Category: Actual Play Page 7 of 10

Front door to a night cafe, a few people just visible inside.

"Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
Experiences! And other paperwork...
The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 5 - Terminal Issues

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Eustace and Hitomi have gotten the guns intended for The Knives of the Fallen Star (while possibly kicking of a ServiSynth rebellion by accident). Now they need to meet up with one employer to betray another. Eustace must comes to terms what what stance he will take. Will he uphold Soulburn at the cost of his own future?

About The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Eustace Delmont is a psychic on the cusp of "graduating" into a full-blow Field Psychic. He requests his right to Walk, a brief period of freedom to encourage psychics to see the other side of The GLOW. He tries to finish his long-time partner Jani Blum's final unfinished mission: to find a mini-disc and crack open the Patel crime family. He meets Hitomi Meyer, a criminal hacker. The two are now on the run between a powerful crime family and an even more powerful adversary: The Order and its plans for Eustace.

Content Warning: Occasionally very foul language, lots of smoking, quite intense violence, drinking, gambling, non-graphic sex, drugs, criminal behavior, and black magic. The GLOW is a world of spiritual torture and weird horror.

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.

Experiences! And other paperwork...

Ended the last one right as the action died down (as I am wont to do). This leaves a bit of a need to work out a few post-shot details

GRIT: Eustace will be healed up. I'll build this into context but generally at the end of the Shot, or when they get a break, it resets. Grit is meant to be very fluid, something I will build up more in this shot [which will be about 2-3 sessions across a couple of posts].

EXPERIENCES: To deal with the more rapid-fire nature of the game, there is a soft-...well, experience system baked in. Characters get experience to represent things like achievements, scars, and relationships developed over the story. On page 192, it words it like... "When you face a challenge that leaves a mark, when you survive a desperate encounter, when you take part in a memorable exchange, or when you make an upsetting discovery, the Director can ask you to note down the Experience on your Hero Sheet." It then says to check in per Shot to see anything sticks out. There's no hard-and-fast rule to what does or doesn't get in, it just helps to slightly accelerate the bigger-than-life action.

I'd like to go ahead and add at least two. For Hitomi:

Achievement: Learned how to bond with ServiSynths.

While for Eustace:

Achievement: Can use obfuscation.

There are other possibilities. We know Hitomi has suffered a fairly major betrayal — Dave Akari — that has changed her outlook and that she prefers payment but has done a lot of favors for folk while several older people have partially adopted her — Juan Uno, Mrs. Yuuki Jones. For Eustace, I am playing it like most surface level thoughts and identities — stuff without danger attached — are automatic for him to read and he is inadvertently reshaping psychic threads. In all these cases, I am just building into the story for now. As it becomes more pronounced, we'll see.

Besides that, we'll clear the Condition from Eustace and both of them get 2 Adrenaline for the last (couple of) session(s).

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Episode 5 - Terminal Issues

Setting the Scene. Haggling and New Opponent.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 1:07am.

Place: Front room of Julian's Cafe.

Expected Scene: Eustace and Hitomi plan for the next half of the job...

Scene Test: [c102] 3. 2d10 = 3 + 10. Minor twist: Someone jockeys for your job.

Actual Scene: While Eustace and Hitomi are patching up, someone jumps in to try and snag the job from them.

Since this other person is a good candidate for friend or foe once we move out of the more prologue bits, let's make a person. "Guns for Hire." 10 Jinjuro Yusuda. 58 ex-Saudi GID, thermoptic camo, synthetic endorphin addict [for synthetic endorphin read the sort of stuff Fractal Apocalypse does]. Weapon is 36 Sleek Microwavers. 69 Henpecked, wears camos, buzz cut, rational. Absolutely plenty.

Also, just to establish. Where is the Knives' base? 14, 9. Between Elsanor and Seminole. Around the Baldwin State Forest area. Or what used to be a State Forest. Now a community of hydroponic farms and high tech farmer's markets.

Haggling and New Opponent.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 1:07am.

Place: Front room of Julian's Cafe.

Hitomi does her best to ignore Myranda. Myranda Wayne. 2 meters tall. Thin. Busty in the way that defines busty. Often poured into tight dresses that show off a lot of sun-kissed skin. The frequent hostess for after-hours Juan's Cafe, when it takes on its other face: a hub of various GLOW jobbers and their many clients. When the plants in the courtyard are lit by special pulsing LED lights to make it hard to see through them, and soft music carries with it multiple jamming frequencies. Myranda assigns seats and keeps the peace with both carrot and stick. She's also the resident medic for the very many post-job touch-ups such a locale might need.

Right now, she is bent over Eustace and applying bandages to his chest and arms. She is well known for her quick, effective treatments. She has is taking her time. Tracing out the muscles and sigils that cover Eustace's back and chest.

Based on the smirk on Juan's face, this is possibly a tactic. Either it goads Hitomi into dropping the ball or Myranda and Eustace end up in some backroom working out a payment plan in Juan's favor. Or both.

Hitomi takes a long drag on her cigarette and reminds herself that Eustace is a big boy. She just reserves the right to shoot him.

The other distraction is Jinjuro "Genny" Yusuda. Originally from Tokyo. Did mercenary work in the middle east until he made a big enough name for himself to become a regular guardsman. Married local. Then defected to the US. Then defected to The GLOW. Rumor was he was a plant. Only he made friends with Juan and now seems to be a regular. A potential spy within a spy within a spy. His wife is cute as hell, though ferocious. He is sitting on the other side of the table next to Juan. Filling in some guard dog duty as well as looking for a bone.

Hitomi has spent the last two hours disabling several firearms so that they will past a quick inspection but will jam up pretty hard after a few seconds of shooting. Along with stripping a good amount of ammo of workable powder. She's exhausted and having to deal with a double dose of dumbfuckery. [1]

"She's a kid. He's already gotten sliced up. Juan, come on," Genny argues. He puffs on his cigar and makes it sound like he is just being rational and not trying to snag a job that Eustace and Hitomi for which Eustace and Hitomi have already done a lot of work. His hair is cut short. He's in old fatigues. He looks like the old soldier he is. You want to trust his judgement. But they are talking actual money.

Juan, for his part, is flipping through the log books Hitomi stole. Now that MUNI is wrapping up Ouroboros's lair after the ServiSynth slaughter, the value on its details has no doubt plummeted. Still, Hitomi is tired of being on the owing end.

Surprisingly, Eustace speaks first. "He's right. Well, half-right. If we drop off the guns and then get spotted blowing up the Knive's base, that gets tracked back to Juan. We just spent time stopping Juan from being a target. Chances are it would be best to bring in a third party on this. Split the cash three ways." Points to himself, Hitomi, and Genny. [2]

Genny seems aware the power dynamic is shifting but Eustace is making a good point. The fact that they could walk right now and not cut him in on any is obvious. He nods. "I make contact with the Knives, give them the guns that Hitomi has prepared. Two hours later, you hit up their south base and start the rabbit run."

Hitomi catches Myranda's finger nail trace a line near Eustace's neck and slams her own hand down. "Hey, speaking of pay, what about us for taking a dangerous threat off your back, Uno?"

Juan nods to Myranda who goes behind the counter and comes back with two fully charged blue Creds. Slides them to Hitomi. A thank you.

"Thanks," Hitomi says. Juan shrugs. "It is easy to get taken advantage of in this place. You went after me without even asking. I am grateful. For now, though, rest up, little ones. Tomorrow...well, today...is going to be a long one."

With that he stands and makes his leave. Genny stands up and looks like he might be about to salute Eustace but settles for handshake and a nod towards Hitomi. This just leaves the three.

"Speaking of sleeping arrangements...," hints Myranda.

"True," says Eustace, "Can you call us a cab? This Nurse needs a sponge bath and," playfully kicking at Hitomi, "I think someone owes me for getting stabbed."

Hitomi does her absolute best to not flip off Myranda on the way out the door. It's best to be a joyous victor.

Setting the Scene. Bee Held Hostage.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 8:03am.

Place: Motel Room at Rest+ Motel.

Expected Scene: Hitomi wakes up a lone, and Genny knocks.

Scene Test: [c102] 6. [c110] 2d10 = 8 + 8. Major complication. Situation: Dependent in Danger. [c97] Shopping Cart. Were they targeting Hitomi? (Even) → [c26] No?

Actual Scene: Hitomi is woken up by a phone call from Bee. Mrs. Yuuki's store is being held up. Possibly just a random attack.

Since they are probably not targeting Hitomi, this is going to be a random gang from the Century area. They have hit up the store and currently holding hostages, including Bee. Bee gets a call off but won't have time to share much details. MUNI presence there is low but soon enough it will be lit up by cops who will likely complicate it.

32 Terminal 04 Assasins. Bit on the nose, but ok. 90 Tech Savvy 24 Skill Chipping 49 Street Fighters. 22 Leader hires out her most neurologically damaged boys as muscle. It's a test rum. A show off. Here are some people with fried out chips that might be worth picking up on the cheap.

Also, since I said the next major twist would bring in the Psychics...they will also be there. Watching.

Bee Held Hostage.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 1:07am.

Place: Front room of Julian's Cafe.

Hitomi wakes up nude and alone in bed. The smell of Eustace on her skin. Also, a few streaks of his blood. He really needs to take a bit of time take care of himself. She pulls herself out of bed, barely rested, and notices Libby has a flashing light. "Libby, play message," Hitomi commands as she walks naked to the sink and fills up the coffee spot. She lights up her first smoke of the day as Eustace's voice plays through the techno-dog's speakers.

"Gone to get clothes. Be back very shortly. Have the bike."

"Typical," she says. To herself. To Libby. To the universe. She starts doing some stretches and working up to a full routine when her scrying glass lets out a light noise largely heard in her own head. She picks it up. "Hello..."

"Mochi. Thank god. Help."

"Bee?"

They have shot Mrs. Yuuki's guard. A few other street punks, too. Taunting the other folks. I'm hiding in the freezer section. It's...cold."

"WHO?!"

"Don't know. Weird people. All in black. Yellow patch that has three-eyed smiley, they...oh shit, they are coming. I got to go. Help!"

Three-eyed smiley means Terminal Assassins. Techno-utopia cult that believes the future is augmenting the human brain. Plug and play personalities, skills, emotions. The Assassin part comes from its habit of making money by selling off the people that failed to resonate with the implants to do bad things. Literally "terminal assassins." Greatly enhanced skills until their brain burns out. An attack on a civilian store is most likely a sales pitch. Fire sale. Extra stock of mind melted murderers. Last time it happened they killed everyone they could until a fight with MUNI broke out and a score of officers went down. Likely chance of MUNI actually trying to help anyone is low if not nil. Everyone in that grocery store is dead. Will be, soon.

Hitomi shoves clothes on at speed and grabs her pistol and shoves it into her belt and grabs her newly acquired assault rifle. The GLOW is a whole new level of open carry but she does have the issue of convincing any cab driver not likely to shoot her and take her Creds to actually let on her own board. She thinks "EUSTACE!" really hard but has no idea what that might do. Right as she is debating just leaving the guns behind and figuring something out, there's a loud knock on the door.

She opens it with her pistol lifted and aimed and hears Genny curse. "What the fuck, Hitomi?"

"Sorry. I need a ride."

"Unless that ride you need is to the warehouse you dropped off the cache, I pass."

"Friend of mine is in danger. Terminal Assassins."

"Double pass. My neighbor does really respectful cremations. I'll give you his address."

"Look, goddamnit. They are just 18. They are nice and stupid."

"In The GLOW? 18 is old for someone making that many mistakes."

"You can have my share."

Genny stares at this. Jobbers don't give up cash. Ever. "Just a ride, I don't get involved."

She is pushing past him on the way to his truck, then runs back in and leaves a message for Eustace.

Setting the Scene. Nurse { Gives | Gets } Chase(d).

Can Eustace pick up enough of the psychic threads to feel Hitomi leaving the area at speed? (Bad) → [c47] Yes? He can, but it will take a roll to get any specific detail.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 8:21am.

Place: Racing north after Hitomi...

Expected Scene: Eustace is on the road trying to follow after Hitomi.

Scene Test: [c101] 7. [c110] 2d10 = 1 + 9. Minor complication. A challenge to your reputation.

Actual Scene: Eustace is en route but a group of minor street punks stupidly decide to give him guff.

These guys will mostly just be cannon fodder. It just gives us a fun excuse to have a chase sequence. We'll only clock it at {6 | 9} since it's kind of just to delay him getting there. Some practice with the mechanics. Need: Eustace needs to get away. Speed: 1.

6 if he makes the psychic read. 9 if he does not.

SCENE SOUNDTRACK: For some silly action, going to jam out loud to Creepy Nut's LEGION for this one.

A man on a bike stops in the road like a challenge.

Nurse { Gives | Gets } Chase(d).

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 8:21am.

Place: Racing north after Hitomi...

Eustace is on his way back to the motel when he can feel the various emerald threads stretch and change and start pulling away from him. At speed. He reached out with his mind and wraps one of the threads around the bike and starts moving in that direction as fast as possible. There is no doubt in his mind that she might be running to trouble and need help. [3]

He is heading back north feeling the roads around him and instinctively finding the less traffic congested routes. On a road practically ignored by the past decades of rapid, unstructured progress he is able to pick up a bit of speed. Which means he has to slam on his brakes when he sees a man in the road, blocking the access. Three bikes behind him block any sort of retreat, not that he has intention of retreating. Thing is, he doesn't really sense any sort of actual hostilities. Even with one behind him pulling out a gun and pointing it in his direction.

"Ah, just idiots..."

The gunner does his best to look threatening as he points to tell Eustace to turn around. The helmeted rider in front is moving the bike back into the road direction and revving the motor. Looking for a race. Do they want a race? Is this recruitment? Eustace can feel the emerald thread pulling tighter. He wonders if he should point out to them that he is not actually a bike rider. This bike is probably capable of decent speed but Eustace is more apt to run very near the actual speed limit. Can't bring himself to threaten four street punks that pose no threat to him.

Ah well, they can figure it out. He kicks the bike back into gear and once again lets the emerald line start pulling his bike forward. Within a half second of getting up even with the seeming leader, Eustace revs forward and puts himself in the lead. The leader quickly catches up swings around to the right. One of the other three tries to squeeze into Eustace's space and so Eustace, almost gently, places a large foot on the interloper's bike and shoves hard. The kid swerves off to the left and flips over a fruit stand while a farmer screams at him, her face looking like she enjoys taking dumb boys down a notch. [4]

The gun waving dumbass takes this as a clue that he needs to try and cock Eustace up the side of the head. Teach Eustace to not have a helmet. Though in Eustace's defense, he didn't have a bike all that long ago. The gun butt hurts but he pulls his head back enough to stop it from cracking his skull too hard. [5]

The emerald thread starts vibrating to a strange beat. Hitomi is definitely stressed. He doesn't have time to keep playing so he reaches into his Psychic core and will his sigils along his back and arm to start grabbing the skills to race more effectively from the very men challenging him. He reaches down into the bike with his mind and begins pulling wires and tweaking gears. His eyes glow green and the Soulburn pouring into him builds up enough that it is clearly visible to even the racers who begin to pull back to give him space. As the Soulburn stretches back like great vibrant crow's wings, Eustace's bike reshapes into something new. He accelerates much faster than the others can keep up. [6]

He waves back at the bikers to show no hard feelings and with a quick glance back sees the leader lift a fist in the air, joined by the other two still in the race. Whatever they had in mind, they are impressed and letting Eustace know.

NOTE: The "Crow Form" of Eustace is a first glimpse of his higher level of power. Rather than an "experience" he is going to get a Bike with a starting speed of 2. He has reshaped the mechanical workings of the bike. I also think he has made friends who might show up again later.

Setting the Scene. Head First.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 8:39am.

Place: Near Mrs. Yuuki's Grocery Store.

Expected Scene: Hitomi (and maybe Genny) have to find a way into the store.

Scene Test: [c35] 4. 2d10 = 3 + 5. Them minor twists are wracking up. In this case, I think the obvious thing is the MUNI are {more | less} planning to tussle = More. They are changing their plans and are getting ready to storm the store.

Actual Scene: Hitomi shows up right as the MUNI are planning to hit the store with an EMP.

Is Genny going to stick around for this? (Even) → [c45] Yes? He's not going to run off right away but it depends on how invested he gets.

Is there a sewer entrance to the store? (GOOD) → [c66] NO! Man. Ok, this means Hitomi will have to rush the back and go in shooting.

The outside of a grocery store, with apologies to Foodlands everywhere

Head First.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 8:39am.

Place: Near Mrs. Yuuki's Grocery Store.

"I don't suppose you are up for ramming your truck into the back do...ok, it was just a question!"

Hitomi has graduated from chain smoking to chewing her hair. Somewhere in the Foodland in front of her, Bee and possible Mrs. Yuuki Jones are hiding out. An unknown number of Terminal Assassins are inside. An unknown number of dead. And the MUNI have seemed to take their previous losses against the Assassins personally. They are preparing some large scale weapon in the front parking lot. As soon as they get some command from higher ups, they are going to go in guns blazing and try to win back some respect. Municipal Police running by street gang rules.

Which means she needs to get inside and fast. The back is much less densely covered. Terminal Assassins do not escape. Walking dead men and women, their short lives are only worth anything if they survive and can take on even bigger jobs. [7]

"Let's go, we are going in through the back door. Bee said freezer section and...," Hitomi stops as Genny grabs her arm and pulls her around to look at her.

"Are you really about to face down Terminal fucking Assassins for your friend?"

"Bee is more than a friend. Mrs. Yuuki, too. They are people that saved me from a moment that nearly devoured me. Even if they don't know it. I don't know if I can do anything for Mrs. Yuuki, but I might be able to save Bee."

"Ok," he says. He pulls out his gun. No time for microwavers in this situation. "But you don't do it alone. My wife would kill me if she found out I was doing this for no money. In and out as soon as we get your friend."

Hitomi approaches the back door of Foodland and spots a couple of MUNI rookies standing way back and smoking. She waits to see if they will say anything but they just shrug and watch. After a few seconds of working with the lock, she has the door open. She holds it for a second, nods to Genny, then shoves it open fully and dives behind cover provided by a couple of crates of bottled water. Genny rolls in after her. [8]

As the door continues to open, it makes enough noise that the three Terminal Assassins who are wandering the storage area walk over to investigate. Within seconds, they are taking pot shots at the cops outside and shouts can be heard. Using the distraction, Hitomi gestures towards Genny and the two make their way across the aisle between boxes and dive down under a table used to store and sort fruit. [9]

With a laugh and a mention of "bleeding pig," one of the TAs slams the door back shut. At this point, the terminally brain-fried killers seem to realize what an open door might mean and spread out to search the area. Two more Assassins from the front of the store come back to see what the shooting is about. As the now larger number are again continuing the search, and Hitomi is holding Genny's gun hand, a very loud crash can be heard from the front of the store. Glass shatters as the entire store shakes. Based on the shouts and gunfire, the Terminal Assassins out there are occupied. Genny looks at Hitomi and mouths the word "MUNI?" but Hitomi just shrugs. She's more interested in the fact that there are only two Assassins left back here for the moment, three having run forward.

She now nods to Genny and pulls her assault rifle forward, takes a moment to aim at the legs of the one closest, and opens fire. As the first one goes down grabbing at his shins, the woman behind him starts to take aim but Hitomi pivots — along with help from Genny — to bring the second Assassin into her sights. Both are down but it takes more than that to finish off a TA. [10]

Both of the Assassins start shooting under the table as Hitomi and Genny are scurrying back from under the table to keep crossing the room, heading towards the door to the main shopping area, planning to dive towards the right where Mrs. Yuuki's freezer section is. Debris from one of the glancing bullets catches Hitomi on the side but she shrugs the pain off as best she can. [11]

Whipping back around, her and Genny unload bullets into the two TAs before the injured attackers can get up off the floor, finishing them off. Then, Hitomi pushes open the door and stops and stairs at the wreckage. At least a half-a-dozen dead shoppers are sprawled out in this back section of the store. One has been hacked up and tossed in with the meat in the butcher's counter. If there's this many back here, surely many more line the rest of the store. Up front, there is more gun fire and a loud grunt as the sound of someone slicing through meat can be heard. [12]

As she passes by an aisle for noodles, rice, and other dry goods she glances up and sees something that makes her stop.

"Eustace?"

Only, Eustace is not alone.

Setting the Scene. The Nurse Makes a House Call.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 8:41am.

Place: Near Mrs. Yuuki's Grocery Store.

Expected Scene: Eustace arrives and gets involved.

Scene Test: [c7] 6. 2d10 = 9 + 8. Major twist. I think the Fight Painful Soul from the card is perfect.

Actual Scene: Eustace shows up and loses control.

Eustace is still geared up from that previous Jackpot. We are going dumb action on this one.

Are the Psychics going to get involved? (Even) → [c20] Yes? Good enough.

A deeply rendered swirl of red and purple bubbles as if being underwater in a dark sea.

The Nurse Makes a House Call.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 1996.

Time: 8:41am.

Place: Near Mrs. Yuuki's Grocery Store.

To the very many MUNI cops, and even more spectators, the man on the red bike is worthy of notice. Because he is barely a man at this point. The ever present Soulburn — only slightly visible during the day to most people — wraps the man like a shroud. Swirling in place. A storm cloud of many colors. Then the bad thing happens. The man stops and stares at the roof of the building. After a few seconds, three figures shimmer into being, dropping whatever field they had been weaving to stop others from noticing them. Three figures wearing kitsune masks.

People shout. Some scream. A few MUNI start backing up. Three Field Psychics in one place is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. Quite a few spectators suddenly remember they need to get to work, to go home, to be anywhere else. A few diehards start crowding closer.

Whatever mental communication the man on the bike shares with the three on the roof, it seems to be concluded. He revs his bike twice, and then launches himself like a missile towards the front doors of the grocery store. As he does, all that Soulburn spreads out once more and then comes crashing in through and around him to form a blade of light. Which strikes the glass door and windows and shatters through them, a good portion of the Soulburn dispersing like an entire murder of crows. The man leaps inside and gunfire and more shouts can be heard. The three Psychics leap down from the roof and follow through.

Many of the MUNI start packing up and prepare to leave. Whatever standoff they planned to have has been cancelled. The Scene now belongs to the Order.

Inside, the man fights like he is no longer in control of his own body. Metal blades — in reality a bioengineered extension of his own arms — shimmer and shine as they cut through flesh. Bullets strike him but several barely make it past the thinned out cloud spinning around his body. The head of one of the Terminal Assassins flies off. Another one goes down with a massive gut wound. Still, there are plenty to fight. [13]

The second round of gunfire tears into the man. He deflects some of the shots, but others are clear getting through. Blood starts dripping down his chest. [14]

The man grabs a large box of cans on the floor and smashes into the skull of another of the Assassins, before slicing heavily through two more. A fourth is kicked back into the shelves with such force that his body crumbles. [15]

A redheaded woman rolls out from a nearby kiosk and opens fire at near point blank, but as she does one of the Field Psychics makes a twitch of their hand and the woman finds herself shooting a cardboard cutout of a Motorball athlete instead. [16]

The man drags his shining blades through her torso and ends her life as a massive burst of assault rifles try to catch him off guard. He uses the momentum of dodging back to leap over the counter as the bullets tear through it. [17]

The Terminal Assassins, thinking they have finally gotten the man cornered, approach and continue firing. A moment later the the man leaps out and comes down in the middle of them, cutting them away. And then there is silence. [18]

As the glowing, swirling light pulses through the man one of the Field Psychics walks forward and makes a strange clicking noise with their tongue. The swirling light speeds up and finally disperses. And with it, the Psychics fade like smoke themselves.

As Eustace sways in the aftermath of his slaughter, Hitomi is running up to try and catch him.

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

February 19, 2025

It has been over a week since I've had a chance to really play this. Part of it is just embracing that Solo Burn Out which in my case is less a burn out and more a zone of not having a huge amount of personal energy to play but a decent amount of energy to vibe some back-end stuff. Hence why we get a race and a semi-exploding Eustace. It was fun to think of some story beats and not worry too much about it.

I'm calling it here just so I can immediately pivot to the Knives bit in the next one. Probably just skip pretty much all scenes between Eustace and Hitomi getting back together to the drop off of the guns. Bee survives, that's a given, the others I'll find out when I sit down and play again.

Not really a whole lot else to say. I wanted to have at least one of these "Eustace loses control" scenes and try out different difficulties of combat and such. Overall, the team tends to just thrive and survive. A LOT of Extreme successes (which I still type as Exceptional in some places) and whatnot.

DANG IT, I just realized I once again treated a Reaction Turn as a Gamble. Ah well, since it was Eustace leaping out into gunfire to fight back, I'll allow it. I need to make myself a note.

MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES

Really want an Extreme for this. Even spending an adrenaline makes it so that she only got double Critical. Went ahead and spent a Spotlight. She does not get it back. With the 2x Crit + Extreme, though, we'll say the job goes super well and she has snagged an extra assault rifle AND filed off the security number. She also grabbed four mags worth of ammo in a way that would not be readily traced.
Smooth + Leadership. Going for Leadership because he is basically taking control here. He gets a Critical.
Focus + Awareness. Critical + Basic. Can both follow the threads (so 6 speed only) and also wraps the thread around himself to help pull himself towards it. Does not get the message.
This is a test race, of sorts. Double Basic difficulty. Nerves + Drive + 1 Help from the psychic thread doing some of the driving nets Eustace a Critical + Basic. He gets to pull to Speed 2 and gets an additional action. Who doesn't love a good fruit stand smash up?
Brawn + Drive. Gets Double Basic and I tried pushing it which dropped it to a single basic. He takes a single Grit. ☑☑☐☐☐☐
Burned an Adrenaline to use Focus + Know. Got an Impossible success and risked it on a reroll to get a Jackpot. By the rules of the race he finishes it out right.
Are MUNI even guarding the back? (GOOD) → [c73] No? A little, maybe, but just not caring all that much.
Crime + Dexterity + 1 Help (Lockpicks). Crit + Basic + Basic. Enough to get in without being heard + two actions to get herself and Genny a few feet into the room.
Crime + Stealth + 1 Help (the gunfight). Another Crit + Basic combo. Again, enough to get her and Genny to another spot.
These two will be cannon fodder. Nerves + Shoot + 1 (Precision) + 1 (Genny). Double Critical. Their Defense is just basic so this does 6 of their 9 Grit right off.
Brawn + Stunt. Only gets a Basic so takes 1 Grit.
Only needs a Critical and gets it.
Brawn + Fight + 1 (Blades) + 2 (Adrenaline) + 1 Help (Psychics) = Crit + 3 Basic = 2 Crit. We'll say these are spicier cannon fooder (Crit/Crit + 9). That's just two of the grit removed.
Brawn + Stunt. Double Basic. 1 Grit lost.
Second time around, he gets Crit + Extreme for 4 grit damage to them. That's 6 of the 9.
Gets a Crit and manages to take no damage.
Out of Adrenaline so only 7 dice. Crit + Double Basic. 2 Grit remain on the Terminal Assassins.
Full cover so gets +3 Reaction. Has 2 snake eyes so takes 2 Grit damage BUT gets Impossible Reaction. The extra actions means he leaps from his hiding place and finishes them off.

CREDITS

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont is played using Two Little Mouse's Outgunned and Outgunned: Action Flicks (especially, but not limited to "Neon Noir" and "Great Powers"). It uses Larcenous Designs' Gamemaster Apprentice Deck: Cyberpunk 2E as its main oracle.

Other sources used include:

Zach Best's Universal NPC Emulator.
Cesar Capacle's Random Realities
Kevin Crawford's Cities Without Number
Matt Davis' Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 1, 2 and 3.
Geist Hack Games and Paul D. Gallagher's Augmented Realities.

ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION

The front of Julian's Cafe: Photo by Brad Fickeisen on Unsplash.

This uses a slightly modified version of the Soulburn art style of this series. Thicker lines. More washed out photograph. After having two different posts [technically three] show off Julian's courtyard, I figured I needed an alternate take.

The interior of the motel room: Getty Images via Unsplash+. It's a digital mock-up for a kitschy motel room but it made me smile.

The street punk: Photo by Jusdevoyage on Unsplash

The Foodland: Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

The burned out vision of Eustace in the grip of full Soulburn Madness started out as this photo by Angus Gray on Unsplash.

Note: This is the first The GLOW post to not use any Dean Spencer artwork. Since his art style has been a big part of character development, still wanted to give him a shoutout.

Taxonomy and Technical Data

World: The GLOW

Campaign: The GLOW

Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Post: Episode 5 - Terminal Issues

Dates Played: February 18 and 19, 2025.

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Episode 4 - Against Ouroboros

By Doug Bolden

On 2025-02-21

In Actual Play, Gamemaster Apprentice Deck, Multi-Phase, Outgunned, Solo Campaigns, The Glow

← Previous Arc Session |[ ↑ Arc/Campaign Page ]| Next Arc Session →

A modified soldier who has a left arm ending in tentacles and a sword in his right arm.

How could I not use this art?
Image © Dean Spencer

"Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 4 — Against Ouroboros

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Two harmless street gangs — the Fractal Apocalypse and the Shaolin Dragons — pulled a problematic snatch. Their target was Juan Uno, a man who is consider something like a saint by folks in The GLOW. Eustace and Hitomi have helped to defuse the situation but now they must deal with the root of a problem: a enignmatic and very crooked fixer, Yuito Ouroboros.

About The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

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.

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Episode 4 — Against Ouroboros

Setting the Scene. Planning Revenge.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 5:47pm

Place: Juan's Cafe.

Expected Scene: E+H discuss taking down Ouroboros before phase 2 hits.

Scene Test: [c47] 7. 2d10 = 4 + 10. Minor complication. HAH, the catalyst literally says "A minor issue escalates".

Actual Scene: As expected, but now the rain has turned into a full blown downpour of near white-out conditions.

We have a single piece of the puzzle missing at this stage: the name of the dangerous gang backing up Yuito. Pulling a single card [c19] I see three things that pop out. A brain wave sort of image icon, "Chemtrails," and "Fear." Putting those together we get the Brainwaves: a hedge-magic using street gang which tend to use mind control toxins to strike fear. This might explain their long game with trying to drive out and break the FA. Having people with equipment to make artificial emotions would be a powerful tool for them to have.

SCENE SOUNDTRACK: The scene and the next couple are going to be Timecop1983's Childhood Memories just to help keep the mood kind of chill. More sneaky and thoughtful than punchy.

Planning Revenge.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 5:47pm

Place: Juan's Cafe.

The rain is loud enough it nearly drowns out Juan's quiet voice. Hitomi and Eustace are huddled over a table with Juan and Julian on the other side. The evening crowd is sparse so far. The events earlier have spread through the ripple of gossip to keep what few diners might brave the rain way and the late night customers have not yet surfaced. Hitomi worked overtime to get the fake birthday story — leaving out the all important fact of whose birthday the surprise was — and for now people have bought it.

Back inside the main cafe, BrokenRecord, Banshee, and Varvara are chatting amicably with Samvel Adamyan: Juan's other mainstay bodyguard. The one who actually shot BrokenRecord. He seems to think that them bringing back Juan and apologizing makes up for any and all misunderstandings and BrokenRecord is doing her best to flirt, weird stutter and all.

"A very interesting case, this...," Juan starts, bringing out two flat disks carved of semi-precious gems. He taps the first and a sphere of nonsense floats over it. He taps the second and another sphere. Juan leans forward and whispers Hitomi's name and suddenly the nonsense coalesces into a series of words and pictures. In both, an older man is visible: dark-skinned and white-haired. "I'm sorry, big one, I do not know your name so I can not decode them for you," Juan says to Eustace, "Introductions might be in order."

Eustace had been peering at the shapes and has very nearly figured out how to bring them forward. With a snap, they come into focus for him. "Eustace Delmont. You're Juan Uno. Whose the old guy?" [1]

"Oh, ho, very good," says Juan with a little clap. He pulls out a thin, black cigarette and lights it. Julian bends down and whispers something in Juan's ear. "A Psychic? My, my." Blows smoke out in a thin stream from the left of his mouth. "Sometimes you folks show up to set up jobs with me. Never had one not in mask, though."

Eustace continues the lie of leaving out the technically probationary status of his capital-P Psychic status. "I'm just here as a tourist. Visiting with a friend." Gestures towards Hitomi who winks back at him.

"Little Miss Meyer. A regular of mine. Do treat her well. As I was saying, this one is an interesting case. The 'old man' is Magnus Odinson. No doubt his real name is Richard Little or something minor. But Odinson considers himself a holy pilgrim. Has gathered up a large group. The Knife of the Fallen Star. Blends old world religion with Christianity and Satanism. Considers Soulburn and magic to be against the human soul. Plotting a war against people like Mr. Delmont."

A few flicks of Juan's fingers shows another man featuring in the first sphere. Another old man. This one thin and well dressed. Japanese. A crooked smile. "This is the source of today's trouble. Ita Oro, aka Yuito Ouroboros. The kind of guy that can get anything for anyone. At a cost. Sometimes that cost is straight up betrayal. Has a tendency of screwing people over at the worst times and forcing them to bargain."

"Why is he after you?," Hitomi asks. She has lit her own cigarette and is staring at the two floating images of the men.

"I think because of this first little disk I am showing you. Magnus Odinson approached me for a job posting. Ouroboros had stiffed the Knives out of a large shipment of guns. The kind that go bang bang with no aethertech or magic required. Seems like Oro got them just fine but then decided to make the Knives pay more. I normally don't like dealing with religious freaks but Mr. Oro has been causing greater and greater issues, playing some long con so I took it against my better judgement. I guess he found out, somehow, probably a mole within the Knives."

"And the other sphere?," Eustace asks.

"What makes it interesting. This is a job posted by Anastasia Yuma. Ex-Knife. Said she underwent a lot of abuse by the members, that other people from the area are getting trapped in Odinson's bubble. Wants a job for people to run distraction so she can get in and get people out."

"How much?," Hitomi asks.

"Which one?"

"All of it. How much for us to take care of Ouroboros for you? How much for us to take care of Ouroboros for Odinson? How much to take care of Odinson for Yuma?"

Juan laughs at this. Starts discussing prices.

Afterward, Eustace and Hitomi are getting a bit to eat, on the house, and he has to know. "Are we really going to arm abusive cultists and then fight those abusive cultists?"

"I'm good with guns. Really good. Dad taught me when he wasn't preaching at me. We get the cache, make most of them not work, give them over and get paid. Then we use their dumb confidence to carry out this next job."

Setting the Scene. Always a Good Day for a Bad Idea.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 7:40pm.

Place: Near the back entrance to Yuito's bunker compound.

Expected Scene: Eustace and Hitomi need to find a way into the bunker.

Scene Test: [c25] 4. 2d10 = 1 + 9. Minor shift. "A bond or connection is explored."

Actual Scene: As they waiting to get inside, some of the Knives shows up.

It is easy for all GMs to create Gordian Knots on accident. Puzzles a bit too hard to solve. In this case, Yuito's bunker being an underground nuclear fallout shelter is going to make getting inside rough without a frontal assault. The strange ritual party will help but we'll have to go a bit easy on the pair trying to get end. A back entrance used for servants and deliveries. Still guarded but maybe less so.

A blue door at the end of a strange cavernous hall.

Always a Good Day for a Bad Idea.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 7:40pm.

Place: Near the back entrance to Yuito's bunker compound.>

"Yeah, that's clearly a trap," Eustace says, looking at the blue door at the end of the tunnel. The front entrance had clear guards but Hitomi had mentioned that Yuito Ouroboros had less of a nuclear bunker and more of a fallout mansion. Big enough to need a few entrances. The largest, the "front door," big enough to let vehicles in. One of the side entrances they explored had been sealed up. This one is something like a servant's entrance. On the outside just a fenced of tunnel with a plain blue door at the end. Lights burning but no sign of any activity. Except the loud bass music that can be felt more than heard through the feet.

"This is why they pay us the big bucks," Hitomi says, "Because we fall into obv...mmmmphf!" Eustace has grabbed her and pulled her against the wall is kissing her hard enough that she can't possibly finish her sentence. He pulls his hands down her shirt and is making it very obvious that they are just a couple who came out for some fresh air and sex. [2]

She starts to push him away but then hears the footsteps behind him. A couple of people laugh and then keep going. She decides to choke back her anger and goes with it for a minute until they are far enough away she can pull back some. As he finally lets her catch her breath she sees a couple of guys and a woman at the blue door, knocking on it. A few seconds later the door opens — the loud bass music pours out — and then shuts cutting it off. [3]

"Sorry," Eustace says, "We had almost no time and it always seems to work in the movies."

"You're in trouble, but for now I appreciate it," she says, a bit upset but realizing their job nearly got terminated before they had even gotten to the tricky part. "So yeah, that's definitely a trap but we have to get through to find the cache. Then somehow get it out. And take out Ouroboros in the process as a bonus. Any ideas?" In her backpack are four Bliss Bombs™ courtesy of an apologetic Banshee. Plus two gasmasks. And one of her laptops. The problem is though they have more than enough Bliss to take out two of the Fractal Apocalypse warehouses, Ouroboros's bunker is on a whole other scale.

He looks back at the entrance of the tunnel, that always sense that something in the Soulburn is watching him, then back at the door. "It's always a good day for a bad idea," he says.

"What are you thinking?"

"We just walk in."

"What is Plan B?"

"I'm serious. Obfuscation is one of the Psychic's main tricks. I've never really used it but the principal is simple enough."

She looks at him. She has heard a few stories about the Order Psychics. How they suddenly appear in the middle of a party and start cutting down people. How they might be outside your window watching you sleep and you wouldn't know. "What do we do?"

"Stay really close to me. Don't so much think thin as 'not there'." [4]

Setting the Scene. The Walls Have Eyes.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 7:48pm.

Place: Inside Yuito Ouroboros's Bunker.

Expected Scene: Eustace and Hitomi have to find their way around without being caught.

Scene Test: [c5] 3. 2d10 = 3 + 4. Only a minor twist. "Time to Tinker with Tech."

Actual Scene: Eustace and Hitomi are inside but it's the tech that is causing problems.

The Spotlight is enabling Eustace and Hitomi to shut down other people's perception of them, plus the party is kicking off more and more. Despite his many bad dealings, Ouroboros is cocky. Even members of the Knives are here to help sell out Odinson. The problem is the ServiSynth Eyes. We know that psychic waves meant to shut down human perception don't work since Amy Patel's mantis could see through Jani's psychic screen. Eustace is around three grades higher and stronger, but still, ServiSynth are a problem. We won't give them a battle stat but they are CRITICAL to avoid.

Do the eyes have a rudimentary intelligence capable to detecting intruders? (Even) → [c112] YES! This means that Eustace and Hitomi have to work fast.

SOUNDTRACK: Time to up the stress levels. Karl Casey's Cold Future.

A control room for an underground bunker.

The Walls Have Eyes.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 7:48pm.

Place: Inside Yuito Ouroboros's Bunker.

Hitomi finds herself having trouble breathing. To her, it seems like her and Eustace are just walking past other people. They don't even acknowledge. Whatever mind games Eustace is playing, it is making a blank spot. Some of the people are clearly Brainwaves. Carrying guns and swords. Often shirtless to show off tats and strange head decorations. Huffing cans of something. Their bodies reach of predatorial pheromones. A twisted cousin to the Fractal Apocalypse. A topless Brainwave woman walks buy smoking something that reeks of death. Her hands wearing aether claws. Still, what Eustace is weaving in the air is stopping even monsters like this woman from sensing them.

There is a new problem, ServiSynth Eyes that look like large human eyes are in the walls. And Eustace's psychic weave is clearly not working with. They tried leaving this initial area — something like a pantry leading into a kitchen — and one of the bloodshot eyes honed in quick before she pulled him back. His concentration is dedicated to keeping the blanket protection up. She parks him in a corner and starts back out in the hall. The eye moves in its socket. Nearly a foot across. Rudimentary bio-plastic lid closes over it but not enough. The wall underneath is wet with tears. The things must be in constant pain.

She takes three deep breaths. More of that terrible cigarette that smells like burning tar and flesh. Then walks out and moves in a strangely fluid pattern where she times the blinks of the eye and the way it rolls back and forth so that she is always outside of its vision. She needs to find a hub where these things might be controlled. Without knowing how far Eustace's obfuscation can carry her. [5]

Another hall, another eye. Again, she uses her long history of being in places she is not supposed to be to help guide her around. She sees veins laced along the wall. Nerves and fluid ducts for the eyes. She follows the general path until she finds the control room she is looking for. This hall is much more abandoned. A lot more rustic. More to its original design as some 1960s shelter built in case of some retaliation against the GLOW. Down the hall, a Brainwave male. Something strange is happening with his left arm but he is too far to see. Before she has to test if Eustace is able to keep her hidden at this distance, he turns and walks into a side door without glancing back. [6]

She pushes the door open. Finds a room full of old computers. She is shocked to see no one is here. The Brainwaves are clearly convinced they are a big enough threat to keep people out. [7]

She sets her laptop down on one of the terminals and plugs into the aether system. Pulls up a series of wards and runes and beings working against the internal systems. The system is like a giant brain, a bunker-wide ServiSynth that is trying to protect itself from threats. She starts trying to talk to it as it pushes back against her. She is able to shove through some of its outer defenses and hears no alarms going off, but there is a lot more to go. [8]

Voices in the hall. She ducks down and pulls her laptop under the desk. She pulls out memories of sunlit days that she recorded and begins running them into the central brain. Happy thoughts. Joy. She sends the rune for friendship three times over. The brain finally accepts her communications. After years of being abused by the powers that be, Hitomi is considered a true friend. Rather than abuse that trust, she actually starts sending counter commands to the system, building up its self-awareness. Turning on some of its own defenses. [9]

She pulls out a cable that looks a bit like a bit of intestine and holds it to her own scalp. "What's your name, sweetie?"

