Mayday Plays - 🕳️The Dead Drop | "IL: The End of the World of the End" | Episode 6

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

The final chapter of the Impossible Landscapes campaign gets covered. Vince & Sergio guide you through the Skeleton City, into Lake Holi, and through the many sights and horrors you can find in Carcosa. This is a cut-down version. For a full discussion, an hour and twenty minutes in length, subscribe to our Patreon, where a $5 pledge gets you access to all the extended episodes. http://patreon.com/maydayrp Cryochamber: https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/music Black Project Gaming's Songs from the Night Floors; blackprojectgaming.bandcamp.com Vince's Spotify playlists; Background: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5BNuGbMh6KroC6XZcCB5jB?si=32a885c514904eea Combat: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4g7YIEZxl28aS9hTr7OTuX?si=aaf5869c18034d2c Hastur: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0DIaInSLdCnHMn9dfJqjVo?si=3574417fd72748b9 👕 MERCH: http://ko-fi.com/maydayrp 💵 Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/maydayrp 🎙 Listen to us: 🟣 Apple Podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mayd…ys/id1537347277 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5vdTgXoqpSpMssSP9Vka3Z?si=97a6a19d71cf4be0 🟠 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mayday-roleplay 🌟 Other Socials 🌟 🐦 Twitter: http://twitter.com/maydayroleplay 📸 Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/ 🔴 Website: http://maydayroleplay.com/ 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maydayroleplay 👾 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/maydayroleplay 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maydayrp Thanks for your support!

Hello friends and welcome back. My name is Sergio and I am the handler for Mayday's Delta Green campaign doomed to repeat. With me as always is a four-star general in the Black Wind. It's Black Project Gaming's Vince. How are you, my friend? Hey, buddy, good to be here and glad to have you all tuning in. As you know, we are part of Mayday Rollplay. We play tabletop role-playing games like Delta Green, Vampire the Maskerade, 5E, Orpheus, and a whole lot more.

We have something for everyone and all of it is available in podcast or video format completely free. So check it out. We do have a Patreon or joining for as little as $2. We'll grant you access to a Discord community behind the screen content and original artwork from our very own Zekea Goggins. As of the release of this video, though, you're hearing it here first. That Patreon subscription will include access to recordings of my current campaign with the original Black Project Gaming cast. where I run them through God's Teeth, the latest campaign by Caleb Stokes. So that's exciting.

I'm very excited that we get to host a Black Project Gaming's latest campaign on our channel, on our network. Can't wait to listen. So your players have finally arrived at the beautiful shores of Lake Holly, but they've forgotten their invitations to the masquerade. Never fear. Just dig around the skeleton city where in perpetuity you have found the Dead Drop, a guide to running Impossible Landscapes. So, Vince, it all comes down to this, the final chapter.

We are covering today the end of the world of the end, the final scenario for the Delta Green campaign Impossible Landscapes. As a warning, spoilers ahead for the end of the world of the end. If you are a player in an Impossible Landscapes campaign, you need to make like the Barre family, throw a blood-soaked pillowcase over your head and run out the room. But if you're interested in running or currently running this campaign, then you can stay. You're cool. Okay.

We've got the business out of the way, Vince. Please help us understand what is the end of the world of the app? It is exactly as the title suggests. It is the capstone, the conclusion, the end of the world as the end. the agents know it. This is very much the culmination of the past several scenarios worth of surreal suffering, of contact with the King and Yellow and his forces, of escaping the static team. This is where it all reaches its head, and they finally fulfill their,

if you want to call it divine purpose, as endowed upon them by the King and Yellow, and they finally present the soul bottle to the author and set the cycle in motion once again. that ultimately ends with the King and Yellow being written. It's, yeah, it's crazy. But before they can get all the way to that, they have to first travel a city-sized battlefield full of interesting characters and dangerous elements. So we're going to kind of dive into it.

Stepping out of the Whisper Labyrinth, they come into a new plane, a new plane of existence, distance and they immediately see the skeleton city. Right. Yeah, it's almost like, again, it's really hammering that surreal imagery, that surreal tone and this dreamlike state because it's not like they step out and now all of a sudden they're in this new vista. They're waking up.

