Mayday Plays - 🕳️The Dead Drop: "Like A Map Made of Skin & Hotel Broadalbin" - Episode 5

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Vince and Sergio comb over the fever dream that is "Like a Map Made of Skin" and the exeunt material covering "Hotel Broadalbin". We meet the Static team and the curious guests of the hotel and how they might guide your players to finding JC Linz' soul bottle. With only 2 episodes left be sure to get any lingering questions or anecdotes sent in to us and they'll be read and answered on tape. This is a cut-down version of our discussion. For a full discussion over an hour in length, subscribe to our Patreon, where any pledge amount gets you access. patreon.com/maydayrp Thanks for your support! 👕 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!

Well 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 the only man who's left a five-star Yelp review for Hotel Brottelman. It's Black Project Gaming's Vince. Happy New Year my friend. Hey happy New Year to you too man. Hope it was a good one. Good to be here and of course glad to have you all tuning in and joining us. We of course are part of Made-A-Mole-Play. We play tabletop role-playing games like Delta Green, Vampire the Mask Raid, 5e, Orpheus,

and a whole hell of a lot more. We have something for everyone. All of it available on podcast, or video format, and even better, completely free. So check out our catalog. We have a Patreon. We're joining for as little as $2.00. We'll grant you access to our Discord community behind the screen content and even better original artwork. It is a new year 2024 but as we both know Vince, time is an illusion

down here in Carcosa. So I suggest that you sit back, relax, maybe take a snuff of some Melonia and let the Yellow King take the wheel because you have found the Dead Drop, a guide to running impossible landscapes. Vince we have finally hit the turning point in the story of Impossible Landscapes where everything stops making sense. We are covering today like a map made of skin and we're gonna get into Hotel Brottlebin. As a warning, spoilers are ahead for the scenario like a map made of skin. If you are a player in an impossible landscapes campaign,

you need to jump down the laundry chute, soul bottle first. But if you are interested in running or currently running this campaign, you are in the right place. Okay, we've got the business out of the way. Vince, please help us understand. What is like a map made of skin about? First and foremost, I mean, really the whole goal of like a map made of skin is getting the players to the hotel

broadle bin, to the whisper labyrinth, and through into Carcosa. It is all about the lead up to the chase, the chase itself, and then the ultimate destination being these steps right outside that anomalous hotel they've been hearing about and seeing hints of since session one. It is really the beginning of the end for all intents and purposes. It's also a great chance to fit in any of those last bits and bobs that you were not able to get to

in the previous scenarios. There's a lot of space for things like the bookstore or maybe finally visiting Dr. Barbis going to the Samajina residence. So it's a good moment to get back to some of the things you didn't get a chance to showcase to the players if they go down those roads. It really is. Yeah, this part is very free form and free flowing and that a lot of it is gonna rely upon the decisions that the players are making at this point in time. Now that they are on the other side of Dorchester House and this latest iteration of the Night World,

what do they do now with this information that they've gathered with these glimpses they've caught of Carcosa and the Yellow Kings influence? So be prepared for it to go literally anywhere because really what this is gonna hinge on is playing off of your players' decisions while sprinkling in the hints of what's to come in the form of the various static team manifestations

and finally culminating in that absolute balls of the wall chase scene. By way of example, I'll refer back to my campaign if you haven't listened yet, spoilers ahead, but my players decided they wanted to investigate Barbis some more, so they went back to his house, which is where they found all of the stuff that they missed in that volume of secret phases. They now had an opportunity to look into Barbis himself and how he had fallen under the sway of the King and Yellow. Kind of the newer stuff here is, of course, the clockwork world in Barbis's house, which is just one set piece among the house

itself, and then the chase. The other thing I should mention are the gifts and the insights, which are a big part of, I guess you could say, the player's unnatural arsenal at this point. They come to play or could play a very critical role in keeping that plot moving for depending on what gifts and insights you give out. Now what am I talking about? So gifts and insights. These are abilities that the players now have, having emerged from the night world and having fallen even more under the sway of the king and yellow under his influence, they now have the ability to do very strange and unusual things. The book suggests either rolling 1d100

and then adding the player's corruption value for each individual to give them both a gift and an insight. What I did was I just essentially took what I knew about the players and their characters from all these past sessions and Assigned a gift and an insight based on how they've been playing the game so far and based on some of the decisions they made So free. Oh, you know all use for example Jack's character Had the gift of a permanent copy of the King and Yellow specifically the red book Always on their person at a given time no matter what they did with it, whether they

destroyed it, tried to get rid of it. They always had one in their back pocket whenever, uh, pretty much at every turn in the game. Um, some of them are genuinely useful. I really like forgettable. The agent looks like nobody, even their forgettableness is unremarkable. They fade into the background.

