30 Regions of the Underworld

 

@urbex_34

There's no true mapping the Underworld. It is a place unstuck in spatial flux, endless in its depths and its variety.

1. Delvers' - The last homely house, the last call before hell.
2. Access Tunnels - Bare concrete, dim flickering lights, exit signs in the distance, stairs leading down. The creak of old pipes, the scurrying of rats, a dark shape turning a corner in the distance.
3. Sightless Passage - A steep, blind meander. Stones engraved with thousands of eyes that cannot see. Tokens left in piles in crooks in the walls; offerings. You must find the path with your fingers alone.
4. Filth Nest - Pools of refuse, corroding pipes, streams of shit trickling down and down. Mold, mushrooms, hot air. Beware open flames. The stink lingers on your clothes.
5. Devil's Knot - The stone is dark red, veined with oilsmear-black. Coiling passages loop back on themselves like fractal intestines. Something is down here, watching in the darkness over your shoulder.
6. The Gates - The first barrier. Great doors of celestial bronze, egraved with the names and deeds of angels.
7. Forest of Flowers - Pale blue-white blossoms glow in the ghostlight. Olms long as your arm sit placidly in their pools. Off in the distance you can hear birds like tinny woodwinds.
8. Boneway - Skeletons crushed down to yellowing grit beneath long kiloyears of travellers. A shallow descent, easy on the knees. Cracks in the walls lead out, elsewhere.
9. Eel Hollow - Narrow, slippery ledges curl around the rims of deep blue pools, filled with the pale writhing swarms of blind lampreys.
10. Scab-downs - Slopes and scree of gravel and cracked stone, rough and jagged, skin-tearing. Bottomless blue pools, perfectly circular and ice cold at the nadirs between these hills.
11. God-King's Road - Red stone, vast paving blocks, toppled statues. Knotted vines and white flowers push up through cracks in the work, slowly reclaiming it for the underworld.
12. Dreaming City - A cthonic leviathan rests here and a city was built in its dreams. It will wake eventually, but not for an age or two.
13. Lower Passage - Slower, but safer.
14. Goblin Market - There are no goblins here, not of the kind you'd imagine. But anyone can be a goblin if they're off just enough, and plenty folk are more than a little off down here. They meet at the market, wherever the market may meet,
15. Inverted Garden - High above, you can see the carefully tended groves and ponds at the feet of the ziggurats. Creatures you can't make out swing through the branches in reverse, brachiating over the abyss that eventually leads to you.
16. Narrow Gap - There is no room to breathe.
17. Empty Throne - Names carved in its base in unrecognized letters. Great galleries caked in dust, cracked and faded murals of bulls and serpents.
18. Cinder Path - Dry heat, like a blast furnace. Charcoal and ash fill the air with each plodding step.
19. City of Devils - You look to be struggling down here. Care to sign a contract?
20. The Pit - A smooth-sided borehole, wide enough that you can barely make out the other side and deep enough that you swear there's no bottom at all.
21. Sea of Towers - Stone-blue waves crash against the stone. Pillars lean under the blows of ages, many have collapsed into rubble.
22. Queen's Descent - Broad, flat steps, fit for a sedan chair
23. Deep Cathedral - Best not stay long here. Who knows what gods were praised in this church of the living stone.
24. The Slough - Stagnant black water up to your knees, crippled trees stretching for the light of false suns. The runoff of some distant hell you've yet to breach.
25. House of Hungry Doors - "In my father's house there are many doors, leading ever inward."
26. The Spiral - You already know how this goes.
27. The Black Needle - The metal obstruction must be miles long, and its torn through the caverns like a bullet. Perhaps it is. And if it is, what brought it all the way down here?
28. The Great Machine - clic tic tic clic tic tic clic tic tic clic tic tic
29. The Throat - Nearly there. One more pass.
30. The Shore of the Abyss - Black sand, black water, grey mist, off into forever.
31. The Heart in the Dark - I hear it beating, beating, just out of sight.

Excerpts from the Lighthouse Field Guide, Part 4

 

Mon

City street. Daylight filtered through smoke. A woman in an oversized sweatshirt sits atop a throne of corpses underneath the shade of a yellow umbrella. Bright red butterflies sit sunning their wings. Indistinct shouts and chaotic sounds fill background. She is eating a charred shank of meat with a human foot attached. With mouth full, she looks to the viewer and says:

[Mandarin] "The principle act of power is to devour that which cannot defend itself from power."

At ten minutes: [Mandarin] "Are you enjoying this? I'm enjoying this."

At half an hour: [Mandarin] "It's not going to stop, you know."

The video does not have any apparent end point. She just keeps eating, occasionally speaking to the viewer, and the corpse pile grows higher. Longest view time is 10 hours 12 minutes.

** 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

As always, there is no canon but what we make, and I am full of lies.

**

Stigmata of Usûn

The markings are burn-black and about the size of a thumb print. Irregularly shaped, with patches of glossy white tissue at the center. Appear most commonly on the wrists, chest, legs, neck and back, maintaining symetrical distribution. Form after close contact with certain entities (listed seperatedly) inhabiting the Middle-Deep layers of the Underworld. The Open-Eye and Closed-Eye Cults both hold the markings to be a blessing of higher powers that might be manifested into a Baroque Art through meditation and spiritual training.

The Lincoln Basilisk

Eight lithifications during the night of April 15-16, 1986, Lincoln OH. One eyewitness reports seeing "a big red snake with legs" crawl over fence into backyard, but this account was collected after local news had begun referring to the inciting incident as "the basilisk" and so the validity is disputed. Case remains open.

Small Clay Men Filled With Birds

No taller than two and a half feet, always seen in pods of 2-6. Squat, tubby, mostly featureless save the divots of their eyes. Three wide fingers, no toes, no mouths. Non-communicative, but curious and non-hostile. Irregularities in the molding make for easy identification between them. There are gaps in their outer bodies, through which one can see the fiasco of bright feathers, shining eyes, and sharp beaks. Perhaps it is only the impression of many birds, the idea of birds.

"Wild Dog Opera"

A popular delver code-pidgin, originating in the delver communities of the Navajo and Cherokee nations and since spreading through the underworld across north and central America. New words from additional languages have been incorporated since inception (limited to languages indigenous to the Americas) with significant early lexical additions from Nahuatl, Cree, and Inuktitut. As with most delver codes it is filled with regional dialects, double meanings, self-referentials, slang, metaphors, memetics, shibboleths and puns, and these security measures are aided further by the relative complexity and low speakership of its root languages.

The Vas Animae

A fleshy nodule with a marbled red/white/black/yellow surface, approx 2.5 cm in diameter, located on the surface of the lung. Stores a complete copy of the individual's personality and memories, even in the case of brain death. Attempts at surgical transplantation have been made to mixed success.

GPTRS (Generalized Paracausal Threat and Response System)

The only surviving public-facing government program dealing with the paranormal. While getting on in years, its color-coded warning system and spokesperson Dr. Anne "Anomaly Annie" Raury, have been a standard in classrooms and workplaces for over 50 years. Dr. Raury was an outspoken supporter of science education and civil rights causes, and appeared on Sesame Street a total of eight times before her death in 2000. She was succeeded by Dr. Juniper Douglas, longtime friend and co-scholar, though Dr. Douglas stepped back from public life in 2013 due to health issues. Since then the position has been filled by Dr. Zehra Kazmi, who currently hosts the PBS Paratopic Youtube channel.

Surrogate & Stork

A woman in a long pale green summer dress, holding an infant that looks nothing like her. The bird is slender and grey-feathered, with a blood-stained beak that flashes in the light. You see them in the distance, but the sun is in your eyes; by the time your hand goes up to your brow to provide shade, they are gone.

The Words of Heaven

Vocalized anomaly, manifesting as golden symbols around the speaker. Capable of manipulating matter into new shapes and forms, though now with more limited capacity after the lobotimization of the Demiurge. Regarded as one of the easiest of paralexical traditions despite its decaying power base.

Great Googly Moogly's

A fast food joint with three positive qualities: it is cheap, it is open very late, and the food is mostly edible. You can get a full plate for a couple of dollars and some spare change. The night owls might leave and the lights might go out, but if you knock on the door someone will always be there to let you in. Whatever you order will be greasy, slightly burnt, and almost but not entirely visually unidentifiable. It has a mascot named the Great Googly Moogly MacDougal, which looks like a fat, technicolor sasquatch on a variety of hard drugs. Rumors spiral around GGM like flies around a cow pie: it's operated by a cult. There's something in the freezer they carve the meat off of. There's a trap door and a network of secret tunnels. It's a front for drug running. It's a front for human trafficking. It's a front for people fleeing the government. It's a front for wizards. The MacDougal is real and he lives above the drop ceiling, crawling down at night to clean the grease traps with a long, pink tongue. GGM regulars lead the world in obesity-related health issues. No one who works at GGM actually exists. GGM is completely mundane, just odd.