The ServiSynth brain responds with three symbols: a broken chain, a lighthouse, a cloud. [10]

"I'm going to call you Silver Lining, ok?" She gets a positive sense back. "A friend and I need to help some people out. Can you help us with that? I don't want to hurt anyone or you, is that ok?" She gets a strange sensation back. Like Silver Lining was hoping for something a little bit different. [11]

She sends thoughts of Eustace, all the thoughts. The first meeting. His wanting to protect people. The way he kisses. The way he moves. The way he keeps looking behind him like he senses someone there in the distance.

That complete she sends out her thoughts to Eustace, hoping he can hear. Luckily, a few seconds later she feels his thoughts push back. He has been listening in. [12]

She can see him move down the hall through the eyes. The Brainwaves continue to be absolutely terrible security as no one tends to move. Wait, there is one. [13]

Dark skinned, short, and built like a swimmer this one has a pair of hatchets and seems to be vibing with swinging the wide while talking to himself. Tattoos of snakes wrap around his body and his arms. As he walks near Eustace, he does not turn. Eustace stands still and one of the axes embeds in his arm and then the Brainwave walks on, not noticing the blood dripping down one of them. Eustace, in pain, keeps coming toward Hitomi's location. [14]

As he gets into the room, she helps to bandage the bloody wound by using a bit of her shirt. Then she asks Silver Lining where Ouroboros might be hiding the guns. It shows her a place. The hallway the weird armed guy just went down a few minutes before. [15]

Setting the Scene. Mr. Weird Arm.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 8:01pm.

Place: Inside Yuito Ouroboros's Bunker.

Expected Scene: Eustace and Hitomi confront the strange armed Brainwave.

Scene Test: [c66] 5. 2d10 = 1 + 5. As expected.

Actual Scene: As expected.

I had some cool stock art I wanted to use so we will get a rough fight with a single, well-armed opponent. Bad Guy template 1. 6 Grit. Hot Box on 3. Critical/Critical. Fighter (-1 close range), Sharp Blade (potential to Hurt), and we'll give him a custom feat for using his tentacle arms that failing to get a Basic means he latches on. This will be like an extra help for him.

There is obviously a hidden entrance to get out. We'll figure that out in a bit.

Mr. Weird Arm.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 8:01pm.

Place: Inside Yuito Ouroboros's Bunker.

The store room is a large place with many metal crates. Ouroboros is clearly behind on a lot of orders. Seems like only a matter of time before his fate catches up to him.

"Silver Lining, which of these has guns designated to go to Magnus Odinson?" The ServiSynth brain returns a sense of confusion. They would need to know how the place is coded to ask the question. [16]

"Damn it, Nurse, I think we are on our own." The two begin looking through the crates but it will take some time to open and inspect each one. There has to be some sort of log, somewhere. As Hitomi goes to start looking for it, another voices calls out.

"My at the rat problem we have. I told Yuito we'd need to set some traps. Luckily, he has me." The speaker is the strange armed guy she saw earlier. Strange barely covers it. His left arm ends in a series of octopus tentacles. His right holds a sword. The man looks with a sense of glee at the chance to get to use both.

"Foxteeth, find the guns!," Eustace calls out as he runs forward to fight the guy. Despite Eustace having the edge in height and body mass, Hitomi is not entirely sure how long he will be able to hold up. Also, what the hell did he just call her?

Eustace gets his left blade up to cause the superior fighter to back up and then brings his right blade down to slash down Weird Arm's...well, weird arm. It is a heavy hit and the Brainwave's cockiness plummets as his blood splashes the floor. [14]

In retaliation, Weird Arm continues his sweep right across Eustace's guts. He avoids getting emboweled but its no longer just Weird Arm's blood on the floor. [18]

A series of small slashes from Eustace starts to wear Weird Arm down but right as Eustace gets a hit in, Weird Arm deflects it back up and brings his blade down Eustace's right arm. Eustace returns the deflection with his right blade and then brings it down and cuts through the tentacle arm, slicing it off. Weird Arm screams loud enough that people nearly have to hear. [19]

As the guy is screaming, Eustace brings both arms together and cuts the head right off. [20]

On the other side of the room, Hitomi has managed to find the list of codes for the boxes and after finding the cache of guns just shoves it in her backpack. Blackmail might buy Juan and the rest a bit more time. Keeping an ear out, she doesn't hear the sound of pursuit. Silver Lining's loading ServiSynth help to put the crate in question on a truck and then starts opening the door which drives out into what appears to be a run down barn. Before her and a bleeding Eustace drive out into the night, she turns and hands one of the ServiSynths the four Bliss Bombs™.

"Maybe don't make it a slaughter, but for tonight have some revenge. Also, I want you to think really hard about this. Rooster masks. Rooster masks. Got it? Good."

The truck is gone before they push their luck anymore.

It is a few hours later that she hears the news across the 'net. Yuito Ouroboros and many of his guests have been slaughtered. The security system reports a group of people in rooster masks are to blame. MUNI is starting investigations. [21]

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

February 11, 2025

This is, essentially, the remaining bits from the shot that I had to bail on last time to get some rest.

That was a more abrupt ending that intended but it's a bit of a byproduct of still recovering out of the brain fog mentioned last episode. It is also just trying to keep the fat a little trim. The Crooked Fixer is one part of the Odinson cult. We already have three new gangs growing out of it before we get to the Knives. As much fun as Ouroboros could have been, that would be adding a secondary complication to a side job that would only delay getting to the main story. I like the idea of the ServiSynth rebellion starting. A minor thing that might grow beyond this arc and set up some later stories. I also like that we are continuing to build the false legend of a gang of rooster-headed vigilantes taking down major crime groups when it really just two fairly overwhelmed people managing to survive.

So, it was a bit cheaty-cheap but two episodes that were a really long episode are enough. Hitomi has learned that befriending the semi-aware aether systems is a tool. She'll use that. Eustace has learned that swords hurt, he'll use that. He drained a lot of resources just to keep her safe. She'll also use that.

One of the reason I'm interested in running the showdown versus Odinson is because it challenges one of the assumptions of this whole campaign: Eustace needs Soulburn to function. Going to a place with reduced Soulburn is going to take away his powers or at least greatly hinder them. This was already Hitomi's time to shine. They will probably need help next time around.

Some fun trivia. The base-wide ServiSynth was going to have a grapple attack and I had stock art picked out for it. Before we got the whole "Brainwaves are terrible at their job" oracle results over and over and before we got "Hitomi will choose to be a friend because her real goal is to help the downtrodden despite being a bit of a bitch about it" shine gloriously, the intent was to have maybe a showdown with Weird Arms and Ouroboros while Eustace and Hitomi are dealing with their legs being grappled. Then we got her making friends with a tortured ServiSynth. And the Brainwaves just refused to respond. Plus I was tired.

Had they gone to the ritual, though, Eustace was going to experience a more pure Soulburn experience and get a glimpse of his future destiny — spoiler, he is turning into a witch. The whole plot about psychic threads targetting Hitomi is not because the threads care about her, but because he does. He's inadvertantly making the threads around the city start to gather to her and her own personal sphere is getting impacted by it. I've been coy with myself on this but that is why he keeps thinking the Soulburn is talking to him. Because it is. Once I came up with the idea to have a Eustace story and that story was going to have a Hitomi, I realized that he might not have been sensing a place to hide the mini-disc. He was sensing her.

MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES

Can Eustace break the hedge magic encryption around the info spheres? (Good) → [c99] Yes.
Focus + Awareness for his danger sense. Gets a Critical. He can feel the people coming into the tunnel after them.
Do the rogue Knives fall for the ruse? (Good) → [c23] YES!
Not going to roll this one. Eustace is going to spend a Spotlight. He loses the coinflip and does not get it back.
Crime + Stealth + 1 Help from the psychic field. She gets Extreme + Basic. She is good for three checks to avoid them and needs a Crit to find the hub.
Crime + Awareness. Actually gets a Crit using her Hacker feat.
Is there someone actually watching the control hub? (Even) → [c72] NO! The people are very cocky about their position of power.
Crime + Fix + 1 Help (Laptop) + 1 Adrenaline. Basically considering this a Gamble. Even using her Hacker feet tops out at 1 Crit + 2 Basic. Not enough to take control but enough to avoid getting detected, yet.
Again. This time the roll works better. Extreme + Crit. Combined with the previous advances she is down two Adrenaline but Hitomi is now in control of the system.
Snagged these symbols through three quick cards.
Is Silver Lining ok with this? (Even) → [c16] Yes? It actually might want to hurt the people that have built it into the walls.
I forgot to establish this before hand so to be fair, did they agree to use his psychic powers to communicate? (Even) → [c41] YES!
Are any Brainwaves going to be in the hall? (Even) → [c39] Yes? Hmm, we'll make him roll a bit to see if his psychic field is holding.
Is his Psychic field still holding? (Even) → [c90] Yes. Brawn + Stunt Gamble to avoid the axes. A basic that is snake eyes. Two grit lost. We'll say the Spotlight ends after this, though.
I want at least one good fight sequence! Plus I have the stock art. Also, Eustace is going to get Distracted for holding the field for so long.
Will Silver Lining be able to help find the box? (Even) → [c35] No? Not exactly.
Brawn + Fight. + 1 Help from the blades. +2 Fight from the Adrenaline. -1 for the Fighter Feat. Risking a reroll, gets Extreme + Critical. 4 Grit lost right off.
Brawn + Stunt. Gets only a Basic. This avoid the grapple and the hurt but still nets two grit damage.
Same as above but this time gets 3 Basic = 1 Critical and only does one more Grit damage. Has a snake eye so takes a grit. Only one Grit remaining so spends the Adrenaline to activate a counter does a grit damage back to Eustace. Eustace spends his last adrenaline and gets an Extreme so we'll say he cuts off the tentacle arm and gets +2 next turn but takes one more grit from a snake eye. Next hit he is at Bad.
Critical + Basic with no snake eyes. Eustace is very injured and drained of Adrenaline but prevailed.
Is there a log of the crates? (Even) → [c87] Yes. Did people hear Weird Arm's screams? (Even) → [45] Yes? Yes, but are not necessarily caring. Ok, how about this...are they responding to them? (Even) → [c43] No. these bodyguards.
Does Yuito survive Silver Lining's rebellion? (Even) → [c109] NO! Alrighty then.

CREDITS

Other sources used include:

Zach Best's Universal NPC Emulator.
Cesar Capacle's Random Realities
Kevin Crawford's Cities Without Number
Matt Davis' Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 1, 2 and 3.
Geist Hack Games and Paul D. Gallagher's Augmented Realities.

ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION

Yuito's Bunker's Back Entrance: Image by Tobias Wahlqvist from Pixabay.

Control room is an uncredited photo on Pixabay.

Taxonomy and Technical Data

World: The GLOW

Campaign: The GLOW

Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Post: Episode 4 - Against Ouroboros

Dates Played: February 11, 2025.

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Episode 3 - Bad Decisions Are Made

By Doug Bolden

On 2025-02-19

In Actual Play, Gamemaster Apprentice Deck, Multi-Phase, Outgunned, Solo Campaigns, The Glow

← Previous Arc Session |[ ↑ Arc/Campaign Page ]| Next Arc Session →

The warehouse drone brings boxes down
Image — Dean Spencer

"Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
Making Some Jobs
The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 3 — Bad Decisions Are Made

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

About The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

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.

Making Some Jobs

Similar to how I did the other dimensions through the Swirl with The Bloody Hands, I am going to create multiple missions here with the idea that I will start out focusing on one and possibly only focus on that other one. The others might show up as backups, background info, and so forth but mostly they are just flavor. The GLOW is a big place — bigger on the inside — and there are dozens of such intrigues brewing.

The method broadly used will be essentially as described in Kevin Crawford's Cities Without Number. 2x Mission Tags. A couple of mission type rolls. Then go back and pick out elements from the Tags that would make the most sense. Toss in a few references to the Cyberpunk 2E GMA deck if I need further prompts. The mission that gets picked will likely get a few details added from either Dicegeeks or Augmented Reality as needed.

Mission 1. Tags: 36 Crooked Fixer [Supposed supplier is up to something]. 12 Beleagured Locals [People are being pressured by outside forces]. Mission Type: 9 Theft . Patron → 8 Community Leader. Biggest Obstacle → 6 It's extremely easy to track. Valuable to patron? → 10 Patron needs it to complete something. Twist? → 6 Taking it will hurt a sympathetic group.
Mission 2. Tags: 40 Feckless Idealist [Someone with strong ideals but no common sense]. 76 Roaming Raiders [Nomadic raiders are involved]. Mission Type: 6 Sabotage. Motivation → 3 Distraction. Patron → 6 Past victim of target's owner. Defense? → 6 Well fortified location. Target? → 4 Important piece of equipment. Owner's need? → 8 Sign of Trust from a Major Ally. Twists? → Spread over several locations.
Mission 3. Tags: 16 Biological Weapon [obvious]. 33 Criminal Cop [Also obvious]. Mission Type: 2 Espionage. Patron? → 5 Local elder protecting the district. Profit? → Grants access to invite only business. Obscure? → 1 Almost no one knows it exists. Why Guarded? → 6 Treachery against a seeming ally. 17 → Stealing it will enrage a third party.

Almost immediately the idea to combine elements of the first two together comes to mind. Then the third can be something like a blueprint for the next job, the one where they work towards getting revenge against Dave Akari (which might be AFTER the Turning Point but is coming).

If we combine the first two we get a kind of interesting stewpot. There is a insular community within a community. A cult who believes that the place they are is their home [divinely granted]. Protected, perhaps, or at least accepted, by the community at large. I like the idea of a cult who pushes back against the Soulburn. Old World Pagans. Gas masks. Filtered rooms. Googles. Growing their own food in gardens with filtered air and runes to to purify. It won't work entirely. Some of the very magic they hold to is powered by Soulburn. However, they are growing stronger and more desperate to defend their land (all a lie based on some half-assed 1960s death cult type prophet). The end game is fight back against "The Man" — Lamark Society, The GLOW, just some sense of "Them" — and they have tried to get a cache of weapons. A shady dealer took their money is now not following through. Partially because the weapons could be tracked back to them. The cult is willing to pay $3 [note, in game terms, in real world turns it would be a couple thousand] to get the weapons. They have new towers that are more effective at stripping out the Soulburn and are setting those up. Disrupting a lot of people's lives in the area.

On the other hand, one of the ex-cult members is trying to take out the cult before they can make things worse. Destroy these new towers. Only, destroying the towers is just to be a distraction to pull the heads of the cult aside while the ex-member does something.

The Cult's Name? [c60] Meteor Strike. [c50] A thief holding a knife (?). The Knives of the Fallen Star. The leader? [c14] Magnus Odinson. The ex-member who wants revenge? [c16] Anastasia Yuma.

We'll build up more details as we need.

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Episode 3 — Bad Decisions Are Made

Setting the Scene. Street Kids Pull a Fast Juan.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 11:23am.

Place: Juan Uno's Cafe, On the Outskirts of Pensacola.

Expected Scene: E+H meet Juan to find out about jobs.

Scene Test: 1. 2d10 = 6 + 4. A major twist/complication. [c82] Someone close is abducted. [c84] Icon of a man emitting rays. [c87] Gang Wars.

Actual Scene: As Eustace and Hitomi enter Juan's, a gang shows up and kidnaps Juan before Hitomi can make contact. Eustace will sense the danger and might be able to intervene.

Well, maybe never mind about those jobs. Is this a new gang to the group? (Even) → c45 Yes? So yes, but maybe a known associate of someone else we've met. Ah, the crooked fixer. He knows the Knives have put a job to get the weapons and so is targeting a well known person who might be arranging the job.

The gang hired by the fixer (Urban Tribes from Augmented Reality): 23 Shaolin 06 Dragons. 75 Androgynous 33 Parkour 48 Pranksters. 72 Find and sell corpses to body banks. 44 Allied to... 89 Fractal 30 Apocalypse. 30 Rastafarian 10 Info-Socialist 42 Boosters. Who are 20 Premier suppliers of street-level premier pheremones.

Basically these are "kids" who dabble mostly in pranks and mischief, avoid real drugs or violence. Not a threat in the least.

Why did they take the deal from the crooked fixer? [c43] Ponder [c109] Stealthy [c107] Freedom. They owed the fixer some money and he has agreed to let them off the hook if the do this.

SCENE SOUNDTRACK: Karl Casey's White Bat 44 which just dropped this last week or so.

Let's get one "sensory detail" for flavor: [c58] Rain drumming against...

A cafe courtyard filled with plants and puddles of water.

Street Kids Pull a Fast Juan.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 11:23am.

Place: Juan Uno's Cafe, On the Outskirts of Pensacola.

The cab drops them off right as the rain hits the parking lot of Juan Uno's Cafe. Hitomi had explained to Eustace that Juan tends to be a bit moral as far as job scouts go — moral for The GLOW at least — and she had racked up a decent amount of good graces with him. He knew the kind of jobs that she would take and made sure not to tempt her with stuff she liked to avoid. Though, money was tight enough lately that she had been willing to bend a few personal rules.

"Juan?," Eustace had asked.

"Yeah."

"Uno?"

"Yeah.

Eustace kept waiting to see if she would crack a smile but after a moment said they should probably call a taxi. There is an irony in stealing a motorbike the night before a rainstorm was predicted to sweep across the area.

As Hitomi steps under the eaves of Juan Uno's cafe, Eustace pivots and stares at shapes coming out of the rain. Street punks dressed in loose fitting clothing, heads shaved and bodies thin enough that their faces blend together. He feels no animosity coming from them but still he can tell they are up to something shady. He reaches out to grab one and the kid flips over him as the other start leaping over barriers and diving over the fence that leads to the courtyard. [1]

"The ShaoDra? What are they doing here? Come on!" Hitomi takes off running through the front door as the inside erupts into chaos. At this time of day, Juan's is pretty much just a lunch spot. A lunch spot currently compressed indoors as the famous courtyard is being drenched by rain water. One of the best places near P'cola to get a Cuban sandwich or spicy sushi with a variety of tea and cofee drinks. At least for the daytime customers. The other customers tend to be more nocturnal. Now, all those hungry civs getting sandwiches and tea are currently having to deal with a half-dozen Shaolin Dragons as the bald youths knock tables aside and toss lunch trays at Juan's bodyguards, a pair of beefy men who usually don't need to go into full work mode until much later in the day.

Entering into the dining room, Eustace sees a guard pull a gun and start to take a shot and dives over to grab the the arm. The gun goes off while Eustace is shouting, "They are just kids, stop!" A shout of pain lets him know he did not make it in time. The bodyguard goes to shove Eustace aside but Eustace takes control of the situation. "Arcane Order! Everyone WEAPONS DOWN!" The declaration of being with the Order does the trick as the bodyguard drops his gun and both stand back. [2]

Hitomi already has the ShaoDra member in her arms. A young woman. Maybe nineteen if that. Holding her arm as her biceps bleed out. A few inches to the right and it would have been a center-of-mass wound and much closer to fatal. The ShaoDra's skin a light brown with black eyes showing pain. Like the rest, head is shaved but stubble shows dark hair. "Uncool. UNcool. UncOOL," she says. [3]

"You said that, sweetie," Hitomi says, defaulting to the same big-sister mode she uses with Bee. "Nurse, she's hurt."

Eustace bends down beside her. As he starts seeing if he can tend to her wound, another shout is heard from the back. Hitomi recogizes it as Juan's voice. The next thing she knows is he is being carried out a side door by the other ShaoDra. A van pulls up. The letters F A on the side in strange grafitti. She recognizes this calling card as well. Fractal Apocalypse. More kids playing at street punks by way of modifying and amplifying natural hormones and pheremones. Kidnapping is not on either group's CV. The bodyguards, still respecting Eustace's command to not pull weapons, run outside to try and stop the van.

"Look at me...Darya. No, you prefer BrokenRecord. Look at me. I'm going to bandage your wound, ok?" After a minute the bleeding has stopped and gentle psychic persuasion has helped to block the pain. [4]

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you," Darya/BrokenRecord says.

Hitomi squats down beside her. "BrokenRecord, did he say?" Then waits while the younger woman says "Yes" three times. "Ok, BrokenRecord, why in the fuck did your friends just make the massive mistake of kidnapping someone like Juan?"

Setting the Scene. Fractals within Fractals.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 12:24pm.

Place: On route to the Fractal Apocalypse's Warehouse.

Expected Scene: Hitomi comandeers Juan's car and her, Eustace, and BrokenRecord go to try and find out what is going on.

Scene Test: [c47] 7. 2d10 = 8 + 5. Minor complication. Catalyst is "Your Hardware Is Recalled." Keeping that more "minor" I'm just going to say it means that Juan's vehicle is in the shop so they are having to borrow one of the bodyguard's cars. Does he let them take it without going along? (Bad) → [c72] No. So they have a bodyguard along with them. Who? Julian Shame. Pulling another card [c74] we get a badge, a nose, traits of "Diligence" and "Pride". Big guy. Bigger nose. Ex-cop. Left the force because of his pride. Likes to take care of his plants and the plants around Juan's.

Actual Scene: The four people are en route to the FA warehouse, including an ex-cop who takes his job very seriously.

I don't think we need a lot here. Just a brief "lore dump" type scene before getting to the warehouse itself.

Eustace gets one Adrenaline from that last scene.

An alleyway with lots of graffiti on the walls and a couple of people made out just in the distance of the end.

Fractals within Fractals.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 12:24pm.

Place: On route to the Fractal Apocalypse's Warehouse.

Hitomi has been catching Eustace up on the details. The Shaolin Dragons — ShaoDra by most folks' shorthand — are low level wannabe Buddhist punks who mostly engage in parkour and skating to achieve oneness with the city. Chief money making endeavor is corpse detail. They gather up dead bodies from war zones, old apartments, and the underground. Some they return to kin. Some they sell to scientific research. All they give blessings and purifications. Most tougher gangs have a broad truce with the ShaoDra. In fact, violence against them is considered very bad form.

The Dragons team up with the Fractal Apocalypse — F A, pronounced Eff, Ey? — Rastafarian jolly mollies getting off on their literal own supply. Taking human hormones and pheremones and piping them through various tech and magical enhancements to great moods and vibes. Real life love potions coming with self-affirmations. Both are found in a warehouse run by the FA. A day job of sorts providing some cover. Not even the MUNI cares to bust them, they are that harmless. Hell, good vibes and cleaning up dead bodies puts them generally in the helpful category.

"The thing is, they just openly snatched Juan. He fits a particular place in the The GLOW. He gets people jobs that have a...moral elements. Moral for The GLOW. It's his major trade. Small community getting sick because of corp waste. People who betrayed their crew. Realtors who made land grabs. Generally, if you have the slightest excuse for violence, Juan can shop it. This means his jobbers are folks who consider Juan to be a bit of a saint. Lots of rough folks who do terrible things on a redemption arc. Trying to buy a bit of their soul back."

"Dangerous people who might consider an attack on Juan a one-way ticket to hell. Literal hell," Eustace fills in.

Eustace is in the back of Julian's car. Julian Shame. Ex-MUNI. Got dishonorably discharged after he refused to go light on a man who preyed on an orphanage despite a lack of evidence. Took up with Juan and takes it personally. Drives a rather sensible car. No aetherware. No hedge magic touch-ups. Petroleum burning.

Next to him is BrokenRecord. She is in her vibe. FA enhanced happiness. If Eustace had to make a guess, the feeling of see a new kitty cat. Or a sunny day after a storm. She leans forward and touches Eustace in this Gnole-enhanced fingers. "Nice fingers. Nice Fingers. Nice fingers."

"Nuh uh, sweetie," Hitomi says from the front passenger seat. "Those fingers are claimed. I got my teethmarks in that one."

Foxteeth, Eustace thinks. Then tries to shake his head. So many psychic threads are weaving around Hitomi that she appears to glow green brighter than the murky daylight outside. Shapes dance along her face and hair. The rain has stopped but the clouds threaten more for the afternoon.

Julian, taking directions from Hitomi, finally speaks. "I though Order Agents tended to dress a bit...spazzier, than that." Referring to Eustaces sleeveless shirt and workman's pants. He has not yet made up the loss of his coat to Bee.

"Not an Agent."

Hitomi, in the front seat, is a little surprised to see Julian — a big man with a bigger nose, who once removed a hyped up street sam's chainsaw arm by bending said chainsaw arm into a seemingly impossible geometric configuration — start to sweat. Like many folks in The GLOW, she has heard of Order Psychics. Also like many, she has taken them as a type of cryptid. A fairy tale. The MUNI know better. They have seen burned out husks of people after their minds have been removed.

Julian, fighting hard to keep the quiver out of his voice, asks, "Don't you people wear fox masks?"

"Sometimes, when we want people to be afraid."

BrokenRecord starts talking, in triplicate, about pretty little foxes as the car turns down an alleyway well decorated with colorful grafitti and a couple of watchers pretending to be unhoused drunks. Hitomi holds up her hands in American Sign Language for F and A and then nods at BrokenRecord in the back. One of the guys taps three times on a grating and the car turns left. The Fractal Warehouse is in front of them. [5]

"Remember," she says, "We aren't shooting anyone. We are going to find out what the hell is going on and then we're going to get Juan back to his cafe before any of his fans get jumpy."

Setting the Scene. Surrounded by Dumbasses.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 12:41pm.

Place: In a breakroom in Fractal Apocalypse's Warehouse in West Pensacola.

Expected Scene: They get a chance to talk to the ShaoDra about what is happening.

Scene Test: [c7] 6. 2d10 = 4 + 6. Scene as Expected.

Actual Scene: As it says on the tin.

Since there is no twists to the scene, let's build up the crooked fixer who is part of the problem. Flipping over a card [c5] we get Yuito + Ouroboros as a name. I think that makes a good street name. Envy and Suave as two traits that work. Flipping over another [c23] we get a cultist and a bleeding hand. "A personal celebration is interrupted." Situation: Modified lifeforms. Smuggler's den. A third [c118] I get an alien face, a beaker that makes me think of a nuclear power plant and "A survival shelter". Combining the Verb + Ad + Noun from those cards the first combination is Remember Ghostly Legend. Another possibly combination is Trick Complex Stockpile.

Ito Oro. Goes by Yuito Ouroboros. Has an old fallout shelter as a home basement with underground storage. Throwing a party in a couple of days related to a local legend about aliens and ghosts. Oooh, like a seance to talk to the lifeforms from the Chicxulub event. Posh folks. ServiSynth sex workers. Gawdy masks and people high on the Fractal Apocalypse's supply. Only, after they sold a large quantity of their stock to him, he claimed it wasn't sufficient and threatened to send some dangerous folks [we'll make these in a second] after the FA and the ShaoDra. Know that that Knives have it out for Yuito, and he found otu they had shopped out the mission through Juan, he convinces the FA+SD to snag Juan just for a little talk [hoping to kill Juan, the FA, and the SD in the crossfire].

I'm feeling it.

A warehouse with boxes rising up on either side on shelves.

Date: Friday, May 31, 1996.

Time: 12:54pm.

Place: In a breakroom in Fractal Apocalypse's Warehouse in West Pensacola.

Despite the young — around 20 at a high estimate — black man having a full foot over Hitomi, she has backed him into a corner and has a finger pointed at his face. He keeps giggling in response as she lectures him, though the artificial joy he is caught on keeps slipping as he tries to resurface. Another, younger, black man with a strong French accent is sobbing on the floor. He apparently is tripping on abject sadness. Why? No one knows. BrokenRecord has said the word "Wow" about fifteen times and Hitomi looks like she is going to snap.

"Listen up, you shitbrained dumbass. Do you have any bottled emotions that might be something like, I don't fucking know, seriousness?"

A pale woman with a shaved head, a ShaoDra around the same age as BrokenRecord, nods. Gets up and goes out. Besides Hitomi and the two victims of her wrath, you have Juan Uno sitting at a small table that just shouts corporate breakroom. Which it is. The Fractal Apocalypse is an amazingly modern looking warehouse once you get past the gutter-trash exterior. That's part of its security. That and the Artifical Bliss bombs set to trigger if you open the door without the watchdogs outside giving the signal. Any attempted break in and you will feel so happy you might never feel happy again.

Behind Juan is Julian, puffing himself up to look extra big. A hand is clearly on his gun in his holster. He has taken Hitomi's command to not shoot anyone — and his fear of Eustace keeps him extra in line — but he has the rough ok to make it seem like he is. Eustace is at the door and keeps glancing out at a warehouse bot in the constant motion of moving boxes around like a strange cross between a spider and a sloth. It seems to just be shifting boxes without meaning, but surely it is doing...something.

Laughter is Banshee McCready. Sadness is Vorpal Spark. The pale bald one was Varvara Clean. Her accent, based on the two words she has said since they entered, demanded to see Juan, and got brought here puts her as Eastern Euro or playing to stereotype.

While waiting, Hitomi looks around for an ashtray and, seeing none, grabs a coffee cup and sits down next to Juan and lights up. She offers one to him and he accepts. "Are you ok?"

Juan is in his 40s. Mom was Mexican and an early settler in The GLOW. Dad was a Japanese cafe owner who emmigrated in the 50s. The two hooked up and made a happy home that young Juan took offense at. Ran a rough childhood until his 20s when he took a dime in MUNI prison. Got out, found his parents had disowned him, and started his light-gray-hat business while trying to make his dad proud. Hopes one day they will try and find them.

He nods and seems to find it all a bit amusing. Hitomi has tried to explain that some potential roughs will be here before long unless they get Juan back, safe and sound, and this is all just a hilarious misunderstanding.

"A birthday party, ok? A surprise party and that was all a bit high energy to make you think you were being kidnapped. We offer your customers a free coffee drink for the disturbance. Julian backs us up and no one shoots any dumbasses despite them practically begging for it."

Varvara has returned and Vorpal and Banshee are now huffing a cannister labeled Buzzkill™ and suddenly the smiles and the tears are both wiped from their face. They go into apologies.

"Sorry, ma'am. Ouroboros had promised us to clear some debt if we brought Juan here for a secret meeting only the ShaoDra took excitement before going and maybe took too much," Banshee explains in a quiet voice completely not living up to his street name.

"Ma'am!?," Hitomi chokes.

Eustace finally tears his eyes from the ever moving warehouse bot and looks over at the group near the table. "He wanted you all to die, you know that, right?" As the group stares at him like they just noticed a large man with artificial arms has been standing there this whole time. "Oroborous, I mean. He figured Juan's fanboys would go on a murder mode and raid the place." [6]

Looking over at Julian, Eustace adds, "Yeah, I can read your mind. You are thinking of daffodils for some reason." Julian makes a high pitched whine in his throat.

"Eu, honey, are you done scaring the nice people?," Hitomi asks, recharged and ready to go back into lecture mode.

"Yeah, though if someone can explain what the hell this bot is up to, I would..."

Hitomi makes a zip it gesture at Eustace and he goes silent. To him, it looks like she has just flung a dozen green lines through the air that resettle on her face like butterflies to a flower.

"We all good on the birthday lie? We have around, oh, zero seconds to get out here and start telling it really loud. Then, after that, I am going to Juan about making sure this never happens again before Oroborous tries again."

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

February 10, 2025

I'm wrapping this up a bit earlier than I normally would but it is a fair stopping point. I am still in a fairly long recovery process from a bacterial infection in the lungs that is now largely let go but the meds have left me a bit spaced. It has been almost a week since I have been able to dedicate much mental space to playing. The sickness is a part of it. Another part was having issues — due to the sickness, but also just a lot of personal stress related to recent news — trying to come up with an interesting hook for the next part. I could have just clipped and went straight in for the Amy Patel rescue but I wanted to have at least a side mission first to give Eustace and Hitomi a chance to make some money and kind of work a storyline that might be a bit dangerous and risky but overall was a bit lighter in tone.

After spending half-an-hour, or more, going through the whole random generation arc coming up with missions and finally finding a vibe I liked I then get a major twist. It is the classic solo play experience. The random crap generated from the twist was more fun. I like the ShaoDra and the FA. I think it will make for a good couple-three more sessions of trying to protect a group of streetwise dumbasses from the true violence of The GLOW. There will be another cult, another street gang, and some weird lore development. At that point we will have something like five or six gangs and that's enough to just run with for a bit.

At any rate, forgive the brevity here but next time will start back at Juan's and will detail making plans to play a few people off each other. I'm looking forward to it. I am also looking forward to having my brain back.

By the way, a bit of trivia. I had picked the warehouse bot because originally Juan's was going to be a warehouse. Then I had of him shifting Hitomi to a cafe. I found the cafe with all the plants through a random search. Once I came up with the two non-violent street gangs the idea that one of them might run a warehouse both for their own artificial moods but also just as a side job was pretty natural. My brain fog meant I couldn't really think of a good use for it in the scene so I just thought it was funny for it to be moving boxes around at random to fit the kind of FA/SD spaced out street punk motif. Eustace was staring at it because I would have just stared at it and wondered what was up.

Spoiler: but the next major twist (if not sooner) will be our first glimpse at the other psychics. We know form the first session that they are tracking Eustace. I think we should get at least a glimpse.

MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES

Focus + Aware. Gets a Critical. Knows there's no danger. Brawn + Stunt to try and grab one but no successes at all.
Only a Basic success to block the shot. He'll stop the kid from getting killed but the kid still gets shot. Smooth + Leadership with Silver Tongue. Gets an Extreme. Eustace is in control of the scene.
[c37] Darya. Persian (and other) female name. BrokenRecord is another name so let's give her a verbal tick.
Focus + Heal. Extreme. Boy is living up to Nurse pretty well.
Criminal + Streetwise. She gets a Critical + Basic without even rerolling. She definitely knows the codes.
Focus + Detect + 1 Help since it's kind of obvious. He gets a Critical.

CREDITS

Other sources used include:

Zach Best's Universal NPC Emulator.
Cesar Capacle's Random Realities
Kevin Crawford's Cities Without Number
Matt Davis' Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 1, 2 and 3.
Geist Hack Games and Paul D. Gallagher's Augmented Realities.

ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION

For info about the photo for Juan's cafe: see previous post where I went over creating new art for this series.

The alleyway towards the Warehouse: Photo by Linda Xu on Unsplash

The Fractal Apocalypse Warehouse: Photo by Ruchindra Gunasekara on Unsplash

Taxonomy and Technical Data

World: The GLOW

Campaign: The GLOW

Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Post: Episode 3 - Getting a Job

Dates Played: February 8 through February 10.

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Episode 2 - Gathering Supplies

By Doug Bolden

On 2025-02-14

In Actual Play, Gamemaster Apprentice Deck, Multi-Phase, Outgunned, Solo Campaigns, The Glow

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Libby the Lab. Rebuilt experimental war tech. Faithful pooch.

Libby the Lab. Rebuilt war tech. Faithful pooch.
Image © Dean Spencer

"Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
Making a The GLOW Map Table
The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont Episode 2 — Gathering Supplies

Previously, on The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Psychic Eustace Delmont has gone on a Walk. In a massive indoor mall, aka The Citadel, he meets a hacker criminal named Hitomi Meyer. After fighting, and obliterating, a group of Patel family goons, Eustace and Hitomi are now trying to get to safety. They are heading to Century, FL where one of Hitomi's old allies can help take care of Bee.

About The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

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.

Making a The GLOW Map Table

A grid of real-world Alabama and Florida Panhandle divided into a 12x20 section

A map for me to generate some random events in a more consistent manner. Explanation below.

More so than the original arc where a lot of things were left up purely to the flow of the story, this time around I need a few new tools. The map above is one of those. Taking the 2023 Alabama state highway map from ALDOT, I have overlaid a 20x12 grid representing the local scope of The GLOW and the "near" GLOW. This gives me a way to roll for locations and to generally mentally map how locations are connected. There is no attempt, yet, to link this up to The GLOW's subway system or to map out changes in the roads. This is a bit higher concept than that.

Each grid is about 10 miles. It's not meant to be super precise but that's close enough. Take this with a grain of salt in that I might have really messed up my math. I don't need granular distance measurements, more of just a broad sense.

In the context of the GLOW, there would be anywhere from 1-5 additional grids worth of city off the coast representing the strange floating — as in on water — portions of the city. South of Mobile it would extended even further, nearly 70 miles off the old coast. This is where the more expensive houses and such are. Those are not indicated on the map because this is much more of a "Sprawl" type campaign.

This episode starts in Century, FL which is on the map in 18,1. The Citadel, which they just left, is 14,11. Just to establish such, the Blue Sky Grove is in 6,12 while The Rambler is in 9,9.

In this light, I can find out things like: Where is Hitomi's apartment? → 19,2. A place slightly south of the real world Jay, FL. In this world, it will be "Little Tokyo." A bit more built up than the anti-Order Century but also a bit out of the main stretch.

The GLOW: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont. Episode 2 — Gathering Supplies

Setting the Scene. Setting Up a Wild Goose Chase.

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 6:52pm.

Place: In the parking lot of the closed RINA Auto Repair Shop.

Expected Scene: Hitomi is working on removing the tracker from the Patel Car.

Scene Test: [c116] 7. 8 + 3. A Minor twist/complication. On that card it has a catalyst of "law enforcement comes for you." Not a major-enough twist for that level of complication, but makes sense that they are in the area. Reason? [c3] has a person stabbed in the back. Let's say there is a murder in the back of RINA's lot.

Actual Scene: They are having to do this while some MUNI cops are investigating a murder very nearby.

Does the Patel car even have a tracker? (Good) → [c114] Yes.

Another thing from the c116 card is "Rest Plus Motel". Let's make it Rest+ and save that for later since I was going to eventually need a hotel or motel at some point.

Setting Up a Wild Goose Chase

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 6:52pm.

Place: In the parking lot of the closed RINA Auto Repair Shop.

Hitomi is bent under the car while Eustace makes it look like he is trying to repair something under the hood. They are in the parking lot of RINA Repair Shop. What RINA might mean is lost to time since the sign doesn't say and the shop has been closed for some time. The front glass is exploded out. A couple of cars left behind are burnt husks. Some kids have left a stack of beer cans in a pile in the parking lot. Strangely that has been left undisturbed.

MUNI is around back, adding to the stress of being here, but the cops are caught up with a vagrant that got stabbed this afternoon. At least the body was found this afternoon. Eustace could probably solve the case for them with just a few quick seconds but at this moment they are just a couple of people with a broke down car who found their old favorite mechanic surprisingly out of business. That's the story they are going to tell if any of the MUNI asks what is up.

Because a burnt out shop is a great place to leave a stolen car after you have murdered the owners. No cameras. No scanners. By the morning it will likely be another burnt out husk or stripped for parts.

Hitomi looks over at Bee who is having a hard time keeping their eye off the cops. Hitomi is not sure if Bee is worried or just curious. Or horny. What Hitomi is sure is that if Bee keeps snagging her cigarettes, she is going to start charging her roommate tax. Bee has walked off with Hitomi's smokes and makes no move to give them back.

"Did you get it?," Eustace asks, wiping his hands like he just did anything at all to the car under the hood.

Hitomi holds up a tracker device and scoffs. "Let me stick to the tech shenanigans, you stick to other murder-death-kill." [1]

"You know, that's the first time I have ever killed anyone. In person. I've seen a few deaths."

Hitomi looks at him and realizes he is serious. "Fuck, I'd hate to see you with training."

At this time an 80s model car shows up — American — and an old lady gets out. Yuuki Jones. In her 70s, looks to be a hard-50s. By the general average life span of The GLOW, she has won some lottery. MUNI cops look up at her but glance away. To folks around here, must look like an old granny bailing her unruly granddaughter out of a fix.

"I brought your JUMPER CABLES, Mochi." Hands Hitomi a paper bag that has zero jumper cables but does have a change of clothing, a couple of credit sticks, some hair-dye, and some ammo for Hitomi's gun. [2]

"Thanks, おばあちゃん," Hitomi says, taking the bag.

"You call her grandmother?," Eustace asks.

"This huge 外人 speaks 日本語?," Yuuki asks, giving Eustace a very long glance.

"Don't let him lie to you, Yuu. He's psychic, apparently. Also, stop calling people 外人, you have lived her longer than most of these people have been alive."

"Hey, big psychic, what am I thinking about, right now?," Yuuki asks.

Eustace, not even looking in her direction, responds, "I'm about average size."

Yuuki cackles a smoker's laugh at this. "Ah, too bad, Mochi. Too bad. They make pills for it, though." The old woman then walks over to Bee and snags the cigarette from the younger adopted-grandchild's mouth. "And no smoking for you. Save that for us grannies."

"You got Bee for the next couple of days?"

"How much trouble you in?" Yuuki notes the blood on Eustace's jacket that Bee is still wearing as an all-in-one outfit.

"Patel-sized."

"This boy's fault?"

Hitomi looks over at Eustace. "No, someone else. He was trying to help. Only it got worse. You'll catch it on the news, tonight."

As Bee leans up against Yuuki, Hitomi walks over to her young friend. "You help out at the store, ok? I'll be back in a few days. Hopefully. Also, kill the hair."

Bee sighs and touches a node on behind their ears. The sea-green hair settles down. With another tap it shifts to a bland bad beach-blonde look. The effect won't catch anyone off guard who knows Bee, but those who don't would have a hard time picking them out of any average plain teenager.

Hitomi looks around in the fading daylight and then finds a casual way to walk over to the MUNI car like she is being curious. Once she is sure that none of the MUNI are really paying attention, she quickly bends over and slips the tracker to the underside of their bumper. That should confuse the Patel gang. [3]

Rejoining Eustace, Hitomi says, "Ok, Nurse, we need to grab a bus and head to Little Tokyo. Grab my stuff if we can get to my apartment in time. Hopefully they haven't hurt Libby."

Setting the Scene. Getting Libby and Getting Betrayed.

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 7:30pm.

Place: Outside Sasaki Ramen Bar in Little Tokyo.

First, has Patel's people found Hitomi yet? (Good) → [c1] Yes? They are close but won't show up until later in the scene.