They find themselves waking up on the shores of Lake Holly, the cloud waves of Holly. Without a real clear memory of how they got there, they remember climbing the steps out of the whispered labyrinth. they remember waking up. So again, really playing with that, you know, the lines between what is real and what is not, what is dream, what is, you know, waking nightmares, all of that. You know, they see the two moons hanging in the sky. They see the black stars. They see all of it. And they realize that they are finally now in Carcosa. So surrounding all of the lake is, of course, the, as you mentioned, the ruins of Yatil, this, you know, skeleton city where they can find anything they

one, none of it just, none of it works. They can take the time to go searching. They can take, you know, the examples they give. Doctors can go and find broken surgical equipment and bones. Police officers, agents, soldiers, they'll find uniforms and rusted useless weapons. You know, so they find exactly what it is they're looking for. It's just not in the condition they want it to be. And that whole, the whole thing with the, uh, the skeleton city, with kind of finding these things

that they're thinking about and that they want to find, but not in the exact condition. They want it. It's alluding to and building upon this concept that the agents themselves, they can unconsciously manipulate Carcosa. They can unconsciously manipulate their surroundings, what's going on around them, their path to the palace, like all of it. They are able to influence it at the quantum level just with thought. Yeah, if done right, this could be a fun reveal to the players, listening to what they're doing, listening to what they're asking for, what they're looking for. And eventually when they just keep finding the things that are on the tip of their tongue, it should start becoming more and more obvious.

Absolutely. Eventually, though, they will come across the shores of Lake Hawley. How big do you imagine Lake Holly? Is it so big you can't see the other side? I don't think it's so big that you won't be able to see all of it, because I believe the way it's described is the skeleton city kind of surrounding. it on all sides. Yeah, like a big circle around it, right?

So it's massive, but you could probably take time to walk around it if you needed to, but it's going to take you some time. I imagine it's like not quite like a great lake, you know, in the north, but... The fact remains that they can explore the skeleton city all they want, but what matters is that they get to the shores of that lake. If I'm not mistaken, there are clues throughout the campaign suggesting that they go to the lake, right? Yeah, I mean, so they essentially, they wake up.

up on the banks of that lake. Right. So they're already there. They're right there. You know, if they want to take the time to walk around and go explore the city because they think that's Carcosa or what have you, they can do that. But at all points, like even when they start walking, maybe they find themselves back on the shores again because, again, time and distance have really no meaning here.

So the big thing is like when they finally take a moment to really look at the lake and assess it, you know, it's black, it's still, it's clear. They can see, you know, the black, you know, stars and the, you know, the black, you know, stars and moon reflected, but then they can actually see pinpoints of light below the water. And that's when they start to realize, okay, maybe this is not just a normal lake. You know, they can actually, when they look carefully, they see the far off lights of a city. They see the avenues laid out like spokes in a wheel. And an intelligence times five rule will actually kind of tell them that they're looking at a

lit, still standing version of the city around them. So a almost a tangible reflection of the city. but one that's still intact. It also gives me kind of black hole vibes where you know how things can be reflected in and out of a black hole where it just, I get that feeling like the skeleton city

is like a warped on the edge of a black hole version of what's inside, you know? Oh, I like that. Yeah, you could definitely play with that imagery for sure. And fortunately, it's very easy to get to this sunken secret city. You just have to take one of the many boats that are available along the shores. you sure do yeah just find a boat um there's hundreds of them all along the shores uh they are

none has a sail paddles ropes or a tiller uh they're all carved in a different unique style uh no matter how big they are the agents can easily push them into the into the water and what's crazy is like this is one of those things where like the more they start doing things that make sense or start doing things that further their their ultimate goal they begin to regain sanity right so like you know, they climb into the boat, oh, this feels right, you've regained one D4 sanity. So it's all reemphasizing that this is their purpose. This is their lane. That's their avenue they're supposed to be on.

And this is another opportunity to show off those new reality-altering skills that they think, you know, move or they say out loud, you know, move forward. The boat starts to move. Yes. Yeah. Because once they climb in, the boat, I believe, begins to fall. and they can control, you know, the movement simply through will. It's usually, I believe it's the agent with the highest corruption, is automatically the boat's pilot. So whoever's got the highest corruption rating out of the group is going to be the one who's ultimately in control.

They push out into the waters. And I think the main trigger here is that if they touch the water or if they attempt to jump in or anything like that, it changes. Right. If they actually touch the water, it'll start kind of, it'll cause this mist to rise, and it becomes a haze. And in minutes, the fog actually replaces the water, which is going to incur a sanity check. And they start to sink down. They start to sink. Further towards the city.

If they're not in boats, they are going to take damage once they make it to the city and fall out of the cloud lake. Yes, yeah. Definitely, as a handler, definitely be sure to read through all the op-in and all the, you know, threat matrix information. to really, you know, make this journey into Carcoza as compelling as possible. So they make it finally to the secret city that is much more alive. It has a very kind of French feel to it. You can see a palace in a distance. There's an interesting challenge, though, with traveling through the city,

which is that they have to make sanity roles as they go, and only failure gets you where you want to go, where you want to be, right? Exactly. Yeah, it's a continuation of that navigation challenge from the night floors, from the very beginning, that in order to get anywhere, you have to fail that Sandy check. You cannot be of sound mind and still have an influence over Yatil, over Kirkosa, over the streets. So, yeah, the ultimately, the agent leader has to fail three sanity rolls for movement. And at that point, that's when they entered the war zone. That's when they begin to start really making their way into the city. proper. As they fail their sand checks and they go through the town, there's a bunch of stuff that they can come across. There is the average apartment that is described on page 314. There is this language of Tartesian that I don't think has any real basis in our world, but I think it, the book describes it as slightly related to, I think it's Russian or something like that,

some Eastern European language. Yeah. Yeah, it's a Cyrillic-based alphabet. So, you know, those who maybe have a background of Russian can recognize the Cyrillic font, the other Cyrillic letters, but then, you know, there's, of course, differences. It's very Eastern European. Yeah, they would have had an opportunity to come across it with Castain, with Castain and the night floors who spoke Tartesian. And in fact, some of the images that the players maybe saw in his apartment, if they did go in and talk to him, will reflect Yatil, because there were photos of the war and everything

on his newspaper articles. So it's a good callback potentially. I used, like I mentioned, I did the Barre family, and I did use the next one, which was the anarchist, where the players can meet a man who refuses to identify himself, mentions the uprising, the forces of the king, the army, the palace. And then he just hands the agents 12 sticks of dynamite wired to an old ticking alarm clock. That's not unsettling at all.

He will give another bomb to anybody else at actually. for one. And then if anybody asks about actually gaining access to the palace, he will direct them to Ambrose at the pier, which is a very important connection to make. So that's why I made sure to highlight this individual. Each bomb is set off, set to go off at midnight. It will inflect a lethality of 30% with a kill radius of 10 meters. It can be disarmed if you have the appropriate craft or demolition skill. And of course, if you fail, the unstable bomb can't be safely disarmed and a fumble as you well know uh surge it will detonate uh fucking kill everybody so uh yeah it does it's not meant to detonate until the moment that the king in yellow

unmasks himself at the masquerade um and anybody who accepts it gains plus one corruption and uh like any true anarchist as soon as he heads out the door he says debt to the king and gets himself blown up it's kind of funny yeah later the agent's here an enormous hollow boom as the anarchist's building is completely leveled by an explosion. So a good character to unload some more information about the area, like the family, and also just to get a bomb from him. That's pretty cool. Yep, and direct them to Ambrose, which is a big one, I think.

So we finally make it to the war zone. Have you seen the animation Mad God? I have not. There's a sequence that I suggest everybody watch and maybe all included in the description of a never-ending war zone of just like tanks and weapons. weaponry being fired indiscriminately. Nothing makes sense. There is no direction or goal.

It's just endless war. And I certainly get that vibe from the war zone. Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it is where this war between the Black Wind and the King and Yellow's forces is just is ongoing for all eternity and in perpetuity. Yeah. As well as the German and Russian forces of World War II.

Yes. Yeah, who managed to find themselves in this, and this might, you know, this myasma that is Carcosa. Yeah, you can run across them as well. And so in the same situation as the secret city, you have to fail some sanity checks to get across this land, correct? And there are encounters. Yeah, so at this point, I wouldn't necessarily require,

like, I think once they've made the requisite failures and they've made it through the outskirts of the city and they make it to the war zone, now they're good to proceed as normal. because you definitely don't want to end up bogging down the sequence with repeated rolls over and over again, especially they still are of a healthy enough sanity to succeed more than they fail. So then how would you quantify how many encounters they need to have before they get to the inevitable tractor factory? You know, what I did was I just, I went through this as I was planning and plotting,

and I just picked the ones that I thought were really compelling and I thought would be interesting, given the players and the choices they'd made up until that point. And I just implemented the ones I liked the most. So, like, for instance, I found the imagery in the hangmen a bit, like really haunting and compelling where, you know, these German soldiers are hanging, you know, children. And, you know, that's a really awful, awful thing to come across. But again, it's like...

And it's a good moment for the players because what do we do? Do we help them? Do we not help them? Do we just watch? Exactly. Yeah. And it's, to me, I think that's a good, it's a good bit to include because it shows that somehow, you know, the Germans and the Russians, or the, at least the Germans made it here

from fucking who knows where and how, like, nobody has any idea. But then what I did was I used that. So I used the hangmen and they intervened. They tried to rescue the kids. And I believe they were successful. And I pad that play into the locals, which was the, next sequence. I had the children that survived take them to the locals who then help them get closer to the palace. That's a great suggestion. And I think it's easy to forget sometimes

when you're running these games and you see these encounters, viewing them isolated, not connected to others. So of course, if you save these boys, they would bring you to their family, the locals, and the story would expand that way. So yeah, you know, not looking at these is just very isolated incidents and trying to find a way to weave them all together is a great suggestion. It's kind of what my intent was. And then same with pinned. I think I can't remember I believe I used pinned where all of a sudden they're getting they're getting hammered to a machine gunfire from an elevated position. I really used that to like once they emerge from the I believe the sewer or the basement where the, um, the locals were when they emerged from the sewers. They ended up in

this open area where, you know, it was of course being overwatched. by a machine gun. Again, really driving home. You guys are in the middle of a war zone. But yeah, you could definitely, and to me, tactically, it makes sense. Like, the tractor factory is where you're trying to go to. It's the site of a major battle. So it would make sense that some of the forces involved would have a given avenue of approach covered by a machine gun. So, you know, take a look at how bad of a shape your players are in, uh, and their characters. And if they're really fucked up, maybe you avoid that one and just get right to the tractor factory. Otherwise, uh, yeah, feel free to throw it in there. Well, I, I like the imagery.

that you're setting up of kind of like the underground, what's the word, the underground resistance. You met the arsonist, the anarchist, and now if you save the boys, you meet the locals, which are probably also trying to just stay out of harm's way. And you could, if your handler, if your agents are hurt, you could just have them go down some tunnels or through some other means instead of engaging in combat directly. Exactly, yeah. That I feel like is a great avenue to go with that, especially if at this point in the campaign,

your players are maybe not very combat heavy, not used to, you know, don't have the requisite skills to really make it through a war zone. Yeah, definitely use this to your advantage. Just like in Hotel Brottlebin and in other situations, they are inevitably finding themselves at the tractor factor. which we learned about in the past. It was a famous Russian tractor factory that had a big battle near it,

and there was a battle here as well. Yes, yeah. So they will come across barricades, tanks, rubble, and then corpses of Tartesian, Black Wind, Russian, and German forces, all just kind of dead and or dying here or still fighting. So this is definitely a rough one where, in order to even get through it, the agents will have to make a sand roll twice.

Failure means movement, success means you're in the same spot. So this can be a very stressful sequence for the players as they're struggling to get through to the other side. If they do manage to succeed their sanity role and therefore fail to move, they have to make a luck rule. Critical success means they only take one damage from shrapnel. Failure means they take 1D8 from a bullet.

A fumble means a lethality, percent attack from artillery. However, success means they only sustain one D4 from a, from a ricochet. So you're going to get hit if you end up not moving because, of course, you're stationary in the middle of the battlefield. But yeah, this could be a rough one. They have to get in through the front door seems the most obvious. That's the way through. Yes. But there's also a bit of like a ripping the Band-Aid off feeling in this moment. You're going to take damage. I almost wonder if that's something a handler. should describe. It's just how do you want to take that damage? You know, do you want to run across and

hedge your bets? Do you want to try to hide and waste time? But regardless, it's a bit of a battlefield here to look for lack of a better word. Really? Yeah. You hit the nail in the head. The way I would kind of approach it is if you happen to have a player character who is that has a military background, has something in military science, or even if they're an experienced agent with, you know, depending on their background and their history, like just tell them, like, you know, looking at this scene,

looking at this open area that you are going to have to cross, you are going to get hit. There's no way you're going to get through this unscathed. It's just a matter of, like, you're confident that you can, you know, mitigate the worst of it if you just keep moving, but if you stop for even a second, you, that could be it.

And so, you know, hope that they impart that information on their fellow agents, like start moving and keep moving. Finally, we make it across the battlefield and we get to the silent city. I was expecting a city, you know, alive and full of movement, but no, it's kind of like the skeleton city where it's quiet. It still has a lot of remnants of combat and the war zone, but it is one step closer to the palace. It is, yeah, and I think the implication there is that, at least,

the way I interpreted it. And of course, you can, you can describe it as the handler any way you want. But the way I kind of perceived that was with the skeleton city and that initial, you know, push through the, through the war zone and everything, the streets are quiet and deserted because of the war. Here in the silent city, the streets are deserted and quiet because everybody's going to the masquerade. Gotcha. Yeah. So that's kind of the way I interpreted that. There are a couple of very important things to find in the silent city. There is the clockwork factory, the gallery of shades, and the palace itself, along with the allies and enemies you might come across here. But let's talk about the clockwork factory first, because it seems very important.

Yes. So yeah, the clockwork factory is where there is right on the pier, which if they remember if they encountered the anarchist, they all know that here is where they will meet Ambrose, who will be their, their, uh, their way to the palace. In fact, if the players did find the postcard from Dr. Barbus's house, they'll recognize this structure as what was on that postcard that they found in his mail. So again, it's a little bit of a sanity hit there, but another interesting little callback to things they may have encountered throughout the course of this campaign. But inside, you know, they'll see the clockwork child, who they may have run into before.

You know, the implication being this is a creation of Ambrose. Ambrose is this engineer type. It's kind of the Pinocchio to his Geppetto. He's very forthcoming. He's very cooperative. He's very friendly. He'll answer their questions. He'll tell them what they need.

He'll give them information likely that the players will need an invitation to get into the masquerade. But if they don't have one, he and the clockwork child will be able to take them to the gallery of shades to obtain one. And yeah, there's a bunch of different little callbacks here. So be sure to read through this section as a handler. And really lean into the fact that Ambrose is not trying to be able to. trying to hide anything. He's here to be an asset. Did any of your players hang on to their invitation?

Or did they all need Ambrose to help them get invitations? We did have to go to the gallery of shades. We did have to go to get the invitations. But the other thing to Ambrose was able to get them as well was costumes. He was able to hook them up with masks and costumes to get in and then also able to take them to the gallery to obtain an invitation. So we got the masks and the costumes and then the invite. I do suppose that would be the most. most common way things end up is that the players don't hang on to the invitations, or at least don't outright announce, I hang on to this wherever I go. So this is pretty important.

Ambrose is going to have to take them to the gallery. It's described this place to us. Yeah. So it is definitely, it is a museum type structure that houses works of hundreds of artists, all of them influenced by Carcosa in some way, shape, or form. form. While outside, the building, of course, has a consistent shape and structure inside, like everything else. It is constantly fluid and changing and different. It's never static. Here, there's all kinds of art. There's paintings, there's sketches, there's sculptures,

books, slideshows, everything. So definitely, you know, think of what kind of art you want to see showcased here. Like I know for mine, because one of the things I did before I started the campaign was I had every character have some kind of encounter with Carcoza without them realizing it through some form of art or another. So we have some of those original art pieces that they came across in their previous lives end up here. I just love that every Abigail Wright, you know, that has these incredible expressions could potentially be here. You know, you see Abigail Wright's wall in this room and just countless examples of artists being influenced. Yeah, it's really haunting and it's a really cool set piece, I think. But of course, you know, locations like these are not without their

dangers. So as the agents go through, they'll have to make a luck roll. And that the agent who rolls the highest, whether they fail or not, falls under the gallery sway. You could also target the agent with the highest corruption, which is personally what I would probably do. You know, that corruption rating is a double-edged sword, right? Or the highest art skill. But either way, for every 10 minutes in the gallery, the affected agent loses zero to 1D4 standard. from the unnatural. If the sanity rule fails, they gain plus one corruption.

But it says here, do not tell the player about the lost sand. Just the lost sanity. Just keep track of it privately. And if they hit zero sanity, they basically become your puppet. If the affected agent actually reaches zero sanity,

there's a dozen masked figures in dark robes that will suddenly step into the room from out of nowhere, block all the entrances. The other agents will find themselves frozen and unable to act. And the insane agent will step forward and walk off. with these figures, never to be seen again.

I, you know, again, this is another situation where out of nowhere your character can disappear or be taken out of the game. I think that could work, but I also think that at this point, going along with the idea of just keeping these characters along for the ride, maybe if they hit Zero San, you pass them a note that says, you know, your goal is to get to the ball. if I suggest things, please follow through with them. You know, they become a marionette of the handler. But to just make the character disappear, I don't know,

this just feels like there's too many chances to derail the campaign when you're so close at the end, you know? Absolutely, yeah. I think that's a great middle ground, right, is make them a puppet of the handler. And their sole focus at this point is to get the remaining players to the palace and to fulfill that mission of, delivering the soul bottle. One of the other art displays they can see is the scribe, which

players who have been to Dr. Barbus's house recognize it as the same or a similar build as the scribe that he has in his home. And if they get too close, it kind of interacts with them a little bit. It does. Yeah. So the scribe will be the one to actually pump out the invitation for the players. However, it does need an invitation to go by. It needs an original copy to reproduce. I think in my I think I had the anarchist when he delivered the bombs to the agents. He actually gave them an invitation, so they had at least one. And then once they make it to the scribe, they're able to give that to the scribe. And the scribe will produce the additional invitations needed to get everybody to get everybody inside.

I see. I was going to say it's a little weird that the only way to get an invitation is to have an invitation and give it to the scribe. So that is a good idea that if you know your agents don't have the invitation, the anarchist or somebody gives it to him. I'm not going tonight, and they hand off one copy. Right. And finally, they reach the palace. Yep.

Well, in fact, to even get there, they have to take a ride on Ambrose's ornery. Oh, right. So, yeah, and that aurory can take them in different places, too, if they just need to travel around. It can, yep. It can travel to any location in the skeleton city and the secret city of Carcosa. He can take up to six people with them. It is not fun. Everybody gets some goggles.

and, you know, he sits at a central booth and the thing just spins around. It's like a painful version of the Willy Wonka ride when they're going down that tunnel. It gets all psychedelic. Yes, yeah. And, of course, you know, like with everything, all the players need to make a sanity role. And those who fail suffer vertigo and nausea for 1D6 minutes. Yeah, vomiting and stumbling about and all their roles are reduced by 40%. Of course, Ambrose remarks it is a marvelous contraption.

what he's done. So they can attempt to gain entry by walking up and handing their invitations, which I assume will get them in. Yep, and they will be searched. But what's funny is like, the guards don't care if they have a weapon, if they have a

bomb on them. They just kind of put it off to the side and allow them in. So, you know, unless they try to make a stealth rule against the guards alertness score of 55%, they're going to give up those weapons and those bombs and make it than like any other partygoer.

And I assume with a good stealth role, they could probably steal it back or something like that, you know, if it's just sitting on a table. Exactly, yeah, as long as they, as long as they beat that guard's alertness rating,

but then, of course, if they don't, that could send derail things quite fully. The guards are all wearing golden lion masks, so maybe you could play back the golden lion they encountered at, uh, uh,

Harbuss's home. They'll have that scary facade on their face. Absolutely. Yeah, I like that. That's a good point. point. They make it inside and then there is the description of the masquerade, how it is alluring and beautiful and haunting and kind of captures your imagination and the players kind of have to fight to

stay focused once they're inside. Yeah, or, you know, the main thing that I took away from the description in that, that hop-in section was hypnotic, right? Like, it's really dialing that dreamlike quality up to 11, you know, everything. the music, the way people are dancing and moving about the room. There is almost this subtle pattern to it that it, like, you know, the way I would describe it is, you know, if you stare long enough, you, you feel like you may get some inner glimpse of how the universe really works. You know, it's like the planet's moving and dancing around each other. An example of a kind of dreamlike ball, there is the show Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell.

Have you ever heard of that? Yeah, I have. There's a whole sequence in the fairy kingdom, in the fairy plane, where there's a lot of dance ballroom sequences and it's very dreamlike. So that's a good example of using something. But, you know, I also think of Barry Lyndon. Barry Lyndon was shot almost entirely practically

where they had special lenses and cameras to get the exposure using candlelight. So in shots you see, you know, hundreds of candles everywhere to give proper exposure. But it has, it lends itself a little bit of a dreamlike, strange kind of quality to the image. So I would watch those old Victorian, French kind of styles of ballrooms and dances and masquerades and take from your favorite media that uses those examples.

We did receive one question from YouTube comments. A Graham 2863 asked, what other music besides the caretaker might make for good musical background or atmosphere for the night floors and onwards? Do you have any other suggestions for music that you can play throughout the can? campaign. Always. Yeah. For me, when I was running this, cryo chamber was the constant, right? Cryo chamber, for those who are not aware, it's a dark ambient label. They're a conglomeration of different artists putting out various dark ambient works that is absolutely like tailor made for a Delta Green campaign. They even have a concept album that is all based on or inspired by Haster, by the King and Yellow. So, you know, that's a great, that's a great one to use.

And just going to their website or where would you find cryo chamber music? Yeah. So just go honestly, just go to YouTube and type in cryo chamber, find their page. And they release playlists all the time of all of their, like, curated playlists of their music. That'll fit different tones and themes. So find those, listen to the ones that you think fit with the vibe you're going for and use those. Because they are, they are freaking amazing. And the fact that cryo chamber makes it all available for free to everybody is, is, uh,

astounding. If you want, also, on a bit more of a personal plug, go to blackprojectgaming.bandcamp.com where you can find songs from the night floors, which is an album that my very own Jack, our illustrious team member of Black Project Gaming, took some tracks that I had found that were public domain from the 1920s, and he worked his magic on them. So if you're looking for more atmospheric, unsettling ballroom type music or 1920s type music, or 1920s type music, that that would be a good go-to. It's totally free, so download it, use it in your games, and enjoy. Just leave a comment and let Jack know how much you appreciate it.

That's great. I knew that you guys had created the soundtrack, and we had included it in one of the earlier episodes, and I'll include it in the description for this one as well. But I didn't know Jack produced it, so that's very cool. Yeah. And certainly a great addition to the soundtracks you can use. I always just suggest going on places like Spotify

and literally just searching for playlists. I think you can do the same on Reddit, which will eventually take you to the Spotify playlists. But if you just search Delta Green Ambience, Delta Green Combat, Delta Green Investigation Playlists, you will find, you know, hour long, two hour long, however long, playlists that have tons of music that you can use that are appropriate. And then, you know, you can save those playlists and then start playing them depending on whatever happens. And while we're adding links to the description, I'll go ahead and throw up my curated Spotify playlist as well, so you can use those in your games if you like.

lots of music options to keep things creepy. Yes. There are three kind of obvious avenues or goals once you're in here. There is to escape. There is to learn the final revelation of the point of all of this. Or you can be consumed, which is effectively dying in the situation. Let's talk about some of these, though. Yeah, absolutely.

First of all, there is the ballroom where you can see familiar faces, any character that you came across in the past could be here hiding behind a mask. Yeah, I played with this one a little bit. Instead of having them run into two characters that had died previously in the campaign, I had them look up and there was like a Sistine Chapel style painting on the ceiling of the ballroom. And, uh, because the spoilers ahead, one of the players that died was touched by the clown and exploded into a, you know, that red mist. And so it was like, it was, it was the clown as God and the air.

agent as like Adam and he was like disintegrating into this red mist and so it was kind of like a tongue and cheek way of calling back to that nice that's great yeah yeah I love that one of the things that they can learn from Tedescu and Mosby is that Abigail is wearing a cat mask so yes they can obviously start wandering around looking for the masks and who's wearing them there is madame sosostris who is leading a tarot card reading, and they could join her for that, and that's a way also out. Then you have, of course, Abigail herself, where you're finally able, after all this time, to make contact with her, and, you know, she'll be telling them, you have got to leave before the king comes. She'll give any agent that asks hints as to who they need to seek and where

they need to go in a party to find to exit. She seems to know everything about everyone, so definitely reinforce that. If the agents have, you know, do a had the Casey Linz's bottle with them. She's excited. She attempts to hide it, but she'll point out J.C. Lins and urges them to give it to him. And she'll say that he's wearing a Raven mask. If she has asked to return with the agents to the real world, she'll say no. She seems sad, asks the agents to look after her father. Yeah, if they try to take her away by force, they will incur an encounter with the guards. There is also the author, J.C. Lins, that we have been looking for. He is there as well in a mechanical Raven mask.

Talk to us about what happens when you finally get to him. Yeah. So, you know, there he is. Like you said, in that Raven mask with his portable Remington Remet typewriter in tow. Can't see I've ever seen a portable typewriter. I love that idea. And so do I.

Yeah, I love it. You know, and of course he introduces himself as a scribbler by trade. He smells like gin. You know, he's out of ideas. He's on the skids. And then, you know, you give him the bottle. And then once that happens, it's off to the races. That's when, you know, they'll handle the soul bottle.

He'll laugh. He'll, he's pleased beyond words. Like, he's always been looking for this. He just didn't know it. And then once he opens it up and holds it to his ear, he says he knows the story he needs to write. And as he walks away, that's when they'll say, along the shore, the cloud waves break, the twin suns seek beneath the lake. And you know that you have just given birth to the play that is the King in Yellow. And you will lose some sanity for it.

Some, yeah, he'll lose, if you succeed a Sandy roll, you lose 1D6. If you fail a sandy roll, you lose 1D20. Nice. So have fun with that one. Yeah. The final interaction can be with the king. The king is present mostly clearly, most clearly in his absence. People speak about him in hush tones.

I do think that there's a couple of different ways you can interact with the king, which we'll get into. but any thoughts about the king, how you presented him and how we introduced him? So what I did is by the point that I had him arrive, the players had already given off the bottle to J.C. Linz, and so I knew one player wasn't making it out of there because that player had died earlier in the campaign. And so, you know, they were an hour repeater and they were going to be doomed to stay there. So the way I had the king become introduced was I used the consumption sequence with, Eaton, where the King and Yellow appears to an agent and this horrific specter rises from the floor

until it's looming above them. You know, they make, they, yeah, it reaches the ceiling 15 meters above. That's a 1D10, 1D100 sanity roll for you there. But then, you know, the agent is, is then picked up in a single massive hand that smells of rotten flesh and cinnamon. I love the descriptors. I love those little descriptors, yeah. And then the mask opens like a mouth, revealing an ivory throat filled with thousands of sharp-clake teeth, and the agent is consumed and forever lost. Yeah. And there's a couple of other different kinds of interactions and revelations that can occur here.