The Help Line

You hear an old woman with a whiskeysmoke voice on the other end. Accent you can't place exactly. Eastern European? There's a typewriter going the back the entire time. Call during a crisis. They'll send help. They're flooded with requests so you only get one slot. Use is wisely. Look out for the red van.

5 Dead on Degandushra Reef

A series of polaroid photographs, undated, depicting the crucifixion of five individuals. Crosses constructed out of coral instead of wood. Victims have been tied to die of exposure. Features of the victims are indistinct, save that they are all adults and unclothed. Photographer is presumed to be standing on the shore. On the back of one photograph, the words "tuoar mzengata" have been written in permanent marker.

ao73FcddyTrn7arC_883fjnwLplns.jpg

An image file that has, despite its negligible filesize and speed of the relevant internet connection, been loading since 1996. The currently visible section, an estimated 2% of the entire image, is grey and indistinct. The most popular theories are either that it is of an overcast sky, or concrete, though neither can be confirmed at this time. The apparent originator of the file, a professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina was found dead in his home from gunshot to the head 41 hours after sending the email containing a copy of the file to its current possessors.

Milksburg Hoppers

Sightings of pallid bipedal creatures in the area of Milksburg, MI have circulated since the late 70s, long written off as a tourism ploy. Photographic evidence emerged on the Internet in 2003, kicking off renewed interest and a dedicated population of "hopper-hunters". One corpse was produced in 2008, and clear video footage of a pair of hoppers carrying an apparently-unconscious unidentified human in 2009. Last confirmed sighting 2011.

Eyes Elsewhere / The Known Unknown / Things are Getting Bad Out there / Horizon Effect

The belief that there is a large, heretofore unknown threat that is diverting the attention and resources of governmental agencies away from more commonplace manifestations of the paranatural, and that there has been an increasing intensity in the isolating liminal effects between high-paranormal areas and the wider world. While this has been a boon to delver communities in the short term, it is no guarantee of safety. People are getting worried. Some folks are going out there, looking for answers. The ones that come back, do so empty-handed.

The Inverted Towers

More of them keep getting discovered, two or three a year. They're growing, too, all of them growing down. More variable rate there. Some only grow a single floor in five years, others are the reverse. Each floor has near-identical layout, with only one change - a new wall or doorway - setting it apart from the floor above. After a while, it is unrecognizable. The images on the walls are abstract, and they too change in shape and size and color and form with each floor, more radically than the floorplan. Otherwise, they are empty rooms, going down, down, down.

Calamity Tony

An omen of disaster; not its cause, but its herald. Common knowledge says that the first people to buy him a pizza and a beer will be safe from whatever shitshow is about to happen (this protection extends to everyone who provides money used in the purchase, or so it is said). Everyone else who sees him has about 45 minutes to get as far away as they can.

The Rosebud Commune

The raiding federal agents expected drugs, not guns, and certainly not guns filled with human teeth. They didn't expect the carnivorous plants either, or the psychotropic pollens, or the thing in the old barn. No one expected the thing in the old barn. The survivors burned the place to the ground as they fled. Three were captured within days, two more by the end of the month, and then nothing until thirty-seven years later, when one of them was found dead of lung cancer. There are still more of them out there, underground, never coming in from the cold. You'll know 'em when you see 'em. Very distinctive calling card. Don't ask about the barn.

Drudge Gutter

Shantytown in a stormwater discharge channel. Huts built on rafts so that they'll float when the waters come. Beggar-priests, backs bent under huge tanks filled with writhing eels. Protection racketeers, mouths stitched shut. Murmurs from the drains.

Exorcism Acupuncture

Golden needles tied with silver thread are pricked in two rows down the spine. A tarlike substance with the scent of petrichor, drawn by some equivalent to surface tension, curls up the needles and along with threads in droplets, until they are collected in a white jade flask. Stopper it up, seal it with wax and paper charms, and let it ferment until you have a demon.

"My Life With the Ghosts"

A 6 volume doujinshi manga by pseudonymous author "SYZYGY". Possession of a full print run will cause one of the primary ghosts, the terrifying but ultimately harmless Aiko, to manifest in the possessor's house during the night. The odds of this occurring are equal to the number of full sets owned compared to the total number of sets in existence. At least one collector has stated intent to acquire all full runs of the comic, monopolize apparitions of Aiko, and then marry her. This is widely regarded as commendable dedication to an idiot goal that will not work out nearly as well as hoped.

The Triton Colony

Weak, irregular radio signals from Neptune's major moon, consisting of news bulletins for "Colony Three". Broadcasts are made in variant Mandarin dialect, and contain public service announcements, maintenance notices, emergency drills, horoscope readings, birth and death announcements, facts of the day, and religious services for the King of the Gaseous Depths. No messages sent towards Triton have ever received a response.

Anomalous HALO Jumper Incident

The paratrooper, who landed in downtown Budapest shortly after 7 PM local time, was reported as wearing black lacquered armor, a face mask shaped like a wolf's muzzle, and holding thin red tube (presumed to be a weapon). Subject accosted onlookers while becoming increasingly panicked, but made no direct hostile actions and refused to touch or be touched by others. Language used remains untranslated. The incident lasted approximately twelve minutes before the subject dove into the Danube and was not seen to resurface. The parachute was stolen before it could be studied.

The Old Ankylosaur of the Lakota

The journals would be of minimal historical interest were it not for a passage that accurately describes an ankylosaur in a nearby Lakota settlement, three decades before the species was first named. Due to the length of visitation and difficulty in interpretation, there are few details beyond its physical description, that it has been with the band for three generations at least, and that it spends most of its time sleeping in the sun and letting the village children climb all over it.

Neosark Warbodies

Symbiotic suits of cultivated godflesh. Neural link to the wearer, unknown long-term psychological effects.

The Painted Sky

A migratory, bowl-like structure approximately 14 km in diameter and 1.5 km deep that floats 4-6 km above the surface of the earth. The underside of the structure has been painted to resemble a partially cloudy sky, while the upper surface is reflective silver. Attempts to breach the outer shell have been delayed over safety concerns.

In the Halls of Gulgorath Skull-Fucker

An 8 disk, 73-song Finnish death metal narrative concept album, recounting an unnamed protagonist waking up in a future dystopia ruled by the titular dark lord Gulgorath. The narrator's explorations become increasingly horrific and esoteric, culminating in a desperate attempt at escape and an uncertain outcome. The album is infamous mostly for being the only published music ever made by Kalsarikänni & An Abortion, having only 36 copies ever produced (5 destroyed, 8 unaccounted for), the consensual funerary cannibalism of the band's drummer after his death by cocaine overdose, and for the degredation of all copies or second hand recordings of the music.

Universal Kill Field

"Anyone who walks past that line on the floor, catastrophic stroke. Clots up like cement. Think the longest anyone's survived after being pulled out, rope around the waist y'know, is just to the base of the stairs over there. No idea what's down the hallway, no one even wants to send a drone."

The Blunt Bronze Sword

Recovered from site in southern Anatolia, dated to 12th century BCE / 8800s HC, exact cultural provenance unknown. Corroded but still intact. A blow from the sword carries approximately 1 meganewton of force. Wielder is subject to equivalent reaction; sword is not.

14 Holy Heretics

Collection of Christian folk saints invoked for aid against disease, supernatural evils, and general oppressive forces. All members were (supposedly) excommunicated within their lifetimes and have been repeatedly disowned by major churches both for not existing in the first place, and for the heterodox interpretations of Christian belief.

The Whelm

Brightly colored semi-aquatic gastropod the size of a shipping container. Organisms in its presence are subject to rapid drops in anxiety levels, though overexposure typically ends in death by starvation as the effected organism loses the drive to keep itself fed. They are then eaten by the whelm.

Paradox Wrestling Confederation

You can catch a show only rarely, on some random channel in the dead of night. Never on a premium cable package. The quality is grainy and the sound is poor, but it is glorious. Men and women in ridiculous costumes strutting around through absurd plotlines and despite your better judgement you are certain that it's real. Wrestling is real. El Gato Gordo just threw ConMan off a cliff only to discover that it was his half-brother Stefano who had been brainwashed and the real ConMan was actually...it's real! Wrestling is fucking real!