Second, Hitomi did really well with getting the device and planting it on a cop car to lead some of Patel's heat on a wild goose chase. Will give her an adrenaline up to 4.

Expected Scene: Hitomi and Eustace try to get stuff from her apartment before Patel's people show up.

Scene Test: 5. 2d10 = 5 + 7. Another Minor Twist. "A secret is revealed or betrayed." The Sasakis turn in Hitomi for a reward.

Actual Scene: They get to the apartment before the goons, but the goons will lie in wait for an ambush.

Ah, The GLOW, where getting sold out by people you think are your friends is just a minor twist.

These two need to be tougher. We'll use Bad Guys Template 1 to show the increased intensity. Roger Patel can't imagine the slaughter was due to a kiosk owner so assumes it must be a rival gang. Still, he wants Hitomi to find out what happened to the mini-disc. 5 Grit with 1 Hot Box. They have Automatic Weapon and Martial Arts feats. Attack: Critical. Defense: Critical. Like before, their weakness will be Patel's people aren't good at working together. Names? [c48] Ecrin and [c45] Leonie.

The owner's name, Sasaki, by the way came from the Japanese Surname table in The Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 3.

Outside Hitomi's apartment, as seen by Eustace.

Outside Hitomi's Apartment in the Little Tokyo portion of The GLOW. Above Sasaki Ramen.

Getting Libby and Getting Betrayed.

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 7:30pm.

Place: Outside Sasaki Ramen Bar in Little Tokyo.

Eustace hears Hitomi ask him, "Anything?"

He turns and searches through the psychic threads. "Yes. Very close. Two of them. We don't have a lot of time." [4]

"Okey doke." She pulls out her gun and makes sure it is ready to go. Hands Eustace the three laptops she is carrying and hopes that if he has to go berserker again he will not completely smash them up. "The Sasaki brothers have been very nice to me and let Bee and me crash here. I'd rather them not get hurt in this. Even if they are ex-Yakuza hiding out here to avoid some heat from actual Tokyo.

She leads him down a alley far cleaner than any he has seen in The GLOW, up some stairs, and to a door she hastily unlocks. Counting down 3, 2, 1 on her fingers she shoves it open and then aims her gun inside, to nothing but a dark apartment smelling of stale smoke and old ramen. One benefit to living here is getting a lot of cheap food for small favors.

Red eyes light up across the room, followed by a small mechanical canine. Hitomi bends down and pets it like is a real dog. "LIBBY!"

"That's Libby?," Eustace asks.

"Yep. Libby the Lab. My own little walking, barking chemical and electronics analyzer. Get it? Lab? Bee came up with that one. Found her in a scrap yard and fixed her up. For a psychic, you sure seem surprised a lot."

"I am trying to respect your privacy. I trust you to tell me what is important."

She glances back at the big man and gives him a wink. "Stop, Nurse, you already getting laid tonight. First, though, let me get my gear and some smokes to replace those that Bee stole."

She spends only a couple of minutes snagging up a backpack, shoving the laptops in, several packs of cigarettes, a couple more cred sticks, and a couple sensors and detectors.

As they make their way back downstairs, Libby following, Eustace tenses. "I think they are here." [5]

Sure enough, coming around the alley from the direction of the street are two more Patel goons. These look a bit better put together than the last ones. The bit that upsets Hitomi is that Junya Sasaki is behind them. "Yep, that's her. No hard feelings, Hitomi." And with that he is gone. [6]

Dark woman who looks a lot like Quiet and Dark from earlier steps forward pulling a gun out and pointing right at Eustace. "Come with us. We have to talk to you about a certain mini-disc and what might have happened to my brother."

"Ah, shit," Hitomi says, because that has to be a real bad sign.

"Marius's men hit them after Hitomi gave them the disc," Eustace says, "We just got out there before this weird guy with katanas started to chop up everyone. Sorry we can't help."

Hitomi knows Eustace means Thom Marius. A rival industry-man-turned-gang-boss to Roman Patel. Interesting, Talkative and Dark seems to believe him. "Marius? The fucker is making a move?" She looks back at her red head extremely Irish looking companion and then shrugs. He takes out his gun and now aims at Hitomi, "Thanks for the heads up, but no disc makes this easier." [7]

Eustace is moving before Hitomi gets her pistol up. As he is closing the gap she has taken a bead on Very Irish and pulled off a shot. He grunts but stays up. By this time, Eustace is at the presumptive leader's side and bringing down his arm blades. She tries to throw a kick to block them but the blades catch her in the shoulder and keep going down the length of her body until she is split in two. [8]

Very Irish doesn't break stride at seeing his partner killed. He pulls the trigger and catches Hitomi in the shoulder. Then he runs up and kicks Eustace in the head. The big guy stumbles down but seems to roll pretty well with the fall. [9]

Hitomi moves forward to try and cover Eustace and despite being a bit shook-up after being shot, she manages to drop Very Irish with a headshot. She pulls Eustace to his feet. [10]

Eustace looks down her injured arm and bends forward to tear a strip off her shirt and starts wrapping her up. At the same time, she checks his head for injuries. He seems to have fared better than her.

"Will your landlords tell the cops it was us?"

"You know what, fucking probably. What the hell happened to honor?"

"We live in a city powered by tortured souls," he says, shrugging. Then picks up the two corpses and walks into the Ramen bar (the customers having already fled). A few second her and Libby follow inside. She is afraid of seeing blood dripping from everywhere but instead Junya is grabbing keys from the woman's pocket and rushing past her to hide the car while his younger brother — she has never caught his name — is helping to drag the bodies in the back while apologizing to Eustace. "I had a talk about turning armed thugs against someone who helping The Order and they saw common sense. They are going to help hide the evidence and say that a group of weirdos with rooster masks taunted the Patels here and they ran off after shooting a few shots and taking some hits. And that no, they don't know where you are. They heard you were heading down to Mexico. Or I would rat them out to the authorities. That's for betraying your trust. You need to get to their security system and hide this footage." [11]

Setting the Scene. Holy Revenge.

Before we figure out exactly what sort of scene this might be, a question: Does Hitomi know someone who might sell her a decent car | bike for $2? (Even) → [c94] No. This means they are going to have to steal one or keep taking public transportation. Let's generate some details about a place where she might steal one. [c16] has "FaithCorp Featuring Jesus 2.1" and a picture of a saw blade. [c67] has Akari as one of the names as a visual identifier of "pristine pressed clothes." [c113] has a video camera and an icon that is a virus but it also makes me think of little droids. Maybe little droids with cameras. The catalyst text is "A high-stakes wager is offered."

What was the nature of the wager? [c81] Unseal [c9] Profitable [c4] Research. A couple of image icons for this → [c13] I...don't actually know what that icon is meant to be. Ah, cannister. One more just for a bit more flavor: [c25] Dead Head.

I have some good backstory, now.

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 8:37pm.

Place: Near FaithCorp's Holy Church of Illumination. Cottage Hill, FL.

Expected Scene: Hitomi and Eustace scope out the Holy Church of Illumination — in reality just a big garage with a bunch of people ensnared by Dave Akari — and make plans to snatch a particular bike.

Scene Test: [c94] 5. 2d10 = 2 + 6. Another minor complication. [c96] A chase or pursuit breaks out. An image on that same card is a note held in place with a dagger.

Actual Scene: As H & E watch, another gang shows up and starts wrecking the place and several of the workers take off after them.

Dave Akari, 32. Street prophet and con-man. Five years ago, ran jobs with Hitomi. Eventually they were made a wager by one of Dave's contacts. If they could steal data from an Order outpost, they would get the cash they needed to set up a real shop. Turns out the data was about The GLOW's usage of recently deceased individuals to feed more fuel into the Harrowing, something The Order denies. Hitomi succeeded but Dave betrayed her while she was still coming to terms with it. They money he made from that deal ended up funding FaithCorp, his "rehabilitation for sinners" for-profit church. It engages in a lot of shady dealings with unhoused folks, recovering addicts, prostitutes, and other people that The GLOW grinds under its massive feet. Only, he turns their guilt into his own wealth.

The Holy Church of Illumination is a chop-shop that claims to be overcoming the sins of earthly possessions. Stolen vehicles are brought and broken down as "penance." Dave sells off vital parts to a number of buyers. And, if one of his parishioners drop dead, his contact from five years ago has a particular use for them.

Hitomi has never quite gotten over the betrayal, both emotionally — it was a shock and Dave was like a big brother to her and taught her several of her skills — but also financially. She has curtailed doing any big jobs again and ends up spending a lot of her cash helping out others to make up for past actions.

Not only should there be a lot of vehicles here, but she wants Dave's own custom bike.

Is Dave in this time of night? (Even) → [c100] No.

What time will he back? → [c92] The arrow is pointing to the "2," essentially. {am | pm} → pm. This means he has night and morning managers.

And I finally get to use Augmented Reality. The rival gang that shows up for the Illumination group is the 50 Panzer 62 Killaz. They are 67 Rag-Enshrouded, 15 All-Female 31 Chromers who 50 Target Small-Fry fixers and gangers and steal their shit to sell. I think that explains it pretty well.

The Holy Church of Illumination. Chop Shop for the Burnt Out followers of JesusCorp.

Holy Revenge

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 8:37pm.

Place: Near FaithCorp's Holy Church of Illumination. Cottage Hill, FL.

"The Holy Church of Illumination," Hitomi explains while her and Eustace — and Libby — watch from the rooftop of an abandoned movie theater. The sign on the marquee reads BAT LE AN EL. "JesusCorp bought out the whole block and now his holy rollers drive out most everyone else."

"True believers?"

She takes a drag on her cigarette and points out the drifting Soulburn. "Pretty dumb to not believe."

Eustace keeps mum. He knows that she probably sees a gentle neon after-image. To him, the city is Soulburn. Reality is the fuzzy bit. The emerald lines of psychic threads keep showing up and each and everyone keeps pointing to her. This bothers him. For lots of reasons but mostly because more and more he feels like he is being watched. He glances back behind him and wonders how long before there are fox masks there.

"Why are we here, Hitomi?"

"Mochi. Call me Mochi. My friends do."

"Fine. Same question. Why? Here? Mochi?"

"Church is run by a scumbag named Dave Akari. We ran together back in the day until he betrayed me right as was dealing with existential shit and got a lot of money out of it."

"Ran together?"

"Not like that, you creep. He was like a big bother picking up another lost girl in Little Tokyo. Half-Nigerian, Half-Japanese. We made a pair. Talked about taking down the system. Then he became the system. Got some people killed. One person in particular. Rika. She and I did run together. Like that." Hitomi sniffs. Not exactly sadly, not any more, but definitely a step in that direction. "He got too well protected for me to do much. Took enough gear from our collective stash, I spent a lot of time trying to work my way back up. Then I met Bee and took them in. Realized I could do more with money than get rich." [12]

"This is revenge?"

"Got a problem with it?"

Eustace looks at the emerald line, well beyond Hitomi's ability to even sense, as it runs through her and around her. "No. I think you are stuck with me."

"Let's see how you are in bed first. And, to answer your question: No. I mean, yes, of course it fucking is. Only the good Church is a lie. The holy rollers are all refugees of The GLOW bent into religious disciples by Dave. This particular branch is all about taking material possessions — in this case various stolen vehicles — and breaking them down to purify them of the sin of expensiveness. Dave then takes the parts and sells them on. Tosses a few bones back though the holy rollers could be paid in dog feed and still worship the man. He's Jesus 2.1. But a bunch of stolen cars means we can snag a ride. With luck, Dave's there and I can take his fancy bike he likes to show off around town."

Eustace reaches out and pulls her back right as a few bikes and decked out cars tear through the night. A group of people, maybe a dozen, dressed in strange rags like leprous penitents, ride up and jump off. Flashes of chrome show through the outfits as gunfire erupts. A few seconds later they run out carrying a sack of something — probably aether-boards stripped from top models — and drive off. The holy rollers — heads shaved, drably dressed, and tatted all over with crosses and JesusCorp versions of Bible verses — run after them, a few cars joining the chase. There are a lot more of the rollers than this new gang.

"Holy shit!," Hitomi exclaims, "I think that's the Panzer Killahs. Lesbian chromers who play at wasteland garb. They like to hit smaller gangs and steal shit. Half the fun is stirring up trouble."

"They look clearly outnumbered by the rollers."

"Means it's likely a trap. Also means we have a great chance to get inside. Watch out for Dave's security bots."

Setting the Scene. Going to Bloody Church.

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 8:46pm.

Place: First Floor of the Holy Church of Illumination. Cottage Hill, FL.

Expected Scene: E+H blast through the first floor and try to make their way upstairs.

Scene Test: [c41] 8. 2d10 = 9 + 10. A MAJOR twist. Fascinating. Let's draw three cards to work out what it might be. [c32] Reveal a tension or rivalry. "Mischa." [c1] Domestic Papers + image icon of a hand being cut off. [c29] Destroy Anachronistic Government.

Actual Scene: Expecting it to be mostly abandoned — except for the security bots — they find that a coup is underway as Mischa and her apostates are violently trying to reform the church.

This means the humans are mostly caught up in their own struggles and that there is a bit of a clock before all the stuff that Hitomi might want — a ride, information from Dave's computer — might be destroyed if they lose momentum. I won't formally "clock" it but once a couple-three failures pile up, they will essentially be out of time.

Security Bots will be confused by the action and looking for something to attack. Attack: Critical. Defense: Critical. 9 Grit Boxes. Hot Box at 3 and 7. They armored (-1 to hit) and a Walking Hazard (Gamble to attack them [in melee?]).

SCENE SOUNDTRACK: The album I will be playing while playing this scene is Perturbator's Lustful Sacraments. It seems appropriate.

The Holy Church of Illumination first and second floorplan. Also an image of what it looked like before extensive conversion into a car garage pretending to be a church.

Going to Bloody Church.

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 8:46pm.

Place: First Floor of the Holy Church of Illumination. Cottage Hill, FL.

"FUCK!," Hitomi screams as she pulls back her head just in time to avoid being splattered with blood. She had hoped the Church would be mostly abandoned after a good contingent of rollers took off after the PK. Instead, she nearly ran into a slaughter as one group of rollers is currently slaughtering another group. "What is this shit?"

"Schism, I guess," says Eustace coolly. The only detail he notes is that side leading the slaughter all have fresh, bloody crosses carved into their foreheads. Upside down.

"I guess it really was a trap," Hitomi says, "Some sort of inside job." As if to underline the point, a large explosion and screams can be heard coming from the direction the PKs lead the other rollers away. "Don't really fancy trying to make our way through the blood bath."

A couple of un-marked rollers take off out the door, barely paying attention to Eustace or Hitomi.

"We can just snag the nearest vehicle and try to go."

"No, I want to see if I can get to Dave's office. Might have some vital intel."

"Climb?"

"Think we can?"

Eustace looks up and shrugs. He extends his blades and starts punching out handholds and going. He's not super quick with it, but he is making his way up. [13]

Hitomi watches him go at a snail's pace before going, "Fuck it!," and starts climbing after him. "Libby, go and hide yourself and only come out when I ask, got it?" Libby lets out a small mechanical bark. Within a couple of seconds she has climbed past Eustace and smashed open a window. She turns to help him up. [14]

As they are setting foot on the carpeted inside, they hear a high-pitched whine as one of the security drones' flechette launcher warms up and dive behind a table as sharp, thin projectiles embed into the old wood. The room they are in is a conference room and looks out of place in the overall decay of the region. Luckily, the table is thick enough to take a few hits. Unluckily, more of the bots are entering the room. They look something like crabs with a tall column for a head. At the top of the column is a camera. To either side is flechette launchers. Pincers can detain a trespasser if they can grab you.

Eustace leaps over the table to go after the first one and manages to slice through the metal but in the process takes a cut along his arm. Hitomi stands up and starts aiming for the cameras and takes out a couple of control units at the top of the bots closest to her but another hits her in the leg with a flechette. [15]

The four bots in the room now open fire with a stream of blades. Hitomi works to dive behind the table while Eustace snatches up a chair to block. Neither are completely successful as blood is dripping from Eustace's chest and Hitomi has been hit in the side. [16]

Eustace reaches out his hand and psychically shoves one bot into another with enough force to cause all three to explode. Hitomi tries to shoot down the last but mostly keeps it distracted. [17]

As the remaining bot swivels its busted out camera head, a red light starts flashing. A high pitched beeping speeds up as it nears a self-destruct sequence. Hitomi braces for the explosion but Eustace leaps forward and kicks the bot back out the door. An explosion shakes the building. [18]

"Are we having fun yet?," he asks as he helps her up.

"This might too much fun," she replies.

They make their way into the hall and see the explosion has damaged the floor. Shouts downstairs can be heard through cracks showing a bit of the workshop floor below. It can still hold, maybe, but it will be a bit of gamble. [19]

Eustace goes first, again. He makes it across but the boards make a cracking noise. Hitomi looks and takes a few light steps over and tumbles to the other side right as the floor gives way and falls down. Based on the shout, it took out one of the combatants. [20]

"Come on, Nurse. We have to find Dave's office before the crowd downstairs comes to investigate." Luckily it doesn't take her long to find Dave's office. "Block the door!" Eustace has enough to drag some heavy furniture across to seal the door. Voices are shouting outside as some people have found the wreckage in the floor and the smashed bots. [21]

Dave's office is a lot like most pastor's offices, only a bit more neon and garish. The nude photos of bald men and women take on a flavor in the strange lighting. Hitomi looks down at Dave's desktop computer. There might be a lot of good information on it but time is short. "We need to get out. Can you carry that?" Eustace nods. She aims her gun at the window and shoots out the glass. Then she runs up and leaps out. Eustace follows her.

Both hit the ground, Eustace takes a bit of the brunt of it while holding up the computer tower. Hitomi rolls with the fall and is up and running back around to the front of the building. Now that slaughter has finished and the strange apostates are upstairs trying to find what caused the explosion, she has a brief window to actually grab a vehicle. [22]

She leaps on a red motorbike. "GET ON!," she shouts at Eustace. He gets on behind her, still holding the computer. She pulls out into the alley and whistles for Libby. The mechanical dog runs up and attaches itself to the back of the bike. They ride off into the night.

They can hear other vehicles leaving the church but for a moment they have some freedom of movement. [23]

Setting the Scene. Resting Up.

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 10:26pm.

Place: Room 1217 of Rest+ Motel. Outside Pensacola.

This is a Time Out so no scene test.

Factions are fun in cyberpunk. We have the JesusCorp Holy Rollers. The Apostates. The unknown Dave Akari associate. The Patels. The Mariuses. The Panzer Killahs. Some are working together. Some are against one another. Should give me plenty of meat to chew upon for the next shot or two.

Overall, though, it is time for a Time Out.

SCENE SOUNDTRACK: You can play whatever sexy synth music you want, but I will go for Veno's "Midnight Lu Rou Fan" for a nice sexy love song about dealing with late-night horniness with some nice spicy pork and bok choy. Wink.

Time Out #1

Hitomi and Eustace get both of their grit back.

Eustace uses one of his actions to Heal Hitomi. She loses the Nervous condition.

Hitomi's first action will be to try and get into Dave's computer. Crime + Fix +1 Help from Libby = Double Critical. Excellent roll. She will start off next session finding all the information she wants to find.

Eustace's second action will be to Fix the bike. He gets a Critical. Enough to have up to "Standard Bike Quality" but not enough to really improve upon it.

Hitomi will then spend her second action going investigating in the aethernet. She's going to try and find a job. Focus + Streetwise. Critical + Basic. Likewise, she will have a good lead for the next session/shot.

For the general handling of themselves and working together the last couple of scenes, two adrenaline for each.

Now for the scene itself.

Rest+ Motel. Near Pensacola.

Resting Up.

Date: Thursday, May 30, 1996.

Time: 11:26pm.

Place: Room 1217 of Rest+ Motel. Outside Pensacola.

After working on the bike — he's already calling it the Red Devil — he re-enters the motel room and sees Hitomi hunched over two laptops and Dave's stolen computer, furiously typing across all three. A half-dozen cigarettes tell the story of a battle she has been having while the smile on her face tell the story of her winning. A seventh cigarette is in her mouth and she seems oblivious to his presence. The air is thick with smoke and opens one of the windows just a crack to let a few atoms of oxygen in.

"Shower," he says and she gives a little wave.

Five minutes later, he is washing some of the blood off his chest when she steps into the shower with him. He has a moment where he feels his heart rate increase for an unexpected reason. She has a tattoo of a fox clearly visible on her thigh.

"Why the fuck is it so cold?," she asks.

He says nothing as he leans forward and turns the heat up, keeping an eye on the tattoo and wondering when paranoia is not paranoia. Hitomi groans contentedly as the now hotter water works the kinks in her sore muscles.

"Did you get into the computer?," he asks and she shushes him. Hands him the bottle of complimentary shampoo.

"Sponge bathe time, Nurse."

Working up a lather, he starts washing her hair as gently as he can. She leans back into his arms. He feels her hands come up and start stroking his aetherware. Without reading her mind, just going on vibes, he answers the question he assumes most would have. "I can feel stuff through them ok. It's different. A whole new set of nerves. But it's not exactly missing all feeling or constantly numb or anything like that."

She rinses her hair and then turns to face him. A whole lot of possible words pass by her mouth and she once again opts for the simplicity of a long kiss. Begins feeling along his body with her hands. "I see quite a few things are in their natural state."

"The attachments are on back order from Taiwan, sorry."

"Good, I want you to feel this." She slides her hands and mouth down his body, leaving a trail of kisses. Enjoying the hardness of his muscular body. The reaction to her touch. After a few moments of very much feeling it, he reaches down, picks her up, and carries her to bed.

Half an hour later, the two lie nude. Finally dry. She has lit another cigarette and he is holding the ash tray on his chest. She flicks ash and lets out a little sigh.

"Hitomi..."

"Mochi."

"Ok, Mochi, I..."

"New rule. We don't say the L-word. Ok?"

"Oh, I wasn't..."

"Another new rule. We don't say that we weren't going to say the L-word. We just take it as fun and we find more fun things to do this next couple of days."

His turn to sigh. There are so many things he feels he needs to explain to her. What 91% might mean. What could happen if he goes rogue. How he refuses to read the future because he doesn't want to know. How he just wants to stay in bed with her for a week and then maybe run as hard and as fast as he can. Instead, he opts for something a little different.

"Rub right there, the ticklish bit on my side." As she does, he reaches out and shares the feeling with her. She grabs her own side and he sees her work through what it means.

"You can do that?"

"Yep, the favorite flirting trick of psychics everywhere."

They eventually get some sleep.

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

February 4, 2025

This is scheduled to go out on Valentine's Day so happy sexy times — snuggle times, just friendly times, whatever you need — for the two biggest dorks in my arsenal of dorks.

I thought about swinging the sex scene even sexier but I think that's my limit without abruptly nose-diving into corny. Just more experimentation to get the more-ness of The GLOW down. More violent. More passionate. In its way, more loving. When your friends and loved ones might die or disappear due to street violence any moment, you both put up shields around your heart but also rapidly let people in from time to time.

The "Mochi" nickname is in full lock here. Much like the Weird version, a little nickname from her mom. One she shares with those people like Yuuki, Bee, and now Eustace she truly trusts. Though she has been burned a few times so she is going through some doubts.

Originally concieved as a kind of quick half-shot to round out the first post, this one grew to have a lot of fun elements. The betrayal by the Sasaki brothers. The Holy Church. The Apostates and the Psycho Killaz. The building up of factions. Holy Rollers is very nearly a Pensacola joke. If you have ever been lectured about the nature of sin at a P'cola beach, you know exactly what I mean.

The bike was an easy grab — well, after going through a couple of rough-ish battles — because the artwork I picked and will use a bit later shows Eustace on a red bike. I thought about just starting him out with one but this way was a lot more fun. Libby the Lab is also potentially fun. I think both will be the kind of gear that needs a lot of TLC. Less a full on cheat and more part of the young-couple-on-the-run aesthetic.

The Century use, and Foodland, was a shout out to the days when Doug was a young'un. Family would make weekly roadtrips down to Century, FL to get groceries. I don't think it was a Foodland. I don't remember what it was. Looks like it is a Food Giant now. I have no idea why we would drive half an hour to get food there. Presumably it was just cheaper. Maybe they had cheaper cigarettes or something. Family would also pick up lotto tickets. I should probably work that into the next session.

Before I play the next session, I want to re-read the Outgunned rules. I think I have them around 70% down. Still a few edge cases I am fine with just ruling on to make it fun for now, but would like to try and get it right before I purposefully screw it up.

Going to experiment a bit more with including more pictures, a few "actual play" sections, and the scene-soundtrack notation. Each arc is a way for me to experiment and the trying out soloing different systems is a good time to try out a few new techniques as well. I might make an intermission post just to so some of the process.

Next time will bring in either Augmented Reality or Cities Without Number to generate a job, or two. Then after they get some cash and can actually do more than hide out, we'll work back around to the first Turning Point: rescuing Amy Patel.

MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES

Crime + Fix and Hitomi only needs a basic to disable it. She gets an Extreme so she not only takes it out but she keeps it working. Heck, she might improve its broadcast range.
In the terms of Outgunned, not enough money to count as a $1. More like spending cash to help with note keeping later.
Crime + Stealth. Gets a Critical success.
Focus + Detect with Super Senses. Gets a Critical.
Gave him +1 help this time since he knows they are coming. Only a Double Basic so he again senses them but not precise info about from where.
Like the surname, first name comes from Cyberpunk 3. Japanese Male name with a 79 on the roll.
Eustace only gets 4 dice from his Smooth + Speech but with his Silver Tongue is able to pull a Critical. Does Ecrin and Leonie just let Eustace and Hitomi go? (Bad) → [c66] NO! Ah, well, it was a nice attempt.
Hitomi, with her Gunslinger Feat, still only gets a Critical and does 1 Grit. Eustace burns another Adrenaline to get +2 along with his blades for +1. However, he loses one because of their Martial Art feat. He gets an Exceptional. This does 3 more and will finish off Ecrin. Leonie is going to get +1 Adrenaline for his turn.
Hitomi gets no successes and has two 1s. She takes two grit damage and gets the Nervous condition as per Leonie's feat. Eustace gets no successes and gets knocked down but has no 1s so doesn't seem to take Grit.
Hitomi is at -1 for her Nerves. She still gets the shot off by spending an Adrenaline.
Eustace doesn't play when it comes to taking lives casually. He burns a Spotlight to make it very clear that they will NOT remember Hitomi and instead will come up with a story about something. Anything else. A flip of the coin and he gets the spotlight back.
Rika is 23 on BORT: Cyberpunk 3.
Brawn + Stunt. Gets a Basic.
Crime + Stunt. Gets a Critical and a Basic. She's a lot better at this.
Brawn + Fight. Adrenaline to get another +2. -1 for the bots' feat. Gets a Critical but has a 1 left over. Hitomi gets an Extreme for 3 grit damage. She also has one 1 so takes one grit. Bots have 5 grit remaining and get 1 adrenaline for their move.
Both Eustace and Hitomi get Double Basic to reduce Grit loss to 1 each.
Eustace spends a spotlight and uses his psychic push to damage the bots, doing 3 grit (down to 2). The bots get another adrenaline. Hitomi only gets double basic so we'll give her and Eustace a bonus on the reaction roll. Coin flip gives back the spotlight.
Bot is going to self-destruct. We'll play it like Grenade but reduce damage to Critical to represent Hitomi's help. Brawn + Stunt for both. Eustace gets a Extreme and manages to kick the bot into the hall, where it explodes.
Did the explosion damage the floor? (Even) → [c88] Yes? We'll say it is holding up enough but it's a gamble. Literally. A failure will result in the floor giving out and the person falling below.
Eustace gets Double Basic but no snake-eyes. This worsens the condition so Hitomi needs a Critical. Spending adrenaline, she gets a Critical + Basic. She makes it just fine.
Crime + Awareness + 1 help for knowing how Dave works and also spending a lot of time around her dad's church. Critical + Basic success, again.
Eustace gets a Basic and takes 2 grit. Hitomi gets a Critical.
Are the apostates going to give chase? (Bad) → [c50] No? They are, kind of, but for now not the best.

CREDITS

Other sources used include:

Zach Best's Universal NPC Emulator.
Cesar Capacle's Random Realities
Kevin Crawford's Cities Without Number
Matt Davis' Book of Random Tables: Cyberpunk 1, 2 and 3.
Geist Hack Games and Paul D. Gallagher's Augmented Realities.

ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION

I've been keeping the in-joke of a new Libby the Lab in the back of my head for a while. A War Tech dog made by Moment Labs. Now a different sort of lab capable of chemical and electronic analysis. Kind of a Doctor Who K-9 figure. But ragged and prone to breaking down. Which is possibly a very Doctor Who K-9.

The map (aka the real world map you can see in the grid) is provided by the Alabama Department of Transportation. I used to love getting the Alabama road map every year. Like, love it. I had stacks of them when I was younger. It made my heart a bit glad to get to bring that use one again.

The image of Hitomi's apartment in "Little Tokyo" is uncredited on Pixabay. I'm trying a slightly experimental way of showing a glimpse of how someone like Eustace who can see details and shapes in the Soulburn might see the world. That take is around...80% correct. The idea is that he can make out the general details just fine, and finer details as he focuses, but the edges get lost a bit as the Soulburn actively seems to be trying to communicate with him.

The image of The Holy Church is by digital designer from Pixabay. I played around with the technique more to try and find slightly different vibes in the same style.

The "good enough for a couple of scenes" floorplan of the church is actually the First Baptist Church in Madison, IN. I've warped it a good bit because, again, we are seeing a lot of this through Eustace's eyes. The main requirement was a church with a large ground-floor open area and I got it right in one.

The image of Rest+ Motel is by StockSnap from Pixabay.

Taxonomy and Technical Data

World: The GLOW

Campaign: The GLOW

Arc: 1996 Psychic Eustace Delmont

Post: Episode 2 - Gathering Supplies

Dates Played: February 2-4, 2025. Though February 2nd was mostly about playing around with the art style.

The GLOW 1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont, Episode 1 - Psychic Boy Meets Hacker Girl

By Doug Bolden

On 2025-02-09

In Actual Play, Gamemaster Apprentice Deck, Multi-Phase, Outgunned, Solo Campaigns, The Glow

Special Agent Jani Blum, aka "Johnny Blue," aka "Demontongue," has gone off the grid. His long-term psychic partner — Eustace "Nurse" Delmont — has therefore graduated from Psychic Agent Liaison to potential Field Psychic. He is taking his Walk: a brief respite from active duty, to try and figure things out for himself and to solve one last piece of unfinished business.

The Bleak + The Pearl Part 23: In Search of the Harcuram Mantle, Session 1 [Shadowdark + SoloDark] [Offline Recap]

By Doug Bolden

On 2024-12-29

In Actual Play, Recap, ShadowDark, Solo Campaigns, SoloDark, The Bleak and the Pearl

A light blue and black artistic rendering of a photograph taken at a cold Norwegian beach.

Original image by IdaT (Pixabay). Alterations by Doug Bolden.

Previously, on The Bleak + The Pearl...

The Blue Delve Boys have returned from the Everburning Forest, exhausted and recovering from injuries. Meanwhile, Gryffin Grunkheart has decided to throw his lot in fully behind Cal and has gathered up a group of unlikely heroes (well, hero-ish). One each from the other four families who, centuries ago, worked with the Grunkhearts to build the original Lighthouse. A strange "ninja turtle" named Boris who consideres Gryffin to be an old-brother-by-way-of-soul has also joined. This group, the "Lighthouse 6" are traveling to the northern most islands of the Gray Channel: Isles of Andrek. One of the fuel stone relics was taken there over 250-years-ago, though the person who took it never returned.

About The Bleak + The Pearl

The Bleak (Barthus) and The Pearl (Silt) are large twin islands. Once home of an Ancient Empire that fueled its machines and miracles by tapping into the primal forces found upon each (Becoming and Being, respectively). Two thousand years after the fall of the Ancients, the Barthic Empire that grew up in its place (one of many over the years) faced its own cataclysm as The Bleak (the corrupted version of Becoming) spread like a disease. Those who stayed were subjected to rapid mutations and strange changes: their own bodies warped into monstrous forms as even the land lost its sanity. The last great project of the Barthic Empire—The Lighthouse—stopped the Bleak from overrunning the city of Grunce. Then its creator, Jonias Grunkheart, disappeared.

Three hundreds later, a decendent of Jonias Grunkheart has gathered a band of unlikely heroes and seeks to train and hone them to protect the future.

Content Warning: Fantasy Violence, Occasional Body Horror.

This post is in RECAP style. See the about page for this blog for more details. The system used to play this is ShadowDark by Kelsey Dionne and the Arcane Library with SoloDark (same) acting as the oracle.

Part 23: In Search of the Harcuram Mantle, Part 1

A Few Quick Notes

Reminder, see Intermission #5 (A { Short | Mid | Longish | Un- } Hiatus from the Mainline Plot) and Intermission #6 (New Icons, Learning Rolls, and Meet the Lighthouse 6) for the speediest catch-up to why this so different from the previous session.

Basically, the four main characters—aka the "Blue Delve Boys"—have a need for a month or two of rest and relaxation and learning/honing some skills. Meanwhile, Cal and Gryffin Grunkheart have formed a kind of Suicide Squad-esque band of misfits from the original five families (plus a fairly literal Ninja Turtle) to try and finish up some quests and to find new allies (and new treasures) to support the cause.

That's the in-universe story. The in-real-life story is I have usually between three and four campaigns going at all times and as much as I love them all, and especially love The Bleak + The Pearl, I need a campaign that allows me to focus on less creative writing, roleplay, complex plots, and complex mechanics. I need a campaign that uses different parts of my brain while giving me the freedom to zone out a tad more. This was the original intended purpose of The Bleak + The Pearl but over time it drifted and crossed over with other campaigns and was losing its distinction pretty hard (while also being a great test bed for a lot of style and element changes). For now, though, I am hard resetting back to its origins. At this point, I am unsure if the series will transition to the old format or not.

The way I am playing this version has five parts:

(usually) A pre-built dungeon/module [a few fun exceptions will crop up]. Thanks to the way that the majority of Shadowdark dungeons are written, it is kind of easy to play them room by room without much in the way of spoilers. I will make some changes—from fairly slight to fairly large—to the content as written to add in history and elements of the campaign.
A Google Document where I write a fairly rapid version of my gaming journal. Like all my journals, it will vary from time to time in how much focus is spent but the overall idea is for very few elements to take up more than a paragraph or two (as opposed to others where encounters can take pages of dialogue, tables, and oracles).
A GIMP file (see the downloads is you want to get an idea how it might work) that has maps locked into place (maps from the pre-generated dungeons in the module), a "fog" layer, a metric ton of labels and tokens (tokens taken from Games-Icon.net from various creators), a torch item to help figure out where to disperse the fog, and then a layer's tab with many notes.
A Google Slideshow that allows me to keep up with the character sheets in a fairly compact way.
A copy of Shadowdark with SoloDark.

These recap sessions for The Bleak + The Pearl "Season 2" adventures will make the actual-play-journal a download but they are not exactly complete. Some dice rolls are just summed up instead of written down in detail. Some stuff is actually coded on the GIMP file. Some stuff will change previous sections so the final version reflects the status at the end of a session, not a live look at everything. Especially with the map where doors or tunnels or characters that played a big part might not there in the shared variation because of things that happened.

I am going to call this style "Offline Recap" since the idea is that I am sharing my session's final state but unlike something like The Bloody Hands where you get a pretty flow-readable set of actual play notes that show changes and updates while retaining the original, these are much more Doug's constant working document rather than Doug's pretty showing document.

The Mantle Is Lost

Elude Harcuram spent many years working with Jonias Grunkheart by providing the paperwork and legal services that arose during the construction of the Lighthouse. For this service, Jonias granted Elude one of the fuelstone relics used to start and manage the Lighthouse initially. This was the Elude mantle.

As the years passed, and it became clear there was a flaw in the Lighthouse that would require a miracle to fix, Elude passed on and the new House leader was his son Adren. Adren upheld the legacy of Elude at a fairly steep personal and family cost. Finally, after Jonias disappeared, each of the four families agreed to take the relics and spread them far from Grunce in case someone else was able to finish the Lighthouse. Adren took his father’s mantle north to Isles of Andrek, where the Harcuram House began centuries before moving south.

Adren was searching for the legendary King Skorgald Harcuram’s tomb. He did not return.

The Isles of Andrek and the Town of Valthis

Gryffin Grunkheart (Human Ranger) has gathered five others into the boat The Marius Crossbow. The ship, a galleon-class, belongs to House Marius but has been bequeathed for the personal use of Dhelia "Del" Marius (Human Swashbuckler). Besides Gryff and Del: there is Boris Loo (a Bleak-Touched Chelonian who fancies himself a Ninja), Louis Harcuram (Human Bard), Ronick Mistamere (Dragonborn Pit Fighter), and Ada Bittermold (a Witch of unknown genetic ancestry). Whether demon-kin or Bleak-touched, Ada has deer antlers and deer legs and the ability to talk to plants and mushrooms.

Cal Grunkheart had located a very old map of the Isles of Andrek in the Lighthouse library. This marks the destination Adren Harcuram had in mind but it is essentially 250-years out of date and would not be anything like acurate for the more socio-political aspects. Still, this enables Gryffin and Del to plot a course to be near the sea caves where Skorgald should be buried.

The Crossbow sails within a few miles of the farming hold of Valthis. In the spring (which it currently is) and summer, the village dedicates itself to sheep and vegetable growing. In the fall and winter, though, the fighting men and women are sent south on raids to plunder and claim. It is led by Signe. She has been troubled by a would-be Jarl Karsgald from a nearby island who—besides once betraying Signe during a raid—is slowly moving towards declaring himself Jarl over all of Andrek. Egrid, Signe's Seer, has had visions that unless he is stopped, Karsgald will bring ruin to the whole area.

Hearing reports of possible warriors from the south, Signe is intrigued. Here could be allies to join her cause or, if enemies, someone worth stopping before they aid Karsgald. She has a longboat sent out to hail the newcomers and invte them to Valthis. Gryffin accepts this offer and heads towards Valthis bringing only Ada along. Ada's appearance as a friendly young woman with deer-antlers fits his stereotype of what he hopes their stereotype might be of some sort of truthbringer. The fact that she can be a bit weird should only add to the intrigue. The plan works and both Signe and Egrid take to Ada and Gryffin.

Hearing Signe's plea, Gryffin gets swept up in the story—very swept up—and agrees to take Egrid's oath to Odin that he will defeat Karsgald. Just, first he needs to see to the mantle. Signe laughs at this. Surely having her on his side with her 200 warriors would be better than any piece of cloth. (Gryffin does not explain that this is not a piece of cloth but more like a fuelstone carving of a mantle meant to fit upon the statue of Elude Harcarum.)

He explains that his people are new to the fight but capable of great deeds. He just needs to spend some time letting them work together and finding their new potential. Signe actually appreciate this: a leader guiding his men on a quest. She accepts that it will likely be some time before they are ready to face Karsgald but she holds him to the oath. The others are brought in off the Crossbow. They have a feast that night and gather some information before heading out the next day.

DOUG's NOTE: The Marius Crossbow definitely has some crew on-board. However, rather than dealing with any kind of system where I roll encounters and such while the crew is left behind, I basically only roll encounter checks and the like if one of the main characters is on it. The rest of the time it is considered something like auto-pilot. Over time, this might change to where the crew has their own character sheets and show up on some expeditions. I just wanted to get the Lighthouse 6 established, first.

Entering the Sea Caves and the Hall of Murals

The Crossbow continues along the coast going towards where the map says the sea caves should be found. Del locate them after a few hours of sailing through driving winds. They spend a couple of hours exploring the exterior and realize that there are several entrances to the caves where water flows through (in and out, depending on the tides). After some consideration, Gryffin opts for the northern side which allows them to slightly hide the Marius Crossbrow and gives them some cover for their launch craft.

They follow the narrow tidal channel deeper into the caves until they come out into a dverg-made structure. At one time in the past, these gnome-kin craftsfolk built a suitable tomb for Skorlgald and his fellow Sea Wolves.

The tidal channel splits this initial large chamber into two and Gryffin always heads to the right-hand side first so they head over to the west.

The first site of interest they find is a place of sacrifice and a hall of murals. In the former, a bowl meant to collect blood is in a large altar. In the latter, three murals of the Nordic gods are in each their own alcove. Ada recognizes the dried blood is some humanoid—in Barthic Tongue, "human" includes humans, dwarves, elves, and goblins at least so can be confusing without context—so Gryffin has the team enter into battle readiness as they head up into the hall.

It is Ronick who realizes the relationship between the altar and the murals. His family has embodied the concept of sacrificing their body to pledge allegiance to strength. He pours his dragonborn blood into the altar bowl and then approaches Odin—they only have a vague idea of what these figures represent—so they choose a mural more or less at random. Three others join in. Gryffin chooses Loki. Del also chooses Loki. Boris chooses Odin. Louis prefers to not damage himself and so refrains. Ada is dedicated to the Willowman and will not pledge herself to another god. All those who completed the sacrifice feel just a bit stronger in various ways.

On the way back out of the hall, Gryffin spots a zombie who has shown up, attracted to the blood. Gryffin pulls forth his longbow and scores a precise shot, dropping the zombie in a single hit.

Proud of themselves, they head back into the main branch and next head to the Hall of Pillars.

The Hall of Pillars, the Sons' Tomb, Spiders, and Stingbats

Entering into a hall of four large pillars, they carvings of short, beared men hammering stone. The group does not much about the dverg history though they heard the name mentioned back in Valthis. To the north of the room is a door with carved runes in the Nord-style. Unfortunately, no one is able to read them. Not even Louis, who knows dwarvish runes. Gryffin pushes the door open, anyhow.

They find a series of alcoves with five Nords in stone coffins. Each coffin is left uncovered and the bodies inside have been decapitated and turned upside down. The group does not fully appreciate the symbolism of this act. What Gryffin does appreciate is the fact that these coffins are covered in large spider webs. He calls for the others to retreat but as he does a giant spider falls down upon him. He gets his shield up to block the hit. Four of the others back out of the narrow tomb but Ronick runs in and brings his greatsword down to finish off the spider.

The threat out of the way, they each take one of the five tombs and search to see if they see any sign of the mantle. They do not. They do, however, find a signet ring with the crest of the Skorgald can. Louis recognizes it as an old symbol for the Harcuram's before they settled down in Grunce. He pockets the signet ring.

Moving south, the party is pushing through a door on the other side of the pillared hall when a pair of stingbats attacks Ada and Boris in the back row. Even as Boris manages to fend off the attack, Ada is struck and knocked unconscious as the stingbat starts to feed off of her. Del leaps onto Ada and cuts the stingbat down but the deer-antlered witch is unconscious and fading fast. Gryffin struggles but manages to make a healing concoction and pour it into Ada's mouth which revives her enough that they get her stabilized.

A bit shaken, Louis stops and sings a song to raise everyone's spirit.

Holy Water, the Sea Wolf Skeleton, and the Tomb of the Seer

The next room they enter is a large chamber with the western walls taken up by an elaborate series of high-relief carvings. Six warriors raise their swords towards a holy woman. The holy woman has her hands cupped and full of water. Ada sniffs it and realizes it has some holy blessing upon it—something of which is not the biggest fan—but she still takes the bottle that Gryffin had used earlier to save her life and fills it with water from the cupped hands. She pockets it and figures she will use it at some later time.

To the south, the dverg-carved tomb gives way to a natural cave. To the east, someone has piled rubble and trash to block a door. Gryffin decides to clear that while he sends Boris and Del to give watch on the cave. After the stingbat attack, the group is more aware of the potential for surprise attacks.

Finally getting through the rubble, Gryffin takes Ronick, Ada, and Louis with him into the next area. This is another tomb but these corpses are shown much more honor. The skeletal remains of six warriors hold great axes while their eyes are adorned with gold coins. Three of the group refrain from disturbing the corpses just yet but Ronick is not afraid of a potential haunting. He reaches over and grabs the coins from the nearest skeleton, which rises up and starts slashing at Ronick with an axe. Gryffin screams to put the coin back but Ronick laughs off the threat and manages to smash the skeleton to bits. The dragonborn pockets the coins and says he might take more.

Gryffin squares off and the first true test of his leadership takes place. After a few minutes, Ronick concedes to follow Gryffin's orders and leaves the other tombs alone.

While this is going on, Ada has been poking the walls around the tombs and is surprised to find a secret door. It opens and the four go further north into it.

The find a monument to a seer of old. Louis actually sort of recognizes her from the family history he found, but cannot place a name. A statue of her holds a golden wand with dwarven runes reading "Welcome" upon it. Ada, after looking at the others, takes the wand. She can sense it has some magic but not exactly what. The statue luckily does not come to life. Gryffin tells them to not bother the tomb any further—especially because of the warning to not mess with a woman's corpse in these caves. This time, the unruly bunch listen and follow him out.

Meeting some Sad Bandits, More Stingbats, and Death

Going south into the cave, they run into a group of six sad bandits. The chamber the bandits are camping in is another large room once again split in half by one of the tidal channels. The bandits are on the south shore. The heroes are on the north.

Once again, Gryffin immediately greets the strangers, this time with Louis joining in. The bandits are more curious than hostile. Both groups share first names and Gryffin asks about the mantle in a fairly roundabout way, trying to hide its real value. The bandits know not a whole lot about it. Their leader saw it in the cave and went to look for it and other treasures, taking their boat, but has never returned. This has effectively stranded them inside.

While the conversation is taking place, a larger group of stingbats flies into the south side of the room and starts attacking the bandits. The heroes shoot arrows—and Boris uses his long razor chain—to give support. Before the stingbats can be killed, the currently acting leader of the Bandits, Thurgston, is struck and killed. The rest of the stingbats are beaten but this breaks the spirits fully of the sad bandits. Trapped in a cave killing them off one by one, there only hope would be to risk swimming out through the tidal channel.

Gryffin offers to come back in some hours and get them out but he needs to keep looking for the mantle. He tells them to stay alert and stay calm.

The Makeshift Ferry, The Haunting, the Longboat, and the Undead Sea Nymph

Heading north, two things occur. First: the group realizes that they are being followed by a green glowing ghost. Second: they find another tidal channel blocking their path and a makeshift raft—possibly the bandits'—caught up against some rocks and partially submerged by the water flow.

The ghost does not attack, just floats nearby, and seems as though it is more curious than hostile. Gryffin wonders if their attempt to save the bandits called up this Nord spirit who sees them as fellow heroes. He asks the others to leave it alone.

Boris pulls the raft free but it would be hard to get it out of the water and back down the cave to the bandits. Besides, they have a need for it. Using Ronick's rope and grappling hook, they set up a makeshift ferry. This way they can cross back and forth over the channel. They do this and continue north. The ghost follows them.

The next room they find is another large dverg-made tomb. In fact, it is the eastern half of the very first chamber they entered through. Unlike the previous one, which was mostly a hall, this one houses Skorgald's longboat. The massive ship was truly the vesself of a king and sits upon stands with the Skorgald/Harucam drake symbol in carved into its side and masthead. Jonias brings Louis and enters the vessel while the others wait outside and keep guard.

Inside, he finds the body of an old woman and once again does not interfere despite her having several valuable jewels and pieces on her mummified (not skeletal) body. As he leaves, the ghost that has been following hovers nearby and seems pleased they left this particular tomb alone.

Passing along the side of the longboat, they see the caves go south next to a large indoor lake. Taking this path, they come near the slain body of a sea nymph. Trying to stay some distance from her (Gryffin is very punctual about listening to that particular rumor), they still get too close. She rises as an undead nymph and attacks Gryffin. In the process of defending themselves, they have to cut her down (hiding the fact of what caused her death, a group of nords also in the caves at the same time).

South of there they find a dead end but can just make out an old door with more dverg-runes: "Wisdom is the key that will open the way." Louis brings up the wand that Ada took and she takes it out and waves it at the door. Then looks for a place to put it into the door itself. Finally, she taps it against the door and it opens up. She wanders inside and the group finds a massive trove of treasure. Massive by their standards.

Gathering the Treasure, Returning to the Crossbow, Tidal Surges, and Saving Bandits

Since part of his mission is to acquire funds for the rebuilding of the Lighthouse, Gryffin is only momentarily disappointed that this trove does not have the mantel. He goes into practical mode. They can take this and make their way back to the longboat room. Their boat is there—Borish had previously used his own grappling hook to pull it over to the easter bank where they can access it without having to backtrack—and Del can take the boat by herself back to the crossbow. Then come back and get them and they will head out for the night, find a way to save the bandits, and rest before returning the next day.

On the way back, they only run into a single stingbat—Gryffin shoots it—near the body of the sea nymph. They load up the boat and send Del off. Unfortunately, near disaster strikes shortly after.

A tidal surge causes the channel to overflow and wash everyone back before the water then sucks back into the channel. Del was too seasoned to be caught off guard but had to spend a bit mooring to the walls. The others mostly resist but Boris is swept into the channel. Luckily, the chelonian is naturally ok with water and a trained ninja. He smokesteps back onto the shore while others are calling out his name (the damage he took from being knocked over and pulled into the water took a lot out of him, though).

Del returns an hour or so later and the group heads back to the Crossbow. Gryffin works out a path to get to the bandits and picks the remaining five up. He can tell that though they are grateful, they have a certain glint in their eye and so does not trust them staying too long upon the Crossbow. Del pilots the ship a few miles east of the sea caves, opposite of where Valthis is, and they drop them off with some food and supplies.

The Crossbow crew rests for the night and gets ready to return to the caves in the morning. Over night, the strong winds die down finally.

Maps at the End of Part 23

Snippet of a fantasy style hex map showing sea caves and a town called Valthis.

Hex Map originally by Kelsey Dionne and Cameron Maas. Tokens by Delapouite of game-icons.net. Colors and labels by Doug Bolden.

Click to enlarge (etc) to see better the details recorded for this session.
Map by Kelsey Dionne. Tokens by various contributors from game-icons.net. Colors and labels by Doug Bolden. See credits for more information.

DOUG'S COMMENTS AND NOTES

This represents roughly four to five hours of playtime with the caveat that some of that time (surprisingly little, but definitely an amount) was spent making some tokens, figuring out some graphic techniques, and just generally enjoying the aesthetic aspects of my creation.

I wonder how many blog posts this would be if I kept it in the previous method. I would guess at least three, pushing four. Of course, this means scenes like the one with Signe (and possibly the one with the bandits) would have a lot more dialogue and character building. I think it is an ok trade. Some of my other series will have an entire chapter of dialogue. It gives me some different vibes and mindspaces.

Here are some some various things I noted during and after the session.

SYSTEM OF DAYS | MONTHS IS NEEDED. I have been highly inconsistent with time keeping on a longer scale throughout this campaign. I think it has gone back and forth between spring-ish, summer-ish, and autumn-ish a few times in the past couple of IRL months. For now, just to set a time and start keeping track of it, Barthus is currently in LATE ~~SUMMER~~ SPRING MONTH (FECK, I got this wrong...Winter would start with Longnight, not end. Whoops, I'll correct it next session, but this session being days 21 through 23 of Late Spring Month). I haven't a good name for the year but let's call it Crossing 301 being the 301st year since the Barthic Empire officially moved across the channel (and collapsed on the other side). The idea I am thinking is you have Spring starting [not ending which is the mistake I made during the session] on Vernal Equinox. Summer starting on Longday (Summer Solstice). Autumn starting on Autumnal Equinox. and Winter starting on Longnight (Winter Solstice). My current idea is to name the months after trees (probably using some naming generator but essentially being the equivalent of real world trees). Spring would be flowering trees. Summer will be fruit trees. Autumn will be trees with bright autumn foliage. Winter will be evergreens. After winter will be Thorn which will be a 5 day period of celebration and ghost stories leading back into Spring.

RUNES CONFUSION. When we got to the "Hall of Pillars," I took "runes" to be Nordic runes [which is correct, probably]. I rolled to see if this had been studied and got no so the characters had no idea what the runs meant on the door or on the Wand of Wisdom. When I got to the door which uses the Wand of Wisdom to open, the game text says "Dwarven Runes" (presumably Dvergen Runes). Because of this, I swapped and thought that all the runes were by the dverg builders. However, that is inconsistent with other world building in Cursed Scrolls #3. That led me to making it a bit easier than it should be to figure out that door. It was a lot of treasure, relatively speaking, but I won't sweat it too much. Had I been running this for players besides myself I would have made the same mistake and deep down having a few hundred gold pieces to blow on carousing won't run much immersion for me. The gentlest retcon is the wand and door are both dwarven but any others are Nord.

COMBAT and TORCH TIMING. I realized in the middle of this session that I had screwed up combat timing for a minute (no pun intended). Since the shift to theater-of-mind occurred, I have been very loose on timings. I slipped back to the old Dungeons & Dragons habit of treating combat as shorter round inside of the longer timing of the non-combat game. Shadowdark is "real time"—which gets trickier in solo play—but really I should have been keeping that consistent this whole time. I had to make a mental correction now that I am back to the old school style of dungeon crawling. ON THE OTHER HAND, I have been using the SoloDark recommended 10-rounds=1-Torch metric. I think I might up that to 12-rounds. Maybe. That would better match roughly an hour's-worth of gameplay to a single torch.

Going Back to Downloads for This Series

This campaign is not only going back to its original style of solo play but so are the blog entries for it. As I said above, my notes for this style of playthrough are much more a working document meets technical log than the kind of frilly back and forth style of my usual write-ups (which are like a slightly rougher blog post with a lot of asides).

In other words, I will once again share some of the maps and text notes as downloads instead of trying to format them into a blog-first-like presentation. This way people get to see a fuller take on my various play methods.

Actual Play Downloads

NOTE: the actual play document contains material that is not mine with a lot of material that is. Direct passages from Cursed Scroll #3 has been copy and pasted [usually in a player-facing way]. The maps come from that document with colors and labels added. The tokens used for characters, mobs, and features are taken from games-icon.net and various contributors. See Credits for more details. Just note that downloading these files does not grant any additional permissions to use the parts not original to myself.

I plan to fix this better in the future with credits baked right into the documents but these files were made without it and it would take a lot of time to start editing it in now. I apologize in advance. I try to be big on giving credit, here.

PDF version of "2.1 Searching for the Mantle, SESSION 1"
Notes pretty much as I wrote them while playing representing the "final state" of the session (some things might have changed and updated, but those details are lost to time like a WordPerfect file on a 3.5" floppy).
XCF (GIMP): "Isles of Andrik Hex Map SESSION 1"
Not a lot happened on the hex map but just in case you want to see the very basic set-up.
XCF (GIMP): "Sea Caves and Tombs with Colors SESSION 1."
If ever wanted to see the kind of steps you might take to turn the GIMP interface into a personal VTT, this is probably the file.

I should probably do a fuller write up of that last one.

CREDITS

This campaign is played using Shadowdark and the solo rules from SoloDark. Both are by Kelsey Dionne with various others contributing art, etc.

This session is played using materials from Cursed Scroll #3: Midnight Sun including the Sea Caves map used for the main adventure, the text from the "Hoard of the Sea Wolf King" adventure, and the Isles of Andrek used for the hex crawl. "The Hoard of the Sea Wolf King" and all maps used in it are by Kelsey Dionne. Used here for personal use. The hex crawl, including Valthis (etc), are also creations of Kelsey. The hex map cartography is by Cameron Maas.

All references to The Bleak, The Lightouse, Grunkheart, Grunce, Harcuram, and other stuff more directly related to the campaign are by me, Doug Bolden, and are a byproduct of months of playing. Those elements are free-to-use if you want. I honestly do not mind.

I have used GIMP to add colors and notes to the player-facing maps. I still do not own the maps. Be good, please. Better yet, get your own copies from the Arcane Library. They are a good company and this is a great game.

The tokens used in the map are from game-icons.net and were provided by that website for use under Creative Commons CC-BY License 3.0. Contributors used include Carl Olsen, Cathelineau, DarkZaitzev, Delapouite, GamerAce135, Lorc.

The image used to make the splash art is "Waves, Beach, Norway" by IdaT provided under the Pixabay License. As usual for Shadowdark themed posts, I use GIMP to reduce the image down into two-colors and then pick some pleasing-to-me combination. Intended as flavor rather than a precise representation.

The images of the maps from this session were created by myself using GIMP and a mixture of the above resources. Shared here only as demonstration.

A lantern with arcane images glows brightly, casting those images on a brick wall.

The GLOW 1996: Agent Johnny Blue - Chapter Six and Finale [Tricube Tales Solo] [Multi-Phase]

By Doug Bolden

On 2024-12-24

In Actual Play, Multi-Phase, Solo Campaigns, The Glow, Tricube Tales

The original arc finale. Johnny Blue and the werewolves enter into the other-space at the core of the Grove and confront a descent into the abyss. Even with enhanced physical powers and regeneration, will they be able to survive the final trial? Agent Johnny Blue also faces the fact that he might just very well have to tell the truth for once.

A woman in a yellow robe washed a bloody knife in a waterfall.

The GLOW 1996: Agent Johnny Blue - Chapters Four and Five [Tricube Tales Solo] [Multi-Phase]

By Doug Bolden

On 2024-12-17

In Actual Play, Multi-Phase, Solo Campaigns, The Glow, Tricube Tales

Johnny has made contact with the werewolf pack and it has gone exactly as poorly as he expected. However, his growing powers are intriguing to Macy Maron who increases her advances upon Johnny. He teams up with the werewolves to explore The Blue Sky Grove - the strange heart of The GLOW - and finds the mystery is worse than feared. A powerful adversary is attempting to bend all the rules.

The Bleak + The Pearl Part 22 - Down into the Past [ShadowDark + SoloDark] [Multi-Phase]

By Doug Bolden

On 2024-12-16

In Actual Play, Multi-Phase, ShadowDark, SoloDark, The Bleak and the Pearl

A strange gallery with pipes and grates and a painting hanging from the ceiling.

Thanks to mockupsgenius on Pixabay.

Previously, on The Bleak + The Pearl...

Battles with rust monsters and avoid a lot of poorly functioning automatons have driven the heroes to take a certain "backdoor" into the second layer of Jonias Grunkheart's lab basement. The lab has been reactivated causing changes through the Everburning Forest, but the heroes continue to dig for a single item: something that allows them to control the librarian back at the Monolith.

About The Bleak + The Pearl

Three hundreds later, four heroes—Grusk Obe (Half-Orc Fighter), Inar Gale (Halfling Cleric), Spotted Tom (Goblin Thief), and Rance Uffolt (Human Mage)—are on a journey across The Bleak, risking sanity and their own existence, to try and save The Lighthouse: the last great act of Jonias Grunkheart. A piece of reclaimed Ancient technology that can bring balance to the out of control forces.

Content Warning: Fantasy Violence, Occasional Body Horror...

This post is in MULTI-PHASE style. See the about page for this blog for more details. The system used to play this is ShadowDark by Kelsey Dionne and the Arcane Library with SoloDark (same) acting as the oracle.

Part 22 - Down Into the Past

The team has rested up which allows them to regain all Luck and relearn all failed spells. HP back to full. Other supplies are running lower. Outside of magic spells, Tom only has 15 arrows remaining. There are only around 3 torches and a couple of bottles of oil left to the group. Both Rance and Inar have Light magic so that should not be a problem but only a couple more days of rations remain. There is a caravan at the edge of the forest that has some resupply materials, but it will take about a day to walk back out.

In other words, the next time the team is forced to rest it will be understood that they are having to semi-abandon the mission and return at least to the forest entrance.

Now on with the show...

Map by Dyson Logos showing the rooms of the second basement layer of the lab.

At this level, the lab is around 60% based off of Elizin Urnlight's original research station. The walls are metal now (and not rusted). The slightly more primitive glow globes are more highly refined. Conduits are less a magical restructing of the Ancient Technology. The visual cues are more like a space station than a fantasy outputs. There are beeps and bloops and flashing lights in the walls.

This was Jonias Grunkheart's goal (before he found out about the portal and activated it). To get to this station and to reclaim it. While the upper three levels are varying degrees of a sales pitch, this was for the true believers. Of which he only ever had a couple.

There is a sense of worship and loneliness, here. A place meant to be the start of a revolution, the start of a reclaiming of the land. Largely unused besides for Jonias's own personal collection, there are not many automatons on this level. 1-5: Empty (besides given), 6-7: Hazard, 8-9: Treasure, 10: Automaton (1:6 chance of being burned out).

Like the previous map, a few basic notes and ideas are given below with specifics left to dice rolls and oracles on a per room basis.

B7: The Entrance

Meant to be the gateway to the whole proper lab, this room is a bit of a show-off. A plaque dedicated to Elizin Urnlight faces folks who enter into it with running water flowing down the walls (currently happening, though the water is a bit sluggish due to not being filtered in a long time). Lights are insight and bright. A few empty plants once held plants, now only very dry dirt and stems. A manifesto of Jonias's vision is written on the northern wall.

B8: The Gallery

This small chamber has a series of Jonias's last paintings, each depicting idyllic scenes of his youth and his interpretation of what Ancient Society should be like. The lighting is gallery like and there benches to sit in the cramped space.

B9: The Study

Here is one half of the actual destination for this whole trip. His personal diaries (early ones written in mid-Barthic, later ones written in Ancient) lay out his plans. Blueprints for expansions to the Lighthouse and the Monolith are detailed on these shelves. The Ancient technology has protected much of the paper but it is way too much carry back more than a few pieces unless significant space and care is taken.

In his desk are a series of talismans that will act as badges for automatons (incuding the librarian). Upon them is written a command word in both mid-Barthic and Ancient. This find, alone, is worth 3xp.

Unlike most of this floor, the light is less sophisticated. Jonias purposefully used lighting more like his own time's technology. The oil lamps are long sense broken down.

B10: The Research Library

There is a key in B12 behind one of the paintings to open this else DC18 to unlock this door.

Hundreds of volumes in Ancient and mid-Barthic writing cover an extensive catalog of Ancient technology. Many of the concepts are so advanced that even passing a successful DC21 INT check to get a grasp of what they are saying is unlikely to lead to much information until years of study are spent rebuilding the concepts from the ground up. Again, very bulky to carry more than a few pieces out and care must be taken once the protections of this level are left behind.

B11: Storage closets

Partially filled storage bays with a variety of bits of Jonias's life and early automaton designs.

B12: Jonias's Bedroom

Here the sense of loneliness is most evident. Jonias has a mere cot in one side of this large room where he slept. Boxes of art supplies, scattered journals, and adventure books written in mid-Barthic are scattered in the room. A sink with more sluggish water and some basic toiletries are to a side. A few paintings of personal interest hang on the walls. Behind one, DC18 DEX to find a strange hatch. DC21 INT to solve how to open it. It leads to a planned future extension to this layer that was never used besides as a kind of personal meditation space. The intervening room is more of his personal effects. Most have long since decayed, not being built of materials to survive the long years despite the lab.

Jonias has left his own talisman, slightly more advanced, here. There is also a key to B10 in the effects. DC12 to find.

B13: The Bedrooms

Three bedrooms intended for the inner circle. Only the middle one shows much use. Each has built in toiletries and storage. The northern and southern ones have a distinct "untouched" feel.

B14: The "Living Room"

Metal boxes in the south have recreational equipment. A kitchen area and dining tables are here, both more suited to an away camp that any sort of upper class enjoyment. There are spaces to work out and large pots contained small trees and a fountain. The fountain has been reactivated, but the trees are long gone.

B15: Automaton Workshop

Where Jonias worked on his automatons. A few repair jobs are spread out on long tables and some experimental designs are evident. Posters and sketches show the gist but INT DC18 to make any sense of them. Detailed sense enough to actually repair and rebuild the automatons would only be possible after detailed study time is taken. The cart tracks come down here and then turn up into B16.

B16: The Mining Station

The room to the left contains the basic control from the mining cart automatons. The room to the right contains equipment for digging out the fuelstone from the mines. The cart tracks come from the south and then head left towards the mines.

B17: The Mines

This goes on for much longer than showed on the map. This was the source of much of Jonias's fuelstone and involves years of digging and expanding. A few mining automatons have been left down here to gather supplies while Jonias is "away" but most of those have long since ceased to function. 1:6 that any are still moving. Piles of fuelstone will have been brought up and filled 2d6+2 worth of cart automatons.

The four heroes make it down into the well lit second level and begin looking around. The room they are in is fair sized with a tall roof. The walls look to be some sort of silvery metal on the light side. It has aged really well. Long tables are layed out, here, some of which have parts and even fuller pieces of automatons. Grusk brings out his axe. Inar starts to touch one of the handss but Tom slaps the hand away. [1]

"Looks like someone was destroying them," Inar says.

Grusk replies, "Good."

Rance notes some diagrams engraved in some strange paper [he does not know plastic] or directly on the metal. Looking at it, none of the notes make sense. "Maybe they attacked Jonias, too," he ponders. [2]

"Whatever happened, I don't think we're going to find the passkey the Golem needs in this room. Let's search around," says Tom.

The team first moves into the north room following the tracks. Here they glimpse at the mines going off into darkness and turn back with very little hesitation. Everyone is tired and a few near death experiences have definitely taken it out of them. The find a room full of mining tools that are in great condition. A few of them might actually be highly valued and Grusk grunts and takes a couple to hand to Inar to carry back in his backpack. [3]

Moving south and following along the hallway, they mostly say nothing and just stair. The area is...strange. Opulent. Very much in the mid-Barthic style. Paintings. Tapestries. More diagrams. Throw cloths. Some dusty and dry decay. More than that, though, there is a sense of a lonely clubhouse.

"There are games. Books of philosophy. Unplayed. Unread. Ash trays that have never seen a bit of ash. Whatever Jonias was doing down here, I don't think it happened," says Inar, taking it all in, sound sad for once.

"Or it worked too well and he was not here to enjoy it, I...," Tom is cut off by the loud sound of rushing water pouring through the room. The four brace with Inar hopping up on a bookshelf. Gurgles and burbles are all around. Rance even starts summoning forth an Acid Arrow. The sound goes on for a minute and then begins to subside. [4]

"Ok. That's our sign. Keep moving, I need beer," Grusk says. Heading south. Tom goes with him. Rance and Inar stay to investigate the doors to the east.

Each of the rooms has the same sense of loneliness and isolation. Beds of a strange design [more like the bunks on a space ship than anything the adventurers would have seen] are centered with cabinets, a study table, and cisterns full of dusty water. Toiletries in the back are essentially unidentifiable as advanced indoor toilets. A spigot from the ceiling provides a shower. Again, neither Rance nor Inar have any idea what they might be looking at. They poke through the bedding, touch a few knobs (Inar jumping back as slush tries to splatter him) and mostly come away empty handed. Except for a single potion bottle that Rance finds in the southernmost room's corner. He cannot tell what the potion is so for now pockets it for future study. [5]

The other two have found another chamber. Going inside the unlocked door, they take a moment to realize they are seeing not just some random junk room but the spot that Jonias lived by himself. A cot on the floor for a bed. Storage boxes for furniture. Many paintings showing pleasant scenes of people walking down streets, eating food in cafes, and riding horses across opulent gardens. Grusk, roughly at first but more gently as he understands the significance of the place, digs through things. Eventually Tom gets his attention. "Come look at this."

He leads Grusk over to one of the paintings and pulls it aside to show an odd door that looks almost like the door to burial alcove. Odd glowing stones upon it. [A hatch with code buttons that need to be solved based on an old Ancient rhyming song] "I don't know what it does but it seems important." [6]

"We'll save it for Uffolt. UFFOLT!," Grusk shouts, louder than seems necessary in the isolated quiet.

Rance comes running in with his wand up and then sees Tom and Grusk pointing at the small, odd door. Rance makes more sense of it than Tom. He presses the glowing stones which each make a chime. After half an hour he has played the correct tune and the door swings open showing a small room beyond. He nods back to Tom who goes first.

The room is even messier than the last, and feels more tragic. While the rest of this place is made of some odd material to survive a very long time, to even be repaired by the Light flowing into the complex, this room is stuff that Jonias brought from Grunce. Items of nostalgic value. Child hood toys. Favorite books. Clothes for parties. Most all of it has crumbled or broken since it was placed here. Book pages crumble into dust as they are touched. The toys crack as you lift them. However, in this room, a pair of hand models that are clearly the inspiration for the shrines hold an item each. One is a key made of the same material as the tapestries [plastic] and an amulet of some sort of the same material with Jonias's name, some strange lines and shapes, and then some writing in Ancient. "I think this is it, guys," says Rance. [7]

The other way they see more darkness and for now opt to not explore any further. They had back the way they came and find Inar waiting on the cot, patiently, thumbing through one of the books. "This is kid's stories about The Miracles of the Ancient Peoples. That's a choice for a grown man to read."

"I think he was a bit obsessed. Look at this place. It is weird. The lights are weird. The doors are weird. The air smells weird. Tastes weird. Not in the way of the cyclops weird but...," Rance opines.

"Weird," Grusk finishes.

"Now what?," asks Tom and the group debates a bit if they should push on any further.

After a few minutes of going back and forth on the pros and cons, the group decides they have what they need and there is no way they are the ones meant to be here. "This should be for Cal, he should be here. He could even make this place better than Jonias ever did!" [8]

They head back up the ramp by way of the rope they have left. Stop and eat their final packs of rations. And then make the trip back to Grunce. The city they feel more and more is their home.

Formalizing the Depths of the Bleak

In order to make it more consistent, the Bleak's shallows and such, the following system will be used to test for Encroachment.

Bleak Level 0. Jonias called these Borders. Others use the phrase Islands. Identified by the color of bone slightly stained by time. No roll needed. The most prominent example is Grunce itself and a couple of miles to either side as well as essentially all areas with a couple of miles of the Gray Channel.
Bleak Level 1. Jonias called this level the Shores. Others now say High Shallows. Identified with the color of a gray cloth sunbleached by a couple of years. D100/D20. Stretches around 12 miles around Grunce and much of the way to the Everburning Forest. Around six miles near the Gray Channel (game terms: 1 hex near the channel).
Bleak Level 2. Jonias called this The Shallows. The new term is Low Shallows. The color of shadows in a late afternoon. D20/D12. Most of the plains south of Grunce has this. Large patches of this level extended in paths out from Grunce. Around half the hexes past the first from the Channel.
Bleak Level 3. Jonias called this and Levels 4 and 5 all the same: The Deeps. Now this is identified as Upper Depths. The color of shadows at twilight. D12/D10. A patch between Grunce and the Sofron Desert registers this.
Bleak Level 4. The Lower Depths. The color of darkness in a large cave lit only by distant moonlight. D10/D8.
Bleak Level 5. The Abyss. The color of night while blindfolded in a deep, deep cave. D8/D6.
Bleak Level 6. The Black Hell. The color of sight after death. D6/D4.
Bleak Level 7. The True Bleak. No color can represent it. D4/D2.

Note: the colors are how it is drawn on certain maps or described in more literaly writings. The actual colors associated with the Bleak tend to vary greatly depending what changes it causes. it is actually not unusual for higher levels of Bleak to look oddly beautiful as plants and animals warp into new colors of the spectrum while their physionomy twists and warps into non-euclidean shapes. There are of plenty of places where colors do darken, as well. The impacts on eyesight of people undergrowing Encroachment only enhance these effects because eyes, skin, and hair are usually early markers of being altered.

For each month at one of levels 1 and 2, make the described dice rolls (if you travel through multiple layers, go with the average). A 1 on the first (larger die) represents immediate Encroachment. A 1 on the first (smaller die) represents Encroachment detected in your offspring.

This reduces to each week at levels 3 and 4.

For each half week at levels 5 and 6, do the same.

For each day in level 7, do the same.

There are no recorded Level 7s because the effect is too strong. Grunce maps do record many 4+ levels but most are beyond the trade routes of Grunce for obvious reasons.

Encroachment at levels 1 to 3 tend be relatively minor even across multiple generations though the effects worsen at each increased mark of depth. Folk living in 1s and 2s might see skin and rough shape change over a few generations (sharp spikes are possible).

For each point of Encroachment, double the time between checks. Those in the Bleak sometimes find a new true form that sustains. New generations do not get this increased time and reset upon birth. Level 7 does not increase in time. If anything, longer exposure speeds up the process even more.

For each level above 3, Encroachment is a bit more pronounced. At Level 7, The True Bleak, each Encroachment should be considered forever life altering to the point of entities impacted being potentially unrecognizable after just a few days. Entirely new species are created, and die, in patches of True Bleak all the time.

For reasons unknown, the waters of the Gray Channel, if bathed within (even if contained in barrels, etc) before the week | half-week | day is up, will reduce the chance of encroachment by 1d6 levels. If the level is reduced to 0 or below, Encroachment is entirely avoided. This is not exactly a well known fact just yet but in general civilization has found itself gravitating the places where the sea spray and availability of Gray Channel seasalt has done wonders to basically hide the effects.

For now.

Summing up the Next Couple of Days and Beyond

It took 2-3 sessions just to navigate into and out of The Everburning Forest for a number of reasons. There are a series of things that are about to happen that could realistically take 2-3 more sessions if played out:

Rance and Inar are going to stay at the lab (yes, with essentially no rations) while Tom and Grusk run at full sprint back to the tower.
Grusk is going to pay the retainers there 300gp between coins and trinkets for slightly more than half of them to travel back to the lab and set up a camp while most of the others reinforce the camp at the tower.
All four heroes will then leave together with the lab and tower both reasonably guarded.
Folks from Grunce will be sent to improve this, assuming folks are ok with traversing the Level 1 (aka, Shores, aka High Shallows). Potentially including Cal.
The four heroes will take something of a vacation fighting over spots and going on adventures while Cal gathers up supplies.

There are three chances for random encounters between the lab and the tower so we need to make 9 total rolls. The of the first three (with just Tom and Grusk). We get one. First, Grusk has made his rolls to push forward at double speed but Tom is starting to lag behind and will be at a disadvantage.

The encounter was a group of barbed nets placed by the { salamander | cultists } → salamanders. Grusk manages to avoid getting caught BUT Tom does get snagged and takes 5hp damage. Grusk starts cutting him down and they lose one hex's worth of time.

The retainers are in it for money and overall this mission is no more dangerous that some (and this is a Bleak O area so is safe to say). Rolling an oracle test to see if they accept the transaction with advantage we get 13 → yes, but only for two weeks.

Now, Grusk and Tom head back with the retainers with very little time to rest (but this time there are horses and such). Both Grusk and Tom fail their push rolls so we add another hex's loss of time.

Random encounters? None this time.

Now we are almost a day later. Inar has held up but Rance is in a pretty bad place. Even eating food he will be at disadvantage to pretty much all checks past this.

Now the four ride back out, again. Random encounters? There is one fairly close to the lab, it is... 65 → 2d6 vultures pinwheel above the PCs, drawing attention (I am using the Desert tables as being sort of the closest I got). Instead of vultures, we'll say they are ember buzzards, a species adapted to tracking decay and death in the smoke and heat. The attention they draw is { salamanders | cultists | other } → cultists. 2d6 (10 rolled) cultists show up (far enough from salamander territory that the boys will not have immediate back-up). They immediately decide to try and run hard towards the fire elemental and rely on their dragonsilk robes. Poor Rance falls from the saddle. Grusk and the others adjust and fight. Will use a very simplified fight mechanic here. 1 roll per party. +4 for the team with 1d6 damage (1hp = 1 cultist dead), with +2 for cultists with every 3 points = 1d6 damage distributed among the team. Round 1: Team gets several good hits in (5 cultists killed) and cultists get a 1 so completely fumble. They do not make their moral check and are driven off. The team does not spend any time looting the bodies, they get Rance back in the saddle and head off.

With that the team is cleared of the forest and head back to Grunce.

They are paid 1d6x100 = 100gp for their efforts. They turn over their dragonsilk to Cal and his team as well as hand over the key and artifact and get another 1d6x100 = 600gp for these major prizes.

On top of this, there are things to sell! The phoenix statue Grusk does not sell but hands over to Cal's team for future use. Grusk keeps the copper flask and fills it with good rum (-10gp). Inar gets full value for one of the fuel-stone tools and one quarter value for the other (37gp + 5sp). Tom gives the meteoric iron and the strange creature relic to Cal's group. Tom gets 95 total for the gems collected from the golems. This might have gone to Cal but I don't think he would have realized. Rance hands over the volumes of Ancient writing he found and tells Cal there are probably lots more. He keeps the egg of the cockatrice for future fun and spends 1d6x10 = 20gp to have the potion of flying identified. That goes to Tom to be stored in the bag of holding with the other potions. It takes him 2d6x10 = 120gp (!) to receive medical treatment for the damage he took due to starvation and the burns and such.

All told, this leaves the group with 1193gp worth of value accumulated over this past month or so of adventure they have been on a pretty constant run.

They are going to spend 600gp hosting a lavish party with many of the Lighthouse Keepers and friends they have met. A boat cruise along the Gray Channel for all! +3 to Carousing.

Grusk gets a 7. He lead an entire tavern and gains a bard ally (I know who the Bard will be, keep your eyes open). +4XP. +8Xp total for this session (which is actually like 2 sessions highly compressed).

Inar gets an 8. He survived a knife throwing competition. +4XP and a luck token. Since that is kind of useless for SoloDark I will say he gets a "free luck token" that can be spent at some later time. He also has 8XP for this session.

Tom gets a 5. Tom loses 10% of his wealth for starting a brawl (we'll calculate this) and cannot go back into a tavern. We'll find out which one later. +3XP for 7XP total.

Rance gets an 11! He performed a prank (probably magical) on a despised merchant. Again (this was the first time he went carousing as well, at least we know what he does while drunk, eh?) He gets another ally in the city watch that I will figure out later and finally gets +5XP for 9XP total for this session.

This leaves each of them with an average of 1193-600 = 593/4 = 148.25 and Tom loses 15gp of that. For simplicity, Grusk will carry 300gp and Inar will carry 200gp. They have the most slots. The other 78 will be split evenly. There will be some downtime shopping before the next adventure.

They still have a bit to go before Level 5 but they are all past the half way point.

And with that, the first full arc of this campaign comes to a close.

It will take around 6 months for Cal to have cracked Jonias's very codes and mechanisms and fully start integrating the lab and learning some of the final secrets left by the elder Grunkheart.

DOUG'S COMMENTARY

That was 100% "rushed" at the end but I felt it was a good time to give a needed pause to four heroes who have spent a month or more in game time gathering up things, fighting battles, and then spending around a week or more in a forest full of ash and smoke and pushing themselves through all of their supplies. If I was running a multiplayer more traditional game, I would have likely just handwaved the trip back to town. Had I played it out here there would have been a session mostly running to the tower. Then a for sure session of a starving Rance and the rest of the team dealing with a group of cultists. No doubt the team would have won but it would have been a lot of planning and challenging moments.

I already wrote some of the reasons why I sped this up a bit in the recent published Intermission #5 about why this series is going on a quasi-hiatus. Not an actual "there will be no Bleak + Pearl for a while" but the sort of one where the next two to three months in real life time will be spent doing various pre-written adventures with maybe a couple of randomly generated dungeons. There will be several new characters starting out at level 1 (including the bard, above, and I guess a new city guard member since the last one is showing up as a ranger already). A few of the fuel-stone relic quests will be included in there. All in all, though, it will be a nice time for me to take this series and take it back to its 70+% off-line roots.

Once that quasi-break of pure dungeon delving is complete, we will move into the third arc where I hope to ramp things up a bit and have quite a few squabbles in Grunce and beyond, trips to at least one other plane, trips into deeper levels of The Bleak, potentially trips to The Pearl. We got to have a proper Big Bad at some point to show up. A dragon? A powerful warlock? Jonias riding a giant fuel-stone mecha? I have no idea. I will make it fun for me and maybe, hopefully, also for you.

MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES

Scrambling down the ropes into the second layer. DC12 with rope + advantage for preparation. Grusk = Success. Inar = success. Tom = Success. Rance = he makes it! The mining cart does not detect them on the track. Room contents = 2, empty.
Rance gets a Nat-1 (crit fail) to make heads or tails of any of the diagrams, alas.
Are the tools in good condition? (Advantage) 20 → not only are they in really good condition, they have some value besides. They will give advantage on mining checks. 30gp each. Grusk and most of the rest are out of space (not time with his treasure filled bag of holding)
Random encounter was triggered while entering into B14. Since the whole point of this zone is that it is fairly hermetically sealed I just tried the Something Happens! table and got the sound of rushing water. It makes sense that the water purifiers are trying to activate and push centuries old water through filtration systems that might be a bit gunked up.
Three bedrooms are empty, empty, and treasure. Treasure is 89 = Potion of Flying (200gp). Rance gets a 5 on his ID check and does not pass.
Room Content: empty. Tom gets Tom gets the find secret door roll with 16+3 = 19 check. But his INT check is 18-2=16 which is not enough.
Rance gets 18+3 = 21 which is enough to solve the puzzle of the door. +1XP for that. Rance also figures out this amulet is the type of item they need with a INT 14+3 = 17. +3XP for having even one.
Used the old vote dice mechanic complete with its swings back and forth, essentially rolled 4d6 with 1-3 = leave and 4-6 = explore. After four rolls, more dice said to leave. It's an old classic for this campaign meant to emulate how the group often gets into debates and swings back and forth in mood. No encounters doing this time.

== CREDITS ==

This campaign is played primarily using Shadowdark and SoloDark, both by Arcane Library and Kelsey Dionne (et al).

Additional sources include a variety of things for tables, especially Knave 2nd Edition and Maze Rats (both by Ben Milton), Random Realities by Cezar Capacle, Universal NPC Emulator by Zach Best, and various pieces from Worlds without Number and Scarlet Heroes (both by Kevin Crawford).

Opening art at the top of the post is "borrowed art" meant to be invocative rather than precise to illustrating the story. Image tools to generate some of the art is GIMP and Hex Kit (featuring the Lil Hex Pack and Strange BW Hex Pack).

Photo the sort of "alien lab with a painting hanging" is by mockupsgenius on Pixabay. It seems to be their only shared art. In this case, had this not been the tail end of a two-months' long sprint through some complicated lore, lots of fight, and a whole two+ modules' worth of adventure created largely on the fly, it might have been nice to slow down and appreciate how much this final level was truly alien with its space station like walls and lighting and doors. Deep down, though, I think the team deciding to leave right away is truly what what those characters would have done. They are capable of great feats but there is a part of them that always plays it a bit safe and they take care of one another.

The map is from Dyson Logos's "Temple of the Worm" series. This one in particular (the second basement) had some sections removed [it is really obvious when you look for a couple of seconds] because there are other levels below this. In my head canon (which is also the canon of this whole series, by the way) those levels exist but Jonias had not uncovered them. When we see this lab again, and we will, it will be Cal's workshop and those levels are likely to return so some exploration can be done of Elizin's original research station. There is a fair bit of time before that, though.

The GLOW 1996: Agent Johnny Blue - Chapters Two & Three [Tricube Solo] [Multi-Phase]

By Doug Bolden

On 2024-12-10

In Actual Play, Multi-Phase, Solo Campaigns, The Glow, Tricube Tales

Johnny Blue begins his mission to learn what is flagging the psychic threads involving a werewolf pack. Macy Maron and Barlow Hendrix - the dual heads of the pack - are dangerously heavy hitters and Johnny knows there will be trouble. He visits an old friend to try and gain an edge. This decision alters his entire life as old magic meets new and reforges a destiny for Agent Johnny Blue.