let’s toss in a reference…
“How wrong?,” she huffs behind me.
“Ummm, they have scaly feet with really large claw, an extra pair of wings on their head, and…three eyes.”
This is a very slight shout out to my partially-played English Eerie game back on the Prologue. Main character finds the corvid like birds have a third eye.
“Large claw like the raptors in Jurassic Park?”
“That’s what you notice?,” I ask as I reach back and yank her slightly in front of another of these strange birds trying to dive bomb her.
“I really liked the book!”
We are getting completely surrounded so I figure it’s time for us to truly speed up.
Ok, let’s do our rolls. Both are Agile so both get three dice.
- Johnny → 2, 1, 6 → makes it.
- Lanette → 3, 3, 4 → loses 1 Resolve
I’m able to out pace the strange birds — luckily they seem to be more playing with us than actually trying to cause lasting bodily harm — but I hear Lanette cry out as one gets into her hair and pecks hard. Even in the strange, dim un-light I can see some blood flowing.
Her second roll: 4, 5, 6. Two successes and she figures out it.
Since her schtick is that she “knows solutions” we’ll say she’s the one that gets the vibe to go towards the Green Heart.
I am getting ready to leap my broken, middle-aged body back to help her when she rolls on the ground to dislodge the pseudo-crow and then comes up slamming it and another with a stick faster than they can fly away. This actually seems to disrupt their whole attack and the birds start letting up.
It would make me feel better if their caws didn’t not sound like high pitched laughter.
As their screeching laughs fade, I realize that Lanette is also laughing.
“What?”
“I just realized that I really miss Billy.”
She mentioned being here with some others, but didn’t spend a lot of time going into background.
“Ok?”
“I mean, earlier tonight I was afraid that what we had might be over and all some sort of cruel psychic joke. But we are well outside of his range and I still can’t help but think that I really wish he was here and helping to bandage my head and how nice he smells.”
“Ok?”
“It’s just. It’s nice to miss someone. And to know you miss them. He would have hated the running, though. Billy don’t run.”
“Look…”
“Anyhow, before your PAL starts chatting with you again, I feel we should go that way.”
I have no issues with that. I make a gesture for her to go first and then follow. Noting that the glow is already starting to fade but she is walking like she no longer needs light to see. Like she can move through a dark forest on instinct.
She will definitely make a great agent. If we survive.
Setting the Scene, e5s3.
Chaos Factor: -1 → 5.
Expected Scene: NOW, Johnny and Lanette are at Green Heart. It’s a little bit “required” since it’s already been seen, but if we get another interrupt I’ll just play it as though something else happened before here and roll some dice.
Scene Test: 5, altered scene. Alteration = Rather than being completely abandoned, they find evidence that someone was there.
Actual Scene: They arrive, but it’s not just a ruins.
Let’s do a pair of Meaning Table: Descriptions to get how it differs from my expectations:
- 43 Gladly 05 Beautiful
- 02 Aggressively 71 Pale
Well, I know what the second one means. The first will be lots of drawing of pale figures. Very well done pictures of pale figures.
Are there any sacrifices or signs of ritual activity? (50/50) → 10 → Exceptional Yes.
Cool cool cool. To the Dixit to get some hints of what kind of things are there. Two cards:
- Large lion trapped behind pillars [3rd Row, 7th Column]
- Elves skiing down Santa’s beard [3rd Row, 6th Column]
With that combination and with the known elements of the campaign, I think this leans towards animal bones — including small cages to keep them — and children’s toys. I’ll stop from going even more traumatic at this point.
Is there any evidence about this being linked to the Green family? (Likely) → 14 → Yes.
What kind of Evidence? Time to bring back the tried and true image oracles:
- 6,2 Sheep
- 5,5 Police Officer Head
Let’s say police = badge = identification. The sheep can be a toy. We already have something like 4-5 factions. I don’t need to bring in local police corruption stuff as well.
There’s a toy with “TANYA” written on it in sharpie in the pile. And a worn old plaque listing a Dr. Green. Tanya’s father. One of the last doctors to run the place.
Does Lanette have any way to make a fire/light? (Very Unlikely) → 36 → No. She’s having to rely on moonlight which is {bright | moderate | dim | none} → moderate.
Date: Saturday, July 4, 1992.
Time: 10:47pm.
Place: The ruins of Green Heart retirement home.