The SCP RPG: A Critique of 5k+ Words

 Buckle up, folks, it's time for a ride.

Prologue: Bona fides and bias

I was a reader of and contributor to the SCP Wiki for several years, and it remains close to my heart even though I don't keep up with it anymore. If it's past the 3000 contest, I haven't got a clue, but for the time before that...

 

(Precisely what contributions I made I am electing to keep anonymous for now. All that's relevant here is that I spent a great deal of time on the site Back In The Day, I wrote quite a bit (some of which was popular and some of which was actually good), nothing I wrote is featured in this RPG, and for the time being I would like to keep old online identities discrete.)

It Begins

The SCP RPG by Jason Keech is, at best, a catastrophic misunderstanding of what makes a fun tabletop game, what makes the SCP Wiki engaging, and how to adapt the latter into the former. Less charitably it is obvious grift, taking advantage of a popular Creative Commons license to make a quick buck of of people who either haven't heard of Delta Green or for whatever reason don't think it suffices for the job.

It might be the worst game I have read thus far. Not for moral reasons (I have read far worse), maybe for mechanical reasons (I don't think I have read worse) but assuredly because it is a butchery of something near and dear.

A Note Regarding Anticanonicity

The wiki has long operated under the maxim "there is no canon." This is not entirely true - there are dozens of recognized canons (5+ linked works with 3+ authors), hundreds more if we count single-author storylines, and a longstanding tradition of headcanon over all. But there is no overarching, singular canon. The contents of an article or a tale go exactly as far as the end of the page - beyond that, interpretation and re-interpretation is wide open. Characters can be drastically different between authors. Connections between articles often only go one-way.

A ttrpg adaptation can go one of two ways: a specific interpretation, or a generalist toolbox. This one tries to do both, and it fails at both. You'll see what I mean as we go along.

Onwards, the book.

Once the tables of contents and the backers are out of the way, there is the famous message from the Administrator. This has been a standard piece of Foundation lore for ages, the statement of intent for the in-universe organization, and I have never liked it. It's terribly self-serious and not particularly well-written, but it's short and it gets a point across, so it's popular.

(A recurring theme: there is a VERY big difference between the Scipverse as it is conceived of by the writers and the Scipverse as it is conceived of by the outside fandom. So it has always been.)

(Note: you will see me use the word "scip" constantly in this review. It just means "a spooky thing that the Foundation wants to lock up"

Chapters are organized according to "security level"

I'll let you in on a secret: security levels, sites, blackboxed procedures, that's all trade dress. It rarely ever means anything. All it does in nearly every circumstance is give the text the illusion of the conspiracy.

Chapter 1: Basic Rules

Variable-size dice pools, take sum of two highest and compare to difficulty rating. Exploding dice are applied if you roll maximum, by adding a die one size higher to the pool (so rolling 8 on a d8 gets you a free d10). but if you roll any 1s, those are all subtracted from your final sum. Once you have that, you add your proficiencies, which are measured in decimal points, to that sum.

So, for example, if I have a pool of 4d10 for an attribute, and roll 1-2-6-10, I get a bonus 2d12 for the exploding 10 (let's say a 1 and an 8), 8+10 for my highest two dice, minus two for the ones, plus 0.7 for a proficiency, final roll of 16.7)

Decimal points. You read that right. I have never witnessed this before in any ttrpg and I do not want to ever see it again. Unfortunately, my desires do not apply here.

Chapters 2 & 3: Character Creation

1. Assign 20d8 across your eight attributes (Strength Health Perception Dexterity Fate Charisma Intelligence Willpower)
2. Assign 4d10 to those attributes, but you can only add a d10 if you have 2d8 in that attribute.
3. Buy your proficiencies. Level 1 costs 1 point, Level 2 costs 3, Level 3 costs 6.
1. You get 17 points for Knowledge Proficiencies, plus 5 for each d10 in INT and PER.
2. You get 14 points for Skill Proficiencies, plus 5 for each d10 in STR and DEX
3. You get 10 points for Ability proficiencies, plus 5 for each d10 in CHA and WIL
4. For each proficiency you purchase, roll a d10: that's the decimal point value.
4. Calculate your substats - they will be determined by the die types and the number thereof in your attributes. Substats are HP, Exertion Points, Cognitive Resistance, Reverence Points, Melee Multiplier, Projectile Modifier, Reaction Defense, Move Speed, Intelligence Modifiers.
5. Choose appearance, body type, and reasoning. These have bonuses and maluses to certain proficiencies and substats.
1. Yes it is exactly as bad as you think it is.
2. If my character is Beautiful, they get +2 negotiation/persuasion, +1 Fashion/Etiquette, +1 leadership, -2 Resist Distress, -1 intimidate/Taunt, -1 Disguise / Blend In.
3. At the very least they don't limit body types to appearances, you can be Beautiful and Heavyset if you want. The latter gets you +15 HP and +2 Reaction Defense
6. Then you fill in the details that name no mechanics, name and whatnot. Backstory goes here.
7. Ref gives you what they need to start the mission; intel, equipment, starting personnel class and clearance level.

Step 8 is not mentioned, so I will add it in - return to step 1 because your character died, because this game and this setting is a meatgrinder and you are playing as the nameless jackboots in the unmarked vans (incorrect, the vans will be marked with a front company with some silly S-C-P initialism. I actually fucking love this and suggest you do it in home games, just have a van for Sanderson and Cole Plumbing show up.) and you died immediately on contact with the weird thing.

Yeah, remember the weird things? The whole point of this exercise?

It'll be a while.

Why would you make a game about being the operators operating operationally in operational operations when those are the people whose entire narrative purpose within the scipverse is to die horribly via Worf Effect. MTF dudes exist to die horribly. That's why they're the unnamed jackboots.

Chapter 4: Pointless point systems

Herein is explained how you spend experience points on more attribute dice, increase proficiencies through training, and the THREE other types of points (Merit, Reverence and Exertion).

Merit and Reverence are basically the exact same thing (rewards for RP), just worded differently. You spend them on some bonuses too.

No weird stuff has yet occurred.

Chapter 5: Combat

This chapter begins on page 42, and ends on page 68. I did not read it. While skimming it I saw that it had horrible would tables like, but not as good as, Emmy Allen's in Esoteric Enterprises.

There is a subsection between chapters 5 and 6 about personnel types and security clearances. It is about as fetishistic about useless details as one would expect. I thought we were here for monsters.

Chapter 6: Weapons and Items

There's a price list for mundane items split up into discount/premium. Why there is a price list for a game about playing an organization who has Plot levels of budget, I do not know.

There are long lists of item loadouts for different specializations. They are boring and you are guaranteed to forget what you have on hand. The shortest one is 25 items. The longest one has 65.

Then there's a example of play chapter, shoved in between item loadouts and the weapon lists.

The weapon lists are split into security clearance levels and...

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh

It is at this part that the book starts to collapse upon itself. Security Level 1 weapons does not then lead into security level 2 weapons, but instead a description of the bonuses you get if you purchase 3d12 in a stat, and then that leads into a very poorly formatted section on morale, which leads into staff titles and examples of Foundation sites and a literal example site directory and hierarchy and then mobile task forces and field symbols pulled from someone who made them years ago, that are entirely too good for this game.

And then we're in chapter 9. I had to go back and make sure that chapters 7 and 8 actually exist. They do, but by god do they seem to vanish in the whiplash.

An aside: it is, honestly, super-disheartening to see this sort of thing, because it's like...is that it? So many people, myself included, have poured so much time and effort into that site and the takeaway some folks have is that the useless details are important.

Chapter 9: Anomalies

We are on page 114, page 114 of 292, and we have finally reached the actual point of the setting.

In a move that I will give one (1) golf clap for, this section provides an overview of field procedures - discovery of an anomaly, how to identify its properties in the field, what to do in a contact situation, capture and transport. It continues on to containment back at the site but if you are playing field agents your job stops at drop off.

This section is the first part of this game that is conceptually appropriate for the act of playing a game in the Scipverse. If you are field agents, you are going to be out in the field. Making a literal SOP document is a fun diegetic way of giving players a plan of action, and refs ways to play around with that. If cleaned up (a lot), this could actually be the centerpoint of a functioning game.

Then we get to the anomaly classification system.

This I cannot fault the writer of the RPG for, this is taken from the site.

Now, in ye olde dayes, you had three classes. Only three there were, and the number of classes was three. They were unintuitively named, but easily summarized.

• Safe - Stick it in a box and you're fine, it won't get out.
• Euclid - You need to regularly check in on the box and do regular maintenance.
• Keter - It requires continuous and costly effort to keep it in the box.

(There are also Neutralized, Explained, and Joke. These are self-explanatory.)

Around the time I stopped reading, there were a few nonstandards that were being introduced.

• Thaumiel - Used as a box for another scip.
• Apollyon - Ha ha ha, you thought the box would help you?

It seems that in the years since there has been an introduction of an expanded containment class which I am not against in principle (since, you know, the old three only tell you how difficult it is to keep in a box, not how dangerous it is.) This new system has containment class (6 classes + 7 esoterics), disruption class (5 classes) and risk class (5 classes) now this could get a bit clunky and unwieldy, but it's not unmanageable.

Except for the fact that they took the nonindicative class names of the olden days trio and made them worse.

A disruption class of "will effect a few people" is VLAM. What the fuck is a VLAM. If I am scrambling through a filing cabinet trying to find what this thing does what does VLAM benefit me? Nothing! It is useless! Unfit for purpose! Awful and clunky to read and I am very glad that it appears to have not caught on to a majority, but it's still caught on more than I'd like.

Thank gods above and below for anticanon. Toss this right out the window. What are you doing, wiki, why are you doing this.

Old man yells at cloud.

We Are still in Chapter 9: Anomalies

Here we have the Security Level 2 items section. Did you know that you need to be security level 2 to have a helmet? Now you do.

Also, it's time for RPG GUN FETISHISM! My...third? Fourth? least favorite kind of RPG fetishism!

Not only can you quibble over the minute stat differences between a Glock 19 and an M1911, you can compare them to a katana! Which...I mean if you are replicating a certain era of the site that is perfectly above board and I won't harsh your mellow, but I feel like it is appropriate to bring up.

We'll be returning to this. For whatever reason, likely a bad one, the equipment list is split up into multiple parts and distributed across multiple chapters.

Special Section: Groups of Interest

I have been very hard on this book so far. That is a prologue to this section, which is where on initial read my opinion went from "this is poorly made" to "this is grift" and my ability to charitably critique it evaporated. I'm still going to, mind you, just grumpily.

See, the Foundation is not the only power that be in the Scipverse. The scope, importance, and number of these other groups of interest varies by interpretation (all hail anticanon), but regardless of that they serve two important narrative roles - they are (mostly) human antagonists that can stand against the Foundation (if not on equal footing, at least on grounds that the Foundation can't absorb or destroy them), and they provide alternate viewpoints about the anomalous world and how to interact with it.

Alternate viewpoints, that players might like to engage with. As a TTRPG uniquely allows the audience to do.

This book copy-pasted the article from the wiki. An article, I might add, that is only updated when new GOIs become established, and so older entries don't actually reflect how things are used in the wild. There's no sorting either, so groups that are limited to one or two minor canons will end up getting equal billing as some of the OGs. Alexylva University, a GOI whose entire shtick is "college in another universe keeps losing its mail in ours", gets half a page, while Dr. Wondertainment, who has a couple sizable storylines and quite a few more related articles, gets two sentences that explain basically nothing.

Now, in certain circumstances and lenses I could see the logic behind the overwhelming focus on the Foundation. Specific vs generalist interpretations of the setting. But for a tabletop game (the most variable, wide-reaching and adaptable genre to adapt into) and for a setting that is literally built around "the only viable interpretation is the one you make with these toys in the sandbox" I think it's a major oversight. Still, I suppose that the narrow focus to Foundation-only could work.

The more substantial issue here is that because this is copypasted from a janky reference page that is missing a whole lot of information, this section is useless from a game perspective. It contains no guidance on how they might be used, as PC options or antagonists or anything. not even "here is a bullet list of scips related to this GOI you can read on your own". So someone who doesn't already know these groups and have a developed headcanon about them to draw upon is up shit creek and paddling with their hands, because this books is absolutely no help in that regard.

Chapter 10: Reality

A chapter about some esoteric bits of lore that are a welcome break from the unceasingly generic content that has come before. Things like how the stability of reality is measured in units called Humes and you use a Kant Counter to measure them, and sometimes if shit really hits the fan you can get a Reality Anchor to forcibly revert things to normal.

I remember this being contentious when it was introduced, as it was considered to easy to abuse and too much of a get out of jail free card. Years prior there had been 148 (TelekilI) that was used similarly, and nerfed in a rewrite to have horrible side effects. In moderation, I like Humes, they're a fun bit of flavor.

This chapter also includes a little bit about reality benders, memetic hazards, another gear list (security level 3 this time, so now Adam has authorized the use of the grappling hook and an AK-47)

There's a run-through of amnestic classes, which could have been a half page table but is spread out over multiple pages because of course it is copy-pasted.

What really gets me about the security clearance stuff for weapons is that the higher someone's clearance is, the less likely they are going to ever be in direct contact with a scip in the field. Sure your lab tech with level 3 clearance can, by the game's rules, use an M16, but in what circumstance would they every use one according to the rules? They're a researcher back at base overseeing experimentation. If they have to use a gun, it's an emergency and they will use whatever gun they can find.

Subsection: Another fucking org chart

There is another fucking org chart here. It's better than the first one so, you know what, I am not against the idea in principle. In principle. Not here.

There is also the clearance level 4 equipment here, which is straight-up weird science goofy nonsense and a complete tonal break from the entire scipverse. There's an entry here for "phaser", which could exist in the setting...as a scip, and thus locked up. I mean I can imagine some experimental plasma or laser weaponry, that's not beyond my ability to believe, but again - I am long past the charitable read.

There is also a master weapon list. At least, all the weapon lists in one place. Like they should have been from the start, for convenient fetishization.

It's not weird that there's so much focus on weapons in this game, plenty of bad RPGs have overly granular weapon systems. But it's strange that it's for this setting. "Bigger guns will not help you" (unless it's the Sun Launcher, of course. Into the fiery orb with ye!) is very much part of the setting. It is filled with problems that cannot be solved with bullets. Most of the problems, in fact, cannot be solved with bullets. What good is a gun when the threat you are trying to contain is a jar of toenail clippings that fuck with causality?

Violence is more the Global Occult Coalition's department anyway.

Chapter 11: Director Guidance

Sections on how to award XP, all those other points they give out, and some general advice which...isn't all that bad. It's actually pretty okay. There's a section addressing the multicanon, there's a section on using Session 0 to establish boundaries of what people don't want to see, that's good. Necessary for this setting. Well done.

There's even a random scenario generator, which I also like, because it's basically "roll a random scip, roll for what you are doing with it, roll for complications." Combine that with that other section I liked however many chapters ago and you have a nugget of okayness.

Chapter 12: SCP Creation

How to stat up a scip...using the same obtuse and horrific system used to generate characters. I was going to make a demo example but that is giving this game much more than it deserves.

Chapter 13: SCP DATA

AT LONG LAST, WE ARE FINALLY HERE

Like Moses leading his people out of Egypt we have finally fucking reached the land of weird shit that we signed up for. It's bestiary time, baby! These entries (usually) have a statline (ech), a description (not copy-pasted, thank you!) and a short paragraph on how to use in game.

This is page 198 out of 292. We have finally reached the thing we are here for.

Let's see how things stack up.

1. SCP-001 (When Day Breaks) - There are multiple 001s (authors use them as capstone projects, basically), and this one is...certainly a choice. It's a good article, but it is also an article where the sun murders everyone and there are horrible fleshbeasts wandering the wastes as the people temporarily safe in bunkers wonder what the fuck to do. Opening a bestiary with "here is a campaign setting" is certainly a move. It's more actionable than some other 001s so it's not a terrible choice. Better than Gate Guardian, for sure.
2. SCP-002 (The Living Room) - A classic, always fond of this one. Use in-game would be limited, I think.
3. SCP-049 (The Plague Doctor) - I can't stand this article and I do not understand why it is popular, other than the fact that children like it because some Youtube screamed at it once. It's actually an okay pick for in-game, though. Creepy dude with a bunch of zombie servants.
4. SCP-073 (Cain) - Very odd choice, because he's a friendly NPC and immune to harm (all reflected back, naturally). Still has HP, though. 850 HP on this guy. A handgun will do 3d6.
5. SCP-076 (Abel) - Here's where things are starting to get iffy. Abel is one of the flagship scips. Not featuring him would be really weird, honestly. But Abel is an instakill. You will be gibbed. His entire purpose is to stick bladed weapons other people. His sword does 12d10 damage. In-setting the way people deal with him is A) do not ever let him out of his sarcophagus B) detonate bomb collar so that he has to waste time respawning C) use a tank. If you have individual, boots-on-ground level characters dealing with Abel-as-written, they are dead. Roll new character.
6. SCP-096 (Shy Guy) - THREE THOUSAND HP. The highest single damage weapon is a heavy artillery piece, which does 6d12 x 5 damage, so even rolling perfect, impossible max damage on a fucking missile launch, you have done less than a 10th of his health because he has 100 points of damage reduction! Also he has multiple attacks per turn that do 10d12 damage. Averageing that out, he can do 60 damage per attack. It would good to mention here that your base HP is 10. The maximum can get over 100 I think if you dump everything in health and that still won't save you from turn 2. All this bullshit makes sense for Shy Guy, don't get me wrong, because the entire deal is "if you see its face or a depiction of its face it will hunt you down and kill you, no matter where you are", but at that point it's an unfun environmental hazard, an instakill gotcha trap. Holy shit. What is this game.
7. SCP-106 (The Old Man) - Another very famous instakill monster. Sensing a theme here.
8. SCP-303 (The Doorman) - Finally, a choice that doesn't even have a statline. Creepy thing behind a door. Not much to 'im, but could be a fun little encounter or a containment puzzle. I like 'im.
9. SCP-354 (The Red Pool) - love this one, excellent choice for a game. Big old creepy as blood red pond that spits out monsters and is growing. We tried a submersible and weird shit happened. Yes, please and thank you.
10. SCP-444-JP (Dreamscape) - A article from the Japanese sister-site, that's nifty. A cognitohazard type deal, traps people in dreams and so on. Issue here being that, again, it's like a single-effect trap. Once it's sprung, okay, now what? That works for the article but not for a game. It's a cursed item.
11. SCP-662 (The Butler's Handbell) - Mr. Deeds! if you have the bell, he'll do whatever you need within his power. Remarkably good assassin. Write-up points out how it'd be a big threat in the hands of an antagonist, and they are very correct.
12. SCP-682 (The Hard-to-Destroy Reptile) - We all knew it was coming, let's get it out of the way. Big, angry, will kill you near-instantly, hard to destroy. NEXT!
13. SCP-939 (With Many Voices) - It's an alzabo. Took me over a decade to realize that it's an alzabo but it quite literally an alzabo, except it hunts in packs and the juveniles look like humans. Will likely make swift work of you but you can play around with the voice mimicry to fun ends.
14. SCP-1128 (The Aquatic Horror) - Another infohazard. Eventually kills you, makes you really hydrophobic until that point. A curse.
15. SCP-1470 (Mal0) - An app that makes a monster show up and lurk around you. Harmless, though. Guess you could do something creepy with it...if you were civilians who downloaded the app.
16. SCP-1472 (Multiuniversal Strip Club) - There are velociraptors in maid costumes doing burlesque. Why they are statted, I do not know, because they're fucking velociraptors are you gonna harass them? But it would be a fun location to hang out in and see the other weird corners of the scipverse.
17. SCP-1678 (Unlondon) - Dark underground mirror or London filled with creepy inhabitants and whatnot. Would be good for an escape, honestly. Wouldn't want to get trapped down there.
18. SCP-1762 (Here Be Dragons) - i love the article, but it's not really even interactive enough to justify its position in the bestiary.
19. SCP-2006 (Too Spooky) - A comedy scip. Shapeshifting energy being wants to scare people, is terrible at it, best way to keep it in one place is to have people pretend that they are scared. This one could be fun for a session.
20. SCP-2057-JP (Rehatchlings) - Another Japan-branch article. Reincarnating baby chicks. I guess it's okay? i mean the description buried the lede that there is an enormous one of these inside the moon so they are probably way more interesting as an article.
21. SCP-2265 (Dinner With Andrew) - A timeloop scenario. Fair enough.
22. SCP-2273 (Major Alexie Belitrov) - Alternate universe Russian supersoldier with bug-power armor. Great concept, the book specifically says to use him in non-combat circumstances. Good advice, honestly.
23. SCP-2999 (The Black Cat and the White Rabbit) - All I know is that this one is very complex and I never sat down to read the entire thing. I am quite sure that the writeup in this bestiary is not sufficient.
24. SCP-3000 (Anatashesha) - We have reached the end of my first-hand knowledge. Here on out, it is unknown territory. This is a 900 kilometer long eel with mind-altering chemicals that don't get enough specification despite being the most useful part of this. At least it doesn't have stats.
25. SCP-3008 (The Infinite [REDACTED]) -The redacted is Ikea, it's an infinite Ikea. I mean it could be fun trying to find the exit, but it's not like you're given the means to make that encounter easy to run or fun to play.
    
26. SCP-3300 (The Rain) - A town that, once a year, has an anomalous storm and the complete replacement of its population with new people. Could be cool, though I don't know, in game at least, what you would even investigate.
27. SCP-3739 (Mind Milk) - If I had a nickel for every scip that involved spontaneous generation of udders and subsequent lactation, I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice. Could probably get an extra nickel if we count 597. Like was this a rewrite of that one in the 600s?
28. SCP-3999 (I Am At The Center of All That Happens To Me) - Entirely too complex for a pithy summary for a game book.

And that's it. 28 chosen, several of which are a level of inappropriate that beggars belief. We could have had more, if the GOIs were treated as worthwhile at all. but they aren't, so we are stuck with one of the best sources of weird shit to exist reduced down to this.

It would have been great to just cut the system entirely and just have a book of scips and ways to use them in a game that already existed.

Chapter 14: NPC Data

Statblocks for a lot of generic professions that have no bearing on the Scipverse. No GOIs or their members to be seen, not even a whiff of a Broken God tech-cultist..

I have heard that this creator made a "Creepypasta RPG" using basically the same mechanical system. I think this was ported over from that.

Chapter 15: Site-093

A sample Foundation facility to use. Helpful! Has NPCs, but not the kind you can plug and play yourself, they're your bosses. Less helpful.

Chapter 16: The Black Glass Labyrinth

A sample adventure. I did not read it, because as you no doubt can tell from the tone this has taken over the last half dozen chapters, I am tired.

So yeah. We're done.

The Wrap Up

Game bad. Play Delta Green instead. Its issues are microscopic in comparison. Or better yet, Liminal Horror. Or Esoteric Enterprises. Or Mothership. Anything at all.

The Actual Wrap Up

I was talking with a friend just last night (from time of writing, not posting) about the olden days, and how it's kinda depressing looking back and thinking "oh wow something I wrote years ago still crops up in the wild now and then, but next to no one who reads it, proportionally speaking, knows or cares that I wrote it. Most of them don't actually read it, and those that do often miss the point entirely, and the entire consumption of the text is purely the superficial layer. No one outside the core nugget of reader-writers cares about the context, the style, or any sort of narrative analysis of things."

You see this a lot with the Youtube channels about the site: they'll do an overview of the scip, but they are dead-set against engaging with it as a text with a context and a creator (oh you are LUCKY if they actually cite the author outside of the CC-required attribution buried in the video description) and anything beyond what is directly presented. And tales have ALWAYS been neglected compared to the mainlist; onsite, offsite, on the periphery.

Sure, sometimes a spooky monster is just a spooky monster, but it's nice to talk about something and talk about why it is spooky and how it got there.

This entire RPG is based in that attitude. Just the superficials. Gun porn and org charts and instakill monsters are what's important. And you know, that's fair. I don't like it, but everyone can have their headcanon and whether or not I or anyone else likes it is irrelevant.

 

But if you're going to do that, make it personal. Stamp your name on it and say 'there are many like it, but this is mine.' That is in the spirit of the site. That is, I am certain, what's kept it alive and active for all these years - the intended experience is DIY. It is poorly served by an interpretation that lacks the desire to be very personal and refuses to give people the tools to make something of their own.

 

The wiki is broad and deep and very flawed and a surviving bastion of web 2.0 and its calling card is an invitation to explore. To go down the rabbit hole. That's always been a strength the - that initial rush of clicking on random links and finding something new behind every door, of piecing together this puzzle in your head until it fits comfortably like a glove, and even when the ennui sets in and the years go by and you are so jaded that nothing impresses or scares you any more, there are still moments where you go "yes! there it is again!" and you're once again chasing rabbits.

To translate that to tabletop, you need both freedom and the tools to use it properly. Mechanics won't help you. There needs to be one more door, one more lonely hallway, one more tattered manila folder. There needs to be the space to put the pieces together and build something of your own.

Not a fucking gun list.

Eerievember Days 7-12

 Picking up where we last left off...

 

Day 7: Mandala Anomalies (Navarino Island)

The designs appeared gradually and innocuously enough that they were considered at first to be a sort guerrilla  art project, painted on walls and rock faces by punks in the night. That the symbology on display was not actually from Tibetan Buddhism was not remarked upon. This was until they were found carved into stone and concrete in their hundreds, emblazoned on individual leaves, gouged out of the flanks of animals. Then, out of people. 

Day 8: Repurposed Soul: Star

As as matter is the cast-off remnants of stars, so to are matters of the spirit. All souls are, while reduced, still star stuff, and still inextricably linked to the canonical spectral types.

Day 9: Calcium Hyperproficiency

The formation of small, bony scutes under the skin is the primary  symptom of the condition- these will typically be small enough to retain flexibility and range of movement, and dense enough to provide a  decent amount of protection from minor injuries.

Day 10: DNA Forge

Three functioning forges remain - one damaged (in the possession of the World Government), one swiftly deteriorating (controlled by the Demarchist Panoply), and one rampant (currently floating around the mid-south Pacific). Scraps of the five destroyed models resurface on occasion, though not enough has been recovered to successfully reverse-engineer the devices. With the death of their inventor and his team, and the destruction of all documentation during the War, it is unlikely that this state of affairs will change.

Day 11: Amniotic Tank Experiment (2001)

While the initial test run of the technology was a resounding success, the decanting of Dorothy Hill was swiftly overshadowed by World Trade Center attacks less than two weeks later. Subsequent legal challenges to exowomb technology delayed public rollout until 2014. While never officially banned after this point, it has remained a luxury for the ultrarich due to a combination of med-tech patent fuckery and access restrictions placed upon them by Congress in 2017.

 

Day 12: Radial Symmetry

The body of Homo radiata consists of a fleshy disc containing the internal organs, four limbs evenly spaced, a central mouth, and two large eyes. Due to the positioning of the eyes, they possess a wide range of vision but poor depth perception. The limbs are flexible and possess and expanded range of movement compared to those of bilaterals. Changes to jaw structure make cross-clade communication difficult.

Eerievember Days 1-6

 

As a bit of a warmup routine while I work on other posts, I'm going through @floofhips' Eerievember prompts in the style of my Lighthouse entries, since I vibe with this style of weird.

Day 1: Homunculus Museum

The National Homunculi Museum in Philadelphia holds the largest collection of artificial humans in the world (especially now, after the destruction of the Frankfurt Alchemical Academy in 1940). Over 1800 specimens representing over 300 different construction templates are on display, as well as extensive collections of alchemical tools and accoutrements and a reference library open to the public.

The museum has courted controversy in recent years by displaying the bodies of sapient homunculi acquired prior to the Liberation (and thus with no recorded consent-to-display). The 25 specimens in question were eventually turned over to the AUAP (American Union of Alchemical Peoples) and cannibalized according to custom, with the bones interred at the Tower of Azoth Imperishable war memorial.

Day 2: Bog Body at the Salt Dome Excavation

Four preserved bodies were recovered during excavation of the salt dome: two adult men, one adult woman, and a female child, all dated to about 5500 BCE / 4500 HC. Given the condition of the bodies and the external and internal injuries present across all four, it's believed that the surface they had been walking on collapsed, crushing them after they fell. Clothing and items well-preserved. Estimated ages 40, 30, 25, 8. Genetic testing indicates that the men were brothers, and the child the daughter of the woman and Man #2. Tiya, a movie adaptation, reviewed well at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Day 3: Tombstone Teeth

The practice of seeding fresh graves with milk teeth (typically from a grandchild or godchild) has emerged as a means of warding off all manner of woes - typically to keep blightcrows away from the body and to safeguard new spirits from prowling anthropodaemons.

 

Day 4 / Alt 1: Metal Illness

Verdigrising encephalitis is a fatal paralogical prion disease where the subject's brain is swiftly transitioned into copper. The end results are, despite attempts by world governments to crack down on the trade, sought after by certain wealthy individuals for their supposed occult benefits.

Day 5 / Alt 2+7: Serendipitous Fault Line, Failed Ritual

The cult's efforts had been in vain from the beginning, as a major earthquake some 40 years prior (and smaller quakes in the decades since) had re-aligned the leylines that the ritual was dependent upon. The natural course of plate tectonics has sealed away dread Yhenraghul for the long term, it seems.

Day 6 / Alt 16: Bioclown the Ultimate Killer

A shlock-horror adventure game developed in 1994 but never released to the public. None of the original code remains, and bootleg copies (including the ROM freely available online that serves as the standard) are of poor quality. Rumors of hidden horrific or salacious content or conspiracies about the disbandment of the dev team circulated on Usenet for a year or two before the game was forgotten. Its modern resurgence is nearly entirely thanks to the Youtube essay channel JunkClosetGames, who featured it in their Halloween 2020 special.

Playing around with Kult's Tarot Rules

I've never played Kult, but someone on Discord (I cannot remember whom) linked to their document about using tarot to build scenarios.

So I did that. Imagine it's for Esoteric Enterprises. It uses Kult's custom tarot deck but with a bit of finagling I was able to make a normal deck of cards work (man i really need to get a good tarot deck)

A forewarning - this got real fuckin' dark when I did it, so I expect others will have similar experiences if they try it out. 

(Wow this one has been delayed)

Individual

1. Characteristic - Forgetfullness; they are elderly, and their memory is beginning to fail them.
   
2. Past - Love; they were a devoted spouse for over forty years.
   
3. Ambition - Lust; they have built an idealized image of their beloved in their head, and grief plus the loss of memory has created something new and not altogether healthy.
   
4. Weakness - They are violently opposed by the cult.
   
5. Strength - They are unflappable, calm, charismatic.
   

Location

1. Type - An abandoned orphanage, aligned with dread powers.
   
2. Past - Repetition; the drudgery and everyday horror of those who lived here.
   
3. Trait - A stairway down, down, down...
   
4. Weakness - Old TVs are everywhere; corroded VHS tapes contain mind-numbing subliminals, with overexposure slowly blocking off higher brain functions.
   
5. Exceptional Aspect - Gangs of orphans would fight each other for the favor of the staff.
   

Cult

1. Power / Ambition - A return to untamed wilderness. Not even that technological civilization is to dismantled, but that higher thought itself must be eliminated.
   
2. History - They started as backwoods pilgrims; cast-offs from the meatgrinder of city life and the modern age, looking for some way to escape.
   
3. Goal - Pure, thoughtless philosophy; the enlightenment of the zoanthropic man.
   
4. Weakness - They have their own enemies in the hall of civic power. No friends of yours, but they have gotten on the scent all the same.
   
5. Resource - Cruelty; the orphanage was sponsored by the cult's wealthier members, a testing ground of sorts.
   

Plot

1. Power - Scandal; a cult member of some public prominence is revealed, accused of abuses at the orphanage.
   
2. Cause - Croudfunding campaign to pay for the victim's legal fees.
   
3. Next Move - Wait & see; both the cult and the victim's supporters are waiting for the trial and its verdict before acting. This might still be swept under the rug, or it might still boil over.
   
4. Opposition - Those who want to hide the cult's abuses and normalize its existence publicly.
   
5. Support - An online community has sprung up to find and support more abuse victims.
   

Creature

1. Origin - Torment; formed from the compressed suffering of the orphanage, crawling up out of the darkness of those interminable stairs.
2. Who Knows? - The first leaks began in the local punk scene - rumors spread by one of the bands, whose lead knows a victim who has not yet come forward. Curious (and often intoxicated) minds have gone out exploring, come back with more rumors.
   
3. Drive - To fulfill and spread its purpose; to put the fear of God in people, to perpetuate the cycle that created it.
   
4. Weakness - It is hunted, on the run, ragged, desperate. We know not what chases it.
   
5. Strength - It changes the environment and people around it, gradually shifting them more and more like the place it called home and the victims it first preyed upon.
   

Artifact 

1. Origin - An ancient cipher.
   
2. Who looks for it? - A hacker trying to break it.
   
3. Danger of use - Susceptibility to law - authorities are aware of this document. There is a watchlist, they will hunt people down.
   
4. Primary Power - Fragments, remnants, leftovers; the detrital wisdom of its composer.
   
5. Secondary Power - Allure; it drives people to try and solve it.
   

Compiling The Pieces

The NPC was the founder of the Cult in its early years, but after creating the Cipher (which accelerated the memory loss they would have experienced normally) they fell away from it into obscurity. 

The Cult, as it develops its dogma and spreads its influence, comes into ownership of the Orphanage, which is uses as a testing bed for its experiments into zoanthropy. The abuses by the Cult give rise to the Creature, which escapes into the wild after the Orphanage is abandoned by the Cult.

Some time later, victims of the Orphanage start accusing members of the Cult. The lead-up to the first major trial is currently ongoing. The Creature has been spotted outside of town, wounded (It has been hunted by the NPC, though they do not know precisely why they are so obsessed with killing it). The Cipher has fallen into hands outside the cult and someone you know is working on breaking it, hopefully before the authorities swoop in and make the whole thing disappear.

Well, I think this worked out pretty well.

d20 Anomalous Media

*1*

"Family Reunion 1994" - Damaged VHS tape. Contents unrecoverable for the most part, save a seven-second interval. Four adults seated at a picnic table are startled from their seats by a fifth, running into the frame from the right.

Woman 1: What?

Man 3: It's in the woods!

Unidentified Voice 1: [Indiscernible]

Woman 2: [yelling] Shit!

The cameraperson swings the camera towards the tree line to the left. A vague grey shape can be seen in the distance, as well as a smaller shape believed to be an adult wearing a yellow shirt, but the camera's movement and poor focus renders the scene indiscernible for the half second it is on screen.

*2* 

"The Subway Manuscript" - Untitled handwritten manuscript recovered by late-shift worker at a Subway restaurant in Newark New Jersey in November of 2010. ~446000 words, classical Arabic, describing an immense and elaborate personal cosmology through the form of erotic Supernatural fanfiction.

*3*

"Real Spiritualist Vampire Alien Spirit Psychic Secret Psychic Truth" -  Angelfire website recovered from private archival. Contents are, on the whole, incoherent nonsense, save for a section that accurately predicts (though does not name) the papal elections of Benedict XVI and Francis. Further investigation and extrapolation has indicated the document contains further predictions, including a five-month period wherein 14 different pontiffs are elected, one reference to giving birth on the high altar of St. John Lateran, and cutting off mid sentence after the 2088 election.

*4*

"The Exorcism of Emilia Brown" - CD-R with 16 music tracks. Single male vocalist playing acoustic guitar. 14 of the songs are connected to the titular event, describing the circumstances, lead-up, and event from different character perspectives. Track 15 contains two minutes one second of crickets and rustling grass. Track 16 consists of a low polyphonic drone (judged to be asemantic) with no musical accompaniment.

*5*

"three Deer Decomposing on An Ugluy (Sic) Couch" - 83 hours of sfootage of three adult deer, deceased, decomposing on top of on a sagging, foam-green couch. Shot on stationary camera. The glow of a television illuminates the scene, through the entire length of the recordings, but the screen cannot be seen from the camera position and the audio is muddled and indiscernible. At 54:09:34, heavy footsteps can be heard from off-camera, accompanied by clanking chain and the slamming of a screen door.

*6*

"The Invasion of Elwood City" - Two-episode arc of Arthur detailing the arrival of a virulent alien organism in Elwood city, and the subsequent quarantine and evacuation. Despite subject matter, presentation and characterization do not radically differ from typical episodes. The "Now For A Word From Us Kids" interstitial of both episodes is replaced with static.

*7*

"The Spearpoint Video" - Field recording of paleontology dig. All speech is in Mandarin Chinese. Unidentified researcher points out the exposed femur of a juvenile sauropod, then focuses on what is clearly an obsidian spearpoint embedded in the fossil. Researcher calmly says "Listen closely, wait, and do not forget." before walking away from the digsite and out of sight over a ridge. Camera turns to watch, but operator does not follow.

*8*

"IhaveSeentheDoor" - Defunct Youtube channel. Only remaining evidence are screenshots dated to August of 2007. Channel description presented as "Readings from the Book of Gaub." Four videos are listed, all with <100 views: "Misaligned Components (Revised)", "The Delegation to the Court", " I Have Seen the Door" and "Teeth".

*9*

"Crisis on the Cursed Planet!" -  Episode of Captain Video and His Video Rangers centered around a space colony beset by an alien creature that devours memories. As the settlers lose their memories they grow increasingly paranoid and aggressive towards each other until fighting breaks out and the colony is destroyed. Episode ends with a new colony being founded as the creature watches from afar. Episode contains spliced-in western footage to pad for time typical of the series.

*10*

"The Drive Home" - 48 minutes of dashcam footage depicting a solitary drive at night. No oncoming traffic or signage is seen for the entirety of the footage. The driver (believed to be a man of middle age) speaks occasionally. Twice in French and the rest in Norwegian, with topics including repairs to a workshed, a new prescription for blood pressure medication, and complaints about American tourists.

At 43:20, the driver pulls over to the side of the road and exits the vehicle, leaving the engine and lights on. At 46:34 he emerges from the woods dragging a struggling nonhuman entity (seen to grow and absorb at least five limbs during this time) and shoots it four times with the revolver he is carrying. Entity lets out a long, sonorous wheeze. Driver fires two more shots and drags now-still entity out of sight. Dull thump heard, presumed to be the corpse heaved into the bed of a truck. Driver returns to seat and shuts off camera.

*11*

"The Dead Men" - Three heavily-damaged 10-inch 35 mm film reels. Reconstructed segments are primarily from the middle of the film, which portrays a military campaign against an unnamed, implacable, and seemingly inhuman enemy force, with characters hoping to rech a fortified city on the other side of enemy-held territory. Setting appears primarily late medieval period but has no direct reference to any historical places or people - all notable cultural markers seem to be diegetic. Characters are all either soldiers or camp followers in an ensemble cast. No actors can be identified. Brutal depictions of violence. Uses a constructed language for all dialogue, accompanied by English subtitles throughout. Estimated full run time 2 hours 48 minutes.

*12* 

"[REDACTED] Chinese Food Stuffing On Back Porch" - Amateur fetish video linked to a terminated Clips4Sale account. Majority of runtime is taken up by recitation of the complete Secret Gospel of Mark in Koine Greek.

*13*

"Sermon 54" - Audio cassette tape of American Evangelical preacher performing revival service. Peppered throughout with references to recent events that do not match with consensus chronology, including "The Great Clean-Coming of '74", "Josiah who ate the Serpent", "Casting Down at the Sin Market", and the election of the Lord of the Flies to position of President of the UN General Assembly.

*14*

"The Sphinx" - Footage of an enormous black cat-like creature with an androgynous, bright red human face, grooming itself. The surrounding room is dark, but it can be determined that it is sitting in a corner on top of a pile of books, with shelves on either wall. At the end of the 3 minute 10 second video, the creature will present one of 108 different riddles to the viewer.

*15*

"frog_fractions4.exe" - 1.3 TB executable file found among the former possessions of one [REDACTED], who had taken up a solitary ascetic life in a mountain cabin some six months before discovery of the file.

*16*

"Lavender Town Anomalous Experience # 458" - A Pokemon Blue cartridge containing a multilevel subterranean complex beneath Lavender Town. Total extent unknown, maximum depth reached is level 43. All wild Pokemon encounters are portrayed with the ghost sprite, each with a unique type combination and moveset. Trainer encounters are difficult and likewise feature nonstandard mechanics.

*17*

"Lupae" ("The Wolves") - Papyrus scroll recovered from the villa of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus in Herculaneum, containing a period-appropriate adaptation of Mean Girls for the stage. Specific cultural references have been exchanged for more appropriate content and stage directions have been added, but the remainder of the work remains intact.

*18*

"2020 RNC Video Hijacking" - Unidentified woman wearing a rubber rottweiler mask sits in swivel chair, feet on desk, playing a Nintendo Switch. Second woman's voice heard from off screen. lines in angle brackets was later identified as a mix of Ojibwe and Uzbek.

Woman 2: <The camera's on.>

Woman 1: <You sure? Doesn't look on.>

Woman 2: <Little green light, right near the bottom.>

Woman 1: <Ah, shit, there it is.> [Looks at camera, clears throat. Sings in English while clapping hands, to the refrain of the Battle Hymn of the Republic]: "It's a motherfucking brown note, it's a motherfucking brown note, it's a motherfucking brown note, I hope you brought spare pants!"

Versions of the video taken from live newscasts of the event include the mass expulsion of fecal matter by all present. 

*19*

"Autopsy.mov" - Video file of three doctors operating on cadaver of adult male. The following organs are removed from the cadaver's abdominal cavity over the course of the footage: four lungs, five livers, eighteen kidneys, three gallbladders, three spleens, one pancreas a stomach, an estimated 45 meters of intestinal tract, and a heart containing a second trimester human fetus.

*20*

"Episode ####" - Episode of Sesame Street wherein Big Bird, Grover, and Snuffy investigate rumors of a stranger who has arrived in the neighborhood, described as being very tall, very thin, wearing a very nice suit, and not having a face. The being is seen in the background of multiple scenes prior to its full reveal, where the trio come to realize that they have nothing to fear from the strange, tall man. Content is generally tonally consistent with non-anomalous episodes, save an instance where Big Bird emphatically reinforces the importance of knowing your family's fire plan, not wandering in the woods at night, and always asking before taking photographs of strangers. The tall stranger remains silent throughout the episode, though other characters act as if they can hear him speak.

While the tall man is clearly a puppet, it performs several maneuvers (including one scene where it must contort itself through a doorway) beyond even the ability of the Jim Henson Company.

Collected Material Evidence

"The Dream (The Bed)", Frida Kahlo

Faded color photograph: A decrepit, single-story wooden shack. Sagging roof. Surrounding foliage is overgrown. Trees in background are partially consumed by kudzu. The river is black with silt. Strong wind bends visible branches. Sky is dark grey with clouds yet to rupture. Door is hanging open: interior cannot be seen.

**

Faded color photograph: Interior. A splintery wooden crib, filled with stained rags. Peeling yellow wallpaper. Pattern indistinct. Mildewed stuffed toy with limp neck.

**

Unreleased podcast excerpt: "It's like...say you have a giant tub filled with LEGO, and all the pieces are moving around and bumping into each other. Then two pieces from one particular set click into place, just like in the directions. And enough time goes by and the circumstances are just right and those two pieces fit together with a few more of the correct pieces and now you have a little cluster that's been built just according to the pattern.

Then you start getting another cluster forming, and all the pieces are different and they fit together in different ways, but it's still part of the same set as the first one, right? Different page of the directions, different pattern, same set.

Eventually, enough of those separate parts will come together, and the set's complete."

**

News site printout: Dated 02/05/2022. Headline: ANCIENT HUMAN REMAINS FOUND IN LAKE VOSTOK

**

Scrap of paper: "...the quince is the sole member of the genus Cydonia..."

**

Unpublished manuscript excerpt: "It was only ever an optical illusion. A plateau shaped just so, that a grainy black-and-white camera high above would send back images of a pallid, masklike face.

**

14th century woodcut, German: A skeletal woman weilding a hand sickle cuts off the arm of a recoiling peasant. She is exhaling a cloud of smoke and flies, and looks to have emerged from the ground.

**

Portrait: ("Old King Jeremiah", Anonymous, c.1830) Elderly man in yellow turban slouching in his chair, holding his face in despair. Table set with ornate, but tarnished, place settings and rotting fruit. In the background is a large portrait of a distant, snowy city has been set afire. A woman's form can dimly be made out in the shadows behind him: she is laying a hand upon his shoulder.

**

Damaged hardcover book: No title, author, or publishing information provided. 151 pages. French. Knife scars on black leather cover with few remaining traces of original embossed icon. Text has been heavily redacted by an unsteady hand.

**

Digital photograph: Graffiti on highway underpass. Location unknown. HER MOTHER WAS HER SISTER

**

Porcelain mask: Slim, androgynous appearance. White glaze shifts to pale gold at the edges.

**

Recollections of a dream: an open expanse of sere grass and stunted, dead trees, enveloped in a thick, grey fog. Still muddy water stretches out like a glistening mirror to the horizon, where stands the barely-visible towers of a distant city.

**

Suspicious mondegreen: "hidden in the branches of the poisoned creole soil..."

**

Viral computer application: カル コ サ.exe

**

Color photograph: Blurry image of a woman in a yellow dress, back turned to the photographer, surrounded by dark overgrowth. On the back, in faded ink: "Melinoë, saffron-cloaked nymph of the earth..."

**

Digital photograph: Graffiti on brick wall. Location unknown. Unidentified symbol in yellow paint (covered by other tags) accompanied by partial text. LE ROI N'A JAMAIS VECU LA REINE RESTE SANS FIN

The Florentine

Evlyn started up a project where folks would write up author avatars and the assorted Lovecraftian tomes they had authored. Since Evlyn has only recently returned to Twitter, I don't know if there's been any more talk or progress on it. Hopefully this will jumpstart other people to join in.

Domenico Frazzini

(b. 1460 d. 1516) 

Few details of Frazzini's life as a minor clerk in the Arte del Cambio survive. His poetry gained little traction in the Florence of his day and in the following centuries languished in obscurity. The fragments of his letters paint a picture of a man withdrawn from general social life for the company of a small circle of close friends, beset by fits of melancholy and chronic insomnia and with little love for the trade he found himself in. (From one of his letters: "How I hate the florin. I cannot think clearly with the clink of gold in my ears.") At some point in his early life he had intended to become a monk, but for unclear reasons chose a different path. Later documents contain spirited critique of church corruption. It was in the dreams and daydreams of the landscapes and inhabitants of fantastic worlds, and in the poetry inspired by them, that he found his great escape.

The date of Frazzini's death is known, but not the cause. It's suspected to be from complications caused by years of stress and lack of sleep.

Bibliography

The majority of Frazzini's works were destroyed during the Bonfire of the Vanities in 1497. The surviving poetry and letters were left in the care of his close friend, Giacomo Betori. These were then compiled into the form he is most known for.

The Little Dream Book / Piccolo Libro dei Sogni

• Journey to the Moon - A comedic picaresque adventure wherein a peasant girl travels to the moon to free her betrothed, who was imprisoned there by horrible toadlike monsters. On her way she encounters a pair of Egyptian priests, an enchanted forest, a band of talking rats, and other such picaresque adventures. It is Frazzini's longest surviving work.
• The Republic of Cats - A political satire where barely-renamed notable Florentines are rendered as cats deciding what to do while the owner of the house is away. Naturally, they come to no conclusions and all fall asleep long before the man's return.
• The Androphagi - An account of the man-eaters who live "south of the world and below the world", as told by a visitor in their lands. The Court of the Marrow King is convened to throw a feast in the visitor's honor, and unable to contain his disgust the visitor flees through subterranean warrens, pursued by the Marrow King's soldiers and glimpsing even more horrific sights before reaching the safety of the sun above.
• The Golden Lady - A short poem from Frazzini to his wife, expressing his affection and admiration for her. If nothing else, it seems that they were happy together.
• Tambifilotopa - A nonsense poem describing the bizarre creatures that live in the enchanted forest featured in "Journey to the Moon".
• Across the Burning Desert - A trading caravan is beset by water thieves, and the merchants find that the god they carry with them has gone silent. Ends in uncertainty as night falls and the moonlight reveals amorphous shapes among the rocks.
• House of the Spider - The spider in question never appears, but the house and all its decrepitude are described in great detail. A pair of goat-eyed men from a distant duchy arrive to hunt down the spider (against the counsel of the townsfolk) and are last seen entering through the front door.
• The Worms that Duel - A town suffers a devastating earthquake, caused by a pair of miles-long worms, one black and one white, fighting each other deep beneath the ground.
• The Devil Arrives - A nameless Tuscan town is visited on Carnivale night by a man whose clothes are black are tar and whose scarf is red like a bloodied tongue. He offers boons to anyone who asks; those who accept the offer find themselves cursed by misfortune or madness. As he leaves, the man delivers a message from his "old master, blind, deaf and dumb" - but this is written in indecipherable scribbles.
  
• Flight - An aging Frazzini in declining health describes his sleeping spirit flying out of his body and soaring over the lands he has explored in earlier years, holding on to a night's freedom before he must return to mortality.
• Notes and Letters - Precisely that.

Editions

• Original Manuscript - Handwritten. Everything that avoided the bonfire and made its way to Betori's care.
• 1550 First Printing - Betori's grandson edits the surviving manuscripts into a single work and oversees a small printing of The Little Dream Book.
• Translations
• 1760 - Initial rediscovery and translation into English and French.
• 1833 - Bowlderized run, no known surviving copies and they were awful anyway.
• 1879 - A second, more faithful English translation. Treated as the standard, available on Gutenberg Project.
• Modern translations
• 1974 - A scholarly edition, with footnotes and everything.
• 1999 - Republished version of the 1974 text.
• 2017 - New English translation with the Italian on the opposing page. Has been translated into 9 additional languages.