Here we are. We've given the bottle of J.C. Linz. We know the truth of the play. Everyone finds their way out. How do you resolve this? How do we bring this to a close? Is it just a matter of kind of checking in with each agent? Or how do we bring this story to a close? Yeah, so the way I did it is I had, I used each of those sequences that I chose for those players as like the capstone to the camp, like the end of the campaign. So I would just, you know, focus on one player.

This is what happens. This is where you end up. This is where your story ends. And then just until all the players were, you know, either back on earth in some way, shape or form consumed or, you know, stuck behind. So once I kind of got through everybody, it's like, that's it. That's the story. That is the role that you were born to play without even knowing it. Because that's the other piece, right? If they do exceed that hour, they get the, I guess, one of the bad endings for the campaign, you know, where they finally, you know, see the universe as it is.

The, you know, the king is unmasked. They are all stripped and dressed in, the agents are all stripped and dressed in stage clothing. they're made up in stage makeup, and then they're pushed and tugged in different directions until they're positioned on this vast stage. And, you know, the curtain behind them comes up and they see an apartment with a strange wall filled with random items. And before them, they see the audience, every former agent and then PC they encountered in the campaign.

And it's then that, you know, we see, you know, we see Abigail Wrights. We see Mosby, mouthing the lines. And to me, this end quote, even though this was for a specific ending, I still used it because it's very poignant. And I love the way it kind of wraps it up and summarizes. And so we come to our end of sorts, a play that contains multitudes, all who died, all who live, all who yet shall upon this stage with us forever. Love that quote. Love that line. And so I wanted to incorporate that anyway.

Well, it is unbelievable. We have made it to the end of our understanding and walkthrough of this campaign. Didn't think we'd ever make it. I thought we'd go crazy by then. You know, it really is true. The only way out is through. It really is. I think this has been such a pleasure, and it has been really helpful to talk about this stuff with you.

I think a lot of the folks that have watched have said, you know, I'm able to read and understand the material myself, but it's nice just to have somebody else talk about it, talk about their perspectives and kind of give me new perspective as I'm listening or watching the content. So I'm glad we've been able to help some folks. Same here. Yeah. This is definitely a beast of a campaign. And I think like you mentioned, having somebody to talk it out with and bounce ideas around, like they're there, I've learned different ways that. if I were to run this again, I would try different things or implement, implement different sequences or imagery. It's, uh, this is a campaign that, that you can run more than once and never run it the same way twice. That's true. Um, which is, which is a gift that keeps on giving. And man, uh, what a story. Like this is without a doubt, just as far as RPGs go in general, one of my favorite campaigns I've ever run, read, been a part of.

After reading it, I think I agree with you. It's really well done. It is well thought out. along the lines of what you mentioned about bouncing ideas off of, if you are a handler who doesn't have someone else to bounce off of, there are always websites like Reddit. There is the Discord, the Impossible Landscapes, Discord, which you can easily join. You know, find those groups of people that love Impossible Landscapes and bounce your ideas off of them because it is generally a very friendly and welcoming group of folks. 100%. Absolutely. Yeah. Find that Discord server. Find those folks and bounce ideas. Because when you're united in a group of people who share that passion of running a good game, the sky's the limit. Now, although this is the final episode for the overall large campaign, we still have one more episode, almost kind of like a bonus episode. Because we are going to cover all of the exeant materials that we could not get to in the regular campaign.

That includes the library, the missing room. And I want to talk about the entities and artifacts at the back of the book. But there is one more surprise that we are holding on to and revealing now. We are going to have an exclusive interview with Dennis Detwiller, the author of Impossible Landscapes, the co-creator of Delta Green, just a giant in the field. And we are really looking forward to asking him some questions about the campaign, about Delta Green in general.

And we will have that for you the next time we release another episode. I'm very much looking forward to that interview and looking forward to seeing how it was received by you all and giving you the opportunity to hear from the man himself who put this work of surreal art together. So if you have enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to like and subscribe. If you haven't considered it yet,

join our Patreon because you are missing out on unedited versions of these videos where we go into a lot more detail with our walkthrough. We're talking about very specific things, extra stuff that we don't cover in the shorter version. Additionally, we are also providing the Patreon exclusive audio of Black Project Gaming's God's Teeth Run. So if you want another Delta Green campaign

with folks that you know have been doing it for years, are good at it and have great chemistry, you should definitely sign up. Thank you again for watching, and we will see you next time. Be seeing you, folks.