I could see that being useful in certain situations. And it does, in fact, a site, a couple of situations where maybe a search or alertness role has to be made at minus 20% for people looking for them. Yeah, that for sure. I also used the Dreams Insight to help the players kind of end up being able to find their way a little bit easier to JC Linz's spirit bottle, as well as the light gift where anything that was affected by the King and Yellow's influence will glow or shine with this

unnatural light. So definitely little tidbits you can use here and there to make sure you're keeping as the GM that plot moving forward and then giving the players the tools that they need to feel like they're continuing to make sure you're keeping as the GM, that plot moving forward and then giving the players the tools that they need to feel like they're continuing to make forward progress. Some of them are just fucking creepy. Like for example, there's one called Xeon, which is where the agent and only the agency's people exiting or entering strange passages in their peripheral vision. There's really no benefit to this other than losing 0-1D for sanity and gaining corruption. I use this to fuck with one of my players where all of a sudden they had a vision of the encyclopedia salesman in the white suit in the red tie carrying a briefcase and just climbing into a garbage dumpster and disappearing.

It brings you into the notion that we'll talk about in a sense, which is that the world is collapsing. It kind of gives a perspective player to always be the one noticing that people are reading a script and when you walk in, they start acting as if they're not reading that script or practicing or, you know, being part of the plague, quote-unquote. So that insight is definitely one of many that starts leading you down the road of talking about the fact that the world is no longer normal. Absolutely. And that's really a great way of putting it. It's the world itself isn't, I would say it's more their previously, quote-unquote, sane perception of the world is collapsing. And now they're having to adjust to this new reality that the all the world is a stage and they are about players on it and so

the the unsettling Realizations that that come with that Epiphany is is really fun to play with Can you recall anything in particular that you did for your campaign to highlight that? You know, were there any NPCs or anything that happened in the periphery that you pointed out? Oh, yeah. So I'll give you an example. So they were arrested by the police because they decided to get into a standoff in the middle of Dr. Barbas' house. Some shots were fired and of course I had the police show up a little unnaturally fast which should have been clue number one and I think they

were picking up on that. They probably thought I was just being a jerk but which I was but it was also just you know to speak to they can be why not both? Just to speak to kind of the unnaturalness of it all But when they show up, it's it's they start to see these little clues and hints that this is a set, right? Like the building is freshly painted. There's a fake video camera in the interrogation room You know the van they were brought in was recent, wasn't even a real police van, stuff like that. It's all very much indicative that this is a set and this is a set piece and

this is a performance to just really continue to drive home that the surrealist nature of this. And this is where I was saying where where handlers really should just have fun with it. And I'm sure that there are countless stories of handlers coming up with fun ideas to show off the the kind of fakeness of the world. We'd love to hear from you guys if you have any ideas, leave it in the comments or messages on the Discord. Let us know how you handled this element. But I mean, just off the top of my head, yeah, you know, like the players walk by and there's a random light on a stand or, you know, they walk into what they thought was a hallway, but it's actually a painting on a wall, you know, things just become more and more artifice.

The artifice becomes more obvious. And I like the idea of a lot of the characters, a lot of the NPCs that they start interacting with from this point on, just having weird mannerisms or saying something off or acting as if they're reading from a script, you know, just showing how bad of an actor they are. Just really take the time before sessions in like a map made of skin and think about just fun, silly little moments that the players can have with anyone they interact with. Great advice. That's absolutely how I would play it for sure. An obvious thing that players might do in this scenario is they might try to gather some more information, maybe on individuals that they have suspicions about or just trying to finally find Hotel Brottelman, as that was the kind of the last command sent to them from the Clockwork Child.

There is looking into Hotel Brottelman, which they won't find anything, but there's a couple other options too. The Repairer, for instance, Mr. Wist makes an appearance again. Yep. Ed Miller Wist, he could make contact with the team through any of his various agents still out and about in the world, have them do various tasks. The really the way I perceive, at least my interpretation of a lot of this, these are meant to kill time, build flavor, and really just present those opportunities to learn some of the like the tangential pieces of the plot like you know For example, if they decide to go more into the ars-gawesha, right or you know, Malonia and then the gold bug they could take any of that

It's really just to set up these opportunities for them to start Observing and seeing the static team Yeah, because you don't want to just kind of give the players the end of the story, right? You want it to seem as if they're working towards something as if they are the ones uncovering something. I was going to say that you should maybe as a handler remind the players of Wist because he was a broker of information. He did seem to have power and maybe he could be an avenue to get to where you

want. And then you just use that whole scenario of how do you get to list? How do you communicate to him? And then what does he ask of you to get you what you want? Absolutely. Yeah, it's it's one of those things where definitely as the handler be cognizant and listening to what kind of questions Your players are asking what kind of avenues are debating and you know if it comes down to it I you know a lot it's kind of a hot topic some folks like it some folks don't I love that in role sometimes just as a means of you know Shock you know jogging that intellect jogging that memory and being like you know based on what you're thinking about all of a sudden You remember hey, you know Maybe whist is a potential source of information or you never checked out Varvus' house or maybe Dr. Dallin is still bebopping around

and he can tell you something useful. So don't be afraid to help your players get to where they wanna be. Even though it's not the ultimate end goal, I mean really, if you wanted to just pedal to the floor and hit the gas, you could have them being chased as soon as they pop out of that house that they ended up in. But definitely in my opinion, you can have them being chased as soon as they pop out of that house that they ended up in. But definitely you want to, in my opinion, you want to build up, you know,

the surreal nature of this scenario and kind of do that slow burn up till that, that, that chasing, that fever dream of a chase. We'll get there. We'll get there. Yeah. If the agents are dense enough to return to the Dorchester house, although I suppose since WIST is there There is a good chance they would return to the Dorchester house, right? They might get arrested But as we discussed if they are led to a police station that basically amounts to nothing Yeah, they're booked. It's like it's all like like something from like a terrible Procedural TV show like they're booked, they're put in an interview room

with that fake camera, just all these little indications that this is not an actual operational police station, this is just a set. This is really the situation where handlers have taken the first half of this campaign super deadly serious, and then you start messing with them here where, you know, you take them through the booking process and then you give them a wink when the cop uncuffs them and lets them wander down the strange hallways

of the police station and, you know, the things NPCs should say to them should always have this kind of maybe sarcastic or slightly off tone to it. You really, I think you'll throw your players for a loop if you change gears in terms of how you GM in this section. Maybe if you take the professionalism out of your voice or out of your tone at this point in the campaign and kind of start having a little more fun with it. This is really just a prime opportunity to fuck with your players in the best way possible and just enjoy the ride because it's really all it is at this point.

It's a crazy, crazy ride. So we finally get to the static protocol chase. Give us the setup. The players, maybe investigating something or they are Trying to make sense of what's going on and then what happens? so the the way they spill it out is all immediately a lone static killer should should rush the agent's position and Open fire that's that's exactly what happened with mine.

You know, the issue is that your players may misinterpret in some cases. So for instance, like, oh, we've been seeing all these signs of this team before. They haven't been hostile yet, so maybe they won't be hostile now. And one of my players had their faces blown off and stick killed by a shotgun because we all know

how deadly shotguns are in this game. And that got the rest of them running. The issue is that they may think that they can outgun these guys and that's where you're going to have to, you know, they either don't go down or, you know, one gets shot, two more show up or something. It's the point is to get them to run. And if you need to make them realize you are outgunned and you are going to die if you stay here, that's where the gifts and insights can come into play. All of a sudden this door behind them

is now glowing with this insight. Maybe you head that way and they head that way. And then that's when they start moving from set to set, from event to event. And slowly making their way through this, this kaleidoscope of different times and worlds and settings into, you know, ever onward toward Broadlevin. I'm sure the players have been wondering, what's the secret door?

What's the key? Well, it's just this chase is the secret and, and, and, you know, leaving the reality is basically all that's happening now. It's kind of almost a ritual in a sense, a kind of magical ritual of escaping reality in that way. So certainly you can have, let your imagination run wild as to what they come across or how they survive this,

and the whole time there's people shooting at them. So that's fun. Yes, yeah. There are two options that players have. There's only only two things they can do. They can either attack or they can run. You know, if they run, the static killer is a negative 20 to hit them. But if they attempt to shoot while running, they have a negative 20 percent penalty. If a static killer slain or disabled by an agent cannot attack, it is replaced by another

in the next event of the pursuit. They're just going to keep coming. And I think the more, you know, that's a way to really reinforce that to those who may be thinking they can fight their way out of this. Or they just keep running and then they don't get shot. How does this pursuit end? I, like I said earlier, imagine just kind of busting through a set wall and then on the other side is a street and there you see the hotel broadle bin.. Yeah, they end up turning a corner, going through a door and all of a sudden they're

on a street of what appears to be 1950s, 1960s era in New York. The cars are of that era, the manner of dress, the overall environment is that era. So, you know, and then just just ahead is that sign for the Hotel Broadle bin and all of its art deco glory. And essentially the players, hopefully they continue up, they continue up the stairs into the hotel and then that's it. The book suggests that you could set the Hotel Broadle bin in other cities as well. Maybe you don't set it to where

it has the same 50s, 60s aesthetic. But regardless, it's, you know, it's just down to whatever your campaign is. If you're in a particular town or a particular city, or if you don't want to go, if you don't want to mess with the idea that they've traveled through time or whatever, you know, timey-wimey stuff you want to mess with. You could always just make it just another nondescript building on another street in whatever town you're in. The hotel is everywhere and nowhere, you know? And the really big thing to play up to

is once they actually get inside is that, you know, A, the pursuit stops, like nobody's coming inside after them. And then they are just awash in this feeling of of deja vu of accomplishment and any agent that makes it inside gets one d 20 sanity back. Which is fucking huge. That's a lot of sanity. I mean, provided you roll well enough. Yeah, just to really reinforce that feeling like you are, you're doing what you were intended to do. and this is exactly where you are intended to be In fact, this is where I had you know if any of your agents died either in the pursuit previously This is where I had them meet up with the team again

You know as if nothing had happened, but of course they they know there's their clothes or bloodstained And they remember very vividly being murdered But they're there in some form or another. Waiting. Yeah. So this is, you know, one of those pivotal moments in the campaