I don't mean the "survivors surviving on an island" aspect, but more the "people in an unknown place slowly discovering its strange history".
Thanks.
That is all.
Bonus for any recommended or must-play mods for Thief 1 and 2 as well. It's been a while.
I absolutely love the King Raven trilogy, and it may be my favorite interpretation of Robin Hood to date. It was gritty, grounded, and fairly realistic; like the movie Defiance met the Robin Hood mythos. And, for a decidedly Christian writer, none of the religious parts felt heavy handed or shoe-horned in (its in 11th century Wales, after all. There's gonna be Christianity).
I was just wondering if his Pendragon Cycle series is comparable in tone and quality at all, and if you would recommend them based on what I liked about King Raven.
I'm trying to listen to Dork Day Afternoon's "Two Past Midnight" campaign, but I really don't know if I can tolerate the one character who talks like a stoner and says "man" after everything for much longer (and I am only on episode 2).
Any suggestions?
I miss my Socialist brothers-in-arms.
I especially enjoy stories with a Lovecraftian or horror angle to them. Shows I have enjoyed so far are:
I've also enjoyed Agent Stoker and most of the Pacific Northwest Stories shows (Rabbits, Black Tapes, Tanis, etc). Azathoth Blues should have been something I enjoyed, but it started strong and then become very meh.
Anyways, thanks in advance.
I've heard the Hemul series by Vasili Oréjov and the Shadow of Chernobyl series by Berndt Frenz are good, so I've found and translated those in Calibre. Any other must-reads I should add?
Pacific Northwest, US
Mid-90s
Agents:
After receiving "Night At The Opera" invitation flyers under their doors, the Agents meet for a briefing in a decommissioned, derelict USPS office in Seattle.
"Agent Quinn" relays info on former DG-Agent Clyde Baughman's fatal heart attack; Agents are instructed to scrub the apartment clean of any unnatural/Delta Green materials before the family arrives in roughly 48 hours.
He gives them an apartment key as well as the keys to a forest green SUV. A black duffel bag in the back contains basic equipment (flashlights, tape, tarp, crowbar, etc)
THE APARTMENT
At the apartment, they run into a reserved (if not slightly suspicious) old woman tenant, checking her mail.
When engaged in conversation, she talks about "that poor, poor man" and how she overheard the police and paramedics discussing his being dead for over a day and a half before a welfare check was called in by a neighbor. She loosely referenced how he became isolated after his wife had passed from terminal cancer the year prior. This backed up the briefing information about his cause of death, and him being a widower.
Inside the apartment, Rash discovers a silent VHS recording (copied from 8mm film) of a cult's sermon in a south Texas church. The ritual involved snakes and serpentine imagery; the preacher reaches into a wooden box, pulls out a massive, writhing python and bites into it after delivering what looks to be an impassioned sermon. Roscoe recognizes this as a long defunct cult that made small headlines the decade prior.
Discovered multiple tax records (both paper-filed and on an old Apple II computer) of a secondary property referred to as "Faraway"; a cabin 4 hours north of Seattle. Tax records are current indicating it is still in Clyde's name.
Keys with a pinecone trinket were found hanging off a cork-board in the kitchen along with flyers and a crayon drawing from a "Cassie". Raptor discovers multiple photos of a younger Clyde and Marlene in his bedroom; her eyes X'd out. He also discovered a handmade, childlike clay art-piece. He destroys it and finds 77 cents inside.
THE CABIN
After driving to the cabin, Agent Roscoe accidentally sets off a jury-rigged shotgun shell perimeter trap at the front door. Him and Raptor are grazed by the blast but the wounds are mostly superficial.
They discover bags of concrete in the kitchen next to a fire-axe. Some are half emptied. After more investigating, they find every sink, toilet, and the bathtub filled in with concrete.
Discover lots of books on the shelves, many pertaining to ancient civilizations of varying origin. Mesoamerican, Celtic, Assyrian, etc.
Raptor discovers his military footlocker under the bed. It contains Clyde's postmortem letter with the instructions as well as:
Investigated the shed and outhouse. On the way to the shed, they discover the decomposing corpse of a fox on the ground, but find nothing unnatural about it.
In the shed, they discover four 5-gallon cans of gasoline, as well as a few milk jugs also filled with gas. Other than that, it is just assorted tools and fire logs.
THE SEPTIC TANK
They investigate the septic tank. Roscoe's alertness hears a faint sobbing coming from inside the tank. The Agents attempt conversation with her where they discover she is Marlene, Clyde's supposedly deceased wife. After opening the lid, they see that her body is in a decompositional state; skin sloughing off and nails broken or missing.
Through tears, she tells them she only remembers her cancer diagnosis and Clyde being devastated, him doing some sort of "ritual" to her in their home, and then waking up in the septic tank, presumably weeks before.
Roscoe has doubts about burning her alive as per Clyde's note, wondering if he was simply a man driven insane by his time with Delta Green. They eventually decide something unnatural has happened to her and she needs to be destroyed.
They open the hatch and she seems relieved, reaching up for help, until they begin pouring the gasoline down the hatch and onto her body below.
She begins sobbing again, then stops and coldly looks at Raptor above, and mentions his dogs (his only love in the world), something she couldn't possibly know about.
She then immediately makes a preternatural leap up to the hatch opening, and begins pulling herself up with alarming strength while punching at the metal lid with inhuman strength. Rash swings the fire-axe from the cabin onto her hand, cutting off her fingers and destroying her grip, and she falls below again.
At this point, she becomes absolutely feral, screaming and growling and makes another leap up, grabbing the rim of the hatch again, and pulls herself out in an impossible, one handed maneuver.
Combat begins. In the heat of battle, many of the Agent's shots go wide.
Roscoe and Rash take severe damage from her biting and claw attacks, Rash taking a brutal bite wound to the neck.
Raptor tries to use the void-flashlight (hoping it would do SOMETHING), but to no avail.
Two shots from Raptor's pistol later connect with her jawline and mouth while the other takes out a kneecap.
Rash attempts a swing for her neck with the fire-axe found in the cabin but misses, and her dodge sends her rolling off the side of the massive septic tank. She begins running into the nearby woods. More shots are fired, but miss, and she disappears into the thick of nature.
Raptor is able to somewhat track her direction fled by blood droplets and broken branches, but nightfall is fast approaching and tracking will be impossible during the night.
They return to the cabin. While ruminating on the past few hours, Roscoe fiddles with the Rubiks cube, ignoring the warning and locking the final piece into place. A whir and click activate from within, and seconds later projectiles (large needles) shoot from every side of the cube, dealing piercing damage to everyone in the room.
Both Roscoe and Rash are reduced to 2HP, but make CON saves to fight the overwhelming urge to pass out.
Roscoe receives a call on his burner from Agent Quinn, asking for details on the operation. Roscoe doesn't speak of the Marlene encounter. Quinn then gives them an address for a nearby Green Box in a storage unit en-route back to Seattle to store the found unnatural items.
They opt to rest for the night in the cabin, switching off for guard duty during the night.
The next morning they venture into the woods having Raptor tracking, and discover Marlene's body, lifeless and presumably dead in the middle of the forest. They haul it back and immolate her in the septic tank, then remove the remaining bones.
The next few hours are spent refilling the hole the tank is set in, giving it the look of a somewhat recently installed septic tank.
As they are leaving in the SUV, Roscoe gets the feeling something isn't quite right. It takes a minute, but he slowly realizes the fox corpse is no longer there.
THE GREEN BOX
At the Green Box, they dispose of the items. As they are finishing up, Rash's alertness hears something in the distance fast approaching: The sound of a vehicle.
A single car headlight breaks through the darkness, and a mid-70s car slams into a nearby dumpster. A man in a bloodied, black suit scrambles out and removes a woman from the back seat. She is bloated and sweat covered, with what looks like a severe, abnormal pregnancy and her skin has turned a greyish color with blue veins showing through.
Not seeing or noticing the Agents, the man drags her toward the Green Box garage door, then turns around to open it, seeing the three agents of R-Cell for the first time.
He immediately pulls out his pistol, aims it at them, and says in an on-edge, adrenaline filled voice "Who the fuck are you?".
END OF OPERATION
----------
All in all it was really fun. It was also fun for me to shake the dust of my GMing (it has been a few years). One funny thing was the player who was the most invested (Agent Roscoe - he bought the Agent's Handbook and has gotten fully sucked into the lore of DG) kept rolling TERRIBLY. The poor guy most have rolled at least 30% over for half of his skill attempts.
I was wondering what others thought about this idea:
Instead of pre-assigning dozens of specific skills to non-statted NPCs, they are only given the six core attributes. If an NPC needs to make a skill check, roll a d100 against the relevant attribute score.
| 1d10 | Skill Modifier |
|---|---|
| 01. | -40% |
| 02. | -20% |
| 03. | -15% |
| 04. | -10% |
| 05. | None |
| 06. | None |
| 07. | +10% |
| 08. | +15% |
| 09. | +20% |
| 10. | +40% |
>Strength (STR)
>Skills centered on raw physical power, leverage, and manual combat.
>· Athletics (Running, climbing, jumping)
>· Swim (Powering through water currents)
>· Unarmed Combat (Brawling, grappling, hand-to-hand)
>
>Dexterity (DEX)
>Skills relying on hand-eye coordination, reflexes, speed, and fine motor control.
>· Artillery (Aiming and manual targeting of heavy ordnance)
>· Craft (Type) (Fine manual labor, mechanics, lock-picking, painting)
>· Dodge (Ducking out of the way of gunfire or blows)
>· Drive (Handling ground vehicles under pressure)
>· Firearms (Pistols, rifles, shotguns)
>· Heavy Machinery (Operating large vehicles or cranes)
>· Heavy Weapons (LMGs, rocket launchers, mounted guns)
>· Pilot (Type) (Flying aircraft or navigating watercraft)
>· Stealth (Moving silently and hiding)
>
>Constitution (CON)
> Skills tied to physical endurance, stamina, and surviving harsh environments.
>· Survival (Enduring extreme weather, tracking, finding clean water)
>
>Intelligence (INT)
>Skills that rely on logic, education, analysis, memory, and specialized training.
>· Accounting (Auditing financial trails, finding shell companies)
>· Anthropology (Studying human cultures and societal structures)
>· Archeology (Excavating and analyzing historical artifacts)
>· Art (Type) (Creating or critiquing photography, music, or visual arts)
>· Computer Science (Hacking, programming, data recovery)
>· Criminology (Understanding criminal minds, profiling, legal precedents)
>· Demolitions (Rigging or defusing explosives)
>· First Aid (Field dressing, stabilizing wounds)
>· Foreign Language (Type) (Fluency and translation)
>· Forensics (Analyzing crime scenes, blood splatters, ballistics)
>· History (Recalling past events, archival research)
>· Law (Navigating legal systems, warrants, jurisdiction)
>· Medicine (Diagnosing illnesses, prescribing treatments)
>· Military Science (Type) (Tactics, logistics, operational planning)
>· Navigate (Reading maps, using GPS, avoiding getting lost)
>· Occult (Studying human superstitions and fringe beliefs)
>· Pharmacy (Identifying drugs, poisons, and chemical compounds)
>· Science (Type) (Biology, physics, chemistry, etc.)
>· SIGINT (Signals Intelligence—wiretapping, decrypting comms, radio monitoring)
>· Surgery (Complex, invasive medical operations)
>
>Willpower (POW)
> Skills that demand mental fortitude, situational awareness, and resisting emotional strain.
>· Alertness (Spotting danger, noticing ambient details)
>· Psychotherapy (Treating trauma, stabilizing an agent's breaking point)
>· Search (Active, meticulous investigation of a physical space)
>
>Charisma (CHA)
> Skills focused on social manipulation, leadership, reading people, and personality.
>· Bureaucracy (Manipulating organizations for requisitions or cover-ups)
>· Disguise (Changing physical appearance and personality)
>· HUMINT (Interrogation, reading body language, spotting lies)
>· Persuade (Convincing, lying, or charming people to get your way)
>· Ride (Handling and commanding mounts like horses)
So, Is this a viable way to randomly determine a varying degree of skill abilities, or am I making what should be something simple into something convoluted?
Last Podcast on the Left is covering the insanity that is Count Dante, so I looked him up to see what he looked like.
My friend loves the feel and fit, and wants them for a future order, but all we can find online is a Christian apparel brand and a linens company.
You played as a pair, a man and woman, who were either a part of the underground or undercover cops. It had strong vibes of GTA 1/2 and Hotline Miami. I played a demo of it on Steam, but cannot remember too many details. I think I remember the guy having a beard and a Hawaiian shirt, and on the cover he's shooting a gun out of a car window.
Title pretty much says it all. I'm about to check out Desperation by King, but I was wondering what other good books were out there with the southwest as a setting.
Other genres are fine too; I am also a big fan of weird-fiction, sci-fi, and mysteries.