Family Business
“How can you see?,” Lanette asks me as pokes at something around a corner of the building we are in. You can practically hear the squinting while she is talking. There are three wings to the building where she led us, in a rough T-shape. The tallest is in tatters like a hurricane ripped out windows and the primary structure with only a boarded up bottom floor remaining. It feels by far the oldest. The middle child is surprisingly sturdy after all this time, including having some windows unbroken. Then there is the single story “front,” the part of the T that points down, which is now missing chunks of its roof thanks to a few trees shoving through the side and local climate’s wear and tear. That’s where we are since it wasn’t locked up but also doesn’t look like it might crumble at any second. Over the next couple years, sure, but not tonight.
These gaps allow moonlight in but also make it harder to actually navigate because of rubble and flora.
And while there aren’t a lot of signs of restless youth partying it up in the ruins, the signs that are there are worse.
Let’s do a Crafty roll for each to see if they can heal the other a bit. Just some simple “untrained” First Aid. Since Johnny is more likely to have actual field medic experience, he’ll get an easy. Lanette will need…hmmm.
Would Lanette have any good sense on how to treat injuries like what Johnny has suffered? (50/50) → 54 → No. She’ll need a Hard.
- Lanette gets 2,6 and Johnny gets back 1 Resolve.
- Johnny gets 1,5 and Lanette gets back 1 Resolve.
Just for a benchmark, this means he has 2R3K and she has 3R3K right now.
Lanette comes from around where she was and I can clearly see the orange strip of what was once Mr. Marsh’s favorite hunting jacket around her head. Other pieces are wrapped around my my chest and leg. She did a decent job patching me up with absolutely minimal equipment. Only I am now shirtless for the second time in 24 hours.
“You should come look at this,” she says to me.
I would consider it like…75% likely that Johnny would know Tanya’s last name but in neither the meeting at Maria’s business nor reading of the “Hamburger Helper” note did I specify anything but her first. He’s paranoid enough to maybe put it together or check it out, but let’s see for the case of this scene if has been told…
Did Johnny ever get Tanya’s full name? (Very Likely) → 47 → Yes.
She leads me around the corner to where a framed photo on a wall in surrounded by what could be considered a shrine. Plastic flowers have been stapled to the wall and hearts drawn along with the phrase, “I LOVE YOU DADDY!”
I lean forward to look at the name and can pick up “…iah Green, Head Doctor.” Jeremiah. Zebediah. Tony Briah. Who knows. But the last name stands out. I wish I could be shocked.
“Well, I guess that explains the sheep.”
When we got here, we took it as a safe haven and our biggest worry would be stumbling on some drunk punk satanists who might think it funny to scare off some strangers. Instead, we found something a lot more sinister.
Lots of scattered food. On plates. Left to rot. Toys. Junk now but with the sense that at one time these were new toys. Fruit sodas left opened and dessicated in now mildewed bottles and cans. Animal teeth. Bones.
In other words, offerings.
And all along the walls — highly visible to me but I am downplaying it — is an immense collection of art with three recurring themes: childlike whimsy, family groups, and a pale figure.
Do these look like the work of a single artist? (50/50) → 46 → Yes.
I’d put my money on this being a single artist. The techniques have grown a tiny bit over years with the oldest looking ones being most primitive, but the sense of one-person’s-vision predominates. A person still treating their art with a childlike worship.
And thanks to one of the toy offerings, I have a sinking feeling I understand one of the traps laid out for me. A toy sheep. Old. Mildewed. Stinks of summer rains and winter silence. In lettering from some permanent marking written in a child’s hand: “TANYA.” Faded but clear enough if you know the name.
Tanya Green. Daughter of …Iah? Maybe just a cousin to the person who had access to her toys and stole one for this. Either way, damn.
And then the furniture. Pulled up into nooks and crannies in the decayed building. Never new stuff. More like things lovingly repurposed from other rooms. Like someone came here and sat upon molding chairs and smelled rotted food while having a chat. To someone or something. …Iah? The artwork? The thing the artwork represents?
As the moon aligns to brighten the room, Lanette points out words on a wall near some chairs and asks what they say. It’s nothing all that heartening:
Woe worth the day, ye luckless fool,
Or ever that ye were born;
For come the King of Elfland in
Your fortune is forlorn.
I read the words out and she whistles. All in all, she’s taking it well. I decide to trust her and start explaining Tanya Green, the “Hamburger Helper,” how Tanya seems attached to Maria. A two minute speed synopsis of all my bad decisions of the past two days.
“I’ll be honest, Mr. Blue, it makes you sound like an idiot.”
“Doesn’t it just.”
She giggles for a few seconds.
“What?”
“Johnny Blue and Tanya Green. Just imagine the kids: Teal and Cyan. That’s…wait, fuck!”
“WHAT?”
“The weird pale figures. Did you see a…I don’t know…seven foot tall man back at the park?”
“No.”
“Have you heard of shetani?”
I don’t know, has he? (Very Unlikely) → 04 → Exceptional Yes. Well, hot damn.
Johnny Blue studies folklore from around the world. Or Eustace does and shares.
“Yeah.”
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah. Knowing the various evil spirits people blame their actions on is useful in my line of work.”
“Oh, cool. Anyhow, I saw a guy and my brain was weirded out by him. Like trying to see him. Tall fucker. With a group of kids. Ragamuffins from some period drama. Hard as hell to look at because he kept shifting. Made me think of certain spirits my dad told me about.”
Let’s do a Hard Crafty roll to see if Johnny pieces it together with the pale kid: 5, 5. Almost, but no.
“Hmm, lots of people there. I…no, sorry. Didn’t see him.”
“Anyhow, these shapes on the wall. These drawings. A pale figure that is all different shapes and sizes. That feels like a hell of a coincidence.”
“So we should leave.”
Can Lanette sense that Upton and Torey [etc] are coming to get them and help? Standard Crafty → 2, 4. I’ll spend 1 Karma against her “Knows Solutions” to bump it to a 5. That gives her 3R2K.
“No.”
“Lanette Jemson, you are the smartest person I have met since coming to this stinking town. Why in the hell should we stay?!”
“Because someone is coming for us.”
“That sounds fucking awful.”
“Trust me?”
I nod before saying out loud that I do. And I do. I just wish I had my gun.
Pallinghurst Barrow, Foggy Days, and Better Decisions
The elf king quote comes from Grant Allen’s “Pallinghurst Barrow” which is somewhat middling but fits into the general sphere of stories exemplified by Arthur Machen’s better known “Novel of the Black Sea”. Both having elements that were part of the proto-Lovecraftian stew. Though while “Black Seal” is listed in HPL’s “Supernatural Horror in Literature” for some of the same elements that Allen wrote first, “Pallinghurst” is not. Such things happen. Still, it was a fun way to nod to a story that is more interesting for its take on “a survival” than its actual reading.
Secondly, it is very foggy today in Grimbergen — pictured is just around sunrise at 7:30am this morning though the fog only really lifted right at noon — so the perhaps largest oracle of all — real life — dictates that the next scene will be a bit foggy.
Third, when I was first was thinking about the above scene I had thought about shirtless Johnny and tossing a quick gag about Lanette complimenting him on being fit. Which he is. I just later avoided it completely because not every female character has to flirt with Johnny. Lanette is a lot more assured of what she wants in some ways. Johnny is setting up to be more a big brother character to her, so I just didn’t feel like it served any purpose. The dialogue and exchanges prior to that were more in line with what the scene really needed.
Setting the Scene, e5s4.
Chaos Factor: -1 again, so 4.
Expected Scene: Maria discusses her plans with Billy and Jayson.
Scene Test: 9.
Actual Scene: As expected.
Ok, this post is getting a bit bulky so unless something really unexpected happens that I need to explore right away, this should wrap this one up and I’ll come back to the world in the next one.
I said, above, a fog will be coming up. Is it a natural fog? (50/50) → 72 → No.
I won’t even test Billy to see if he can figure it out. We already had him picking up on the “Soulburn Hurricane.”
The slightly harder to answer question despite me getting myself to this point is…What does Maria expect to gain by contacting Billy? Let’s use Dixit once more. The element played can either line up with something we’ve already seen or vary from it greatly:
- Two kids swinging under a bowler lit brightly from inside [2nd Row, 4th Column].
- A person wearing a horse mask and playing chess against themselves in a mirror where all the pieces are the same color [9th Row, 4th Column]
The first picture made me think “under” and the second has the obvious connotations of “playing chess” which has showed up as a element of The Kid playing games. Only in this case, whatever it is that Estevan is doing with helping to summon the Kid is being played out by a man who thinks he knows all the pieces on the board and primarily playing the long game against himself.
Something about these kids from Candlestick Farm is seemingly unknown to him. Not necessarily to the Kid — the Pale Man has already interacted with Lanette — but Finley Estevan didn’t have them in his plans. Maria could sense them but Estevan hasn’t let it be known that he can.
Are the kids a blind spot for Finley Estevan? (Very Likely) → 20 → Yes.
Maria doesn’t know but can sense it. Ok, let’s go back to the Tricube Image Oracle for Arcane Agents and get two icons to try and figure out why it is a blind spot:
- 5,1 Minions
- 5,1 again
This makes me think that Estevan’s deep paranoia and pride causes him to think of people as simple pawns in his game. While he is a gifted remote sensor, his gift has been compromised by his own megalomania. He scripted out several encounters but can’t conceive of kids that were somewhat protected from his sight before — due to the Tongue — would be entering the stage after he has predicted things are starting.
So let’s put forth two more questions, where is she taking Billy and Jayson?:
- God striking a match under water [9th Row, 5th Column]
White Lake. A bonfire. Is it the Ancient Terranauts? (50/50) → 16 → Yes!. She knew they were going to do it. Is this another gap in Estevan’s vision? (Very Likely) → 43 → Yes. The encroachment of the eco-terrorists on the region is also something in not in his flawed masterplan.
Johnny, however, is being watched. So Maria is trying get two groups that have slipped past the cult’s and Estevan’s plan together so they can help Johnny escape. We won’t go deeper about the extent of her loyalty for now.
Date: Sunday, July 5, 1992.
Time: 12:11pm.
Place: Back road approaching White Lake.
Approaching the Bonfire
The tires of the car crunch against the gravel of the road and splash in small puddles. A quick and heavy rain caught them about the time they were getting into the car, replaced now by an ever thickening fog. Even noting signs suggesting they are going towards someplace called “White Lake,” where a bit of fog might make sense, Billy feels the fog is something else than a weather event.
It feels like a game.
In the murk, they pass by a white, wooden building on their left and up ahead a railroad track cuts through the dirt road. The lights caught up in the mist cause whatever building they are near to be less visible rather than more.
Once again he thinks about the image of a hurricane. Are they going towards the eye? Is the eyewall approaching them? Have they been spared? The answers are so tantalizingly close but he is not strong enough to grasp them.
“Hey, pretty lady,” Jayson calls out from the backseat where he has managed to slouch, voice sounding like he is intoxicated despite being completely straight laced, “Where are you taking us?”
Billy sees the cherry of the woman’s cigarette flare up as she inhales before answering. Not removing it from her mouth, she talks, causing the light to bounce up in down in the car.
“A bonfire. Don’t worry, the people there are cool.”
“Cool, cool. Like, if you were going to be sacrificing us, you’d tell us, right?”
“Probably not, but it’s not like that.”
“Then,” Billy taking this time to join into the conversation, “why don’t you tell us what it is like?”
She turns her head to face him and again inhales. The end of the cigarette highlights the features of her face and is once again aware of just how attractive she is. Only, he can feel an entire web of trouble emanating from her, or at least through her, and not for the first time wishes he was cuddling with Lanette on the Farm and talking about stupid shit Lanette was wanting to talk about while he mostly listened.
“I wish I could tell you everything but certain words have power and right now I need to be stealthy. I am in the liminal moment between eye blinks. You know that term, liminal?”
“Something in between, right? Undefined.”
“Right. There is…someone…attempting to define a future. And another group of people attempting to define a different future. The group has money and numbers on their side. The singular someone has true power.”
“And the bonfire is somehow going to…help? Hurt? What?”
She sighs and then rolls down the window the whole way and tosses her cigarette. The fog getting in oddly overpowers the lingering smoke and Billy can taste a smell on the back of his tongue somewhere between burning styrofoam and heavy bodily odor. It is not pleasant.
“If you can predict the future, and predict really well, you can change it. It’s a paradox. Right? And if you can see all the threads woven into a cloth with accuracy, you can tug and reshape the cloth. That make sense?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“What would be the way to stop that, though?”
“Threads they couldn’t see? A future set in stone?,” Billy guesses.
Jason speaks up from the backseat: “Someone else with the same powers. People predicting the future mess up other people predicting the future. Read that in a Dune novel.”
“Holy shit, Jay, you read books?”
Right as it looks like Jayson might be about to swing around and kick the back of Billy’s seat, Maria acknowledges what he says as true.
“Exactly. There are at least two groups. One thinks it is winning. The other is more skilled and is playing the first one against itself. Only I think there is a third. At least a third. Something odder. Weirder. That might be playing both groups.”
“Like a hurricane slamming into a summer storm that is caught in a windshear.”
“What?”
“Nothing, just a weird feeling I can’t shake. Back to why Jay and I are here.”
“Because you are another group. That makes four. You are the weakest, no offense intended, but it seems at least the first two groups haven’t noticed you.”
“You noticed us.”
Did Maria know about the note in Johnny’s pocket before she sensed Johnny back with Tanya? (50/50) → 87 → No. So something like jealousy or betrayal might also be in play.
“I did.”
“Which of the groups are part of?”
“Why would I part of a group?”
“Please,” Jayson says from the back, sounding more irate than normal. “You just said ‘That makes four’ which means you are counting. We’re fucking psychics, lady, and we’re also not idiots.”
“Total,” Billy interjects.
“Total idiots. You think we would have gotten in the car with you if we didn’t sense it was probably ok?”
“Let’s just say I am liminal right now. Something is happening and I don’t know if I like feeling like I am feeling.”
She pops the cigarette lighter in the car’s dash in and then, once it heats up, lights up another cigarette. Ahead of them, a large bonfire cuts through the gloom and a group of hippy-like folk are dancing around it, clearly drunk and celebrating something. Maria kills the lights and pulls the car off the road.
“Come on, let me introduce you to someone. They are pretty weird people. You’ll fit right in.”
DOUG’S COMMENTARY
I played this about a scene and a half a day over three days. Give or take. Worked out more art. Played with formatting tricks.
Overall, I am very happy with it all. It’s fitting the kind of story I like and I don’t really have any good idea of where it is going. Besides badly. I know from the future that Billy and Lanette don’t really figure into the given circle of Johnny and Eustace. That does not mean they necessarily have to die. They might just not be in the Mobile/Pensacola hub at that time.
I like being really unsure of Maria. That means I can have more fun with her. She can shift alliances time and time again.
So far, I am really liking the use of Dixit cards blended with Mythic, the image oracle, and Random Realities. I don’t really feel like I need anything else but we’ll see.
I kind of figured I might have more to say but I’ve already put a few hours into this one and so am ready to ship it. It makes a pleasantly spooky one to play as Halloween approaches, that’s for sure.
CREDITS
The GLOW 1992: Agent Johnny Blue vs The Kid is played and primarily built upon lore using Richard Woolcock’s Tricube Tales Solo tables and the Arcane Agents one-sheet including the image oracle compiled from of Game-Icons.net’s various Creative Commons licensed imagery.
The campaign arc uses Tana Pigeon’s Mythic 2nd Edition as a Gamemaster Emulator. Other oracles include the Mirrors expansion for Dixit [with art by Sebastien Telleschi] and Cezar Capacle’s Random Realities. Some inspirations are taken from disparate sources — such as some prompts by way of Glumdark — and these are usually noted at time of use.
ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION
The main splash for this one is “Faun bij maneschijn” [Faun by Moonlight]. It is by Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert. To see discussion of it, see either this blog post or this Youtube video. It was picked a) because I saw that video recently and b) it matches the mood of the Kid lining everyone up to dance the dance.
PREMIUM Motel is from: Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash. I think based on the tags, that’s actually some sort of gym but it works perfectly for what I need.
The Night Forest Run: Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash. This photo probably would have worked as-is without editing but I’m doing a thing, you know.
The Green Heart: Colin + Meg’s photo made available through Unsplash+ license. I looked a lot of possible candidates but that one felt like a good fit because it fairly matched the card.
Green Heart Lobby: Photo by Lee Blanchflower on Unsplash.
Though the “Pale Man Graffiti” is mostly by me using a few quick digital tricks to make it look like “scrapings on a wall,” the wall was actually derived from: Image by Pexels from Pixabay.
Approaching the Bonfire: Photo by Tobias Tullius on Unsplash.
Adjustments to the Mythic Lists
First, Lanette + Billy’s relationship has been morphed to simply their growing powers as a thread.
Second, a new thread is introduced: “The Green family.” This encompasses both the strange worship Tanya is doing but also maybe more about how the closing of Green Heart impacted them.
Green Heart Retirement Home is added to the locations list.
I am not adding the dad to the character’s list just yet.
I will be adding “Potential” and “Worship” to the Sparks Table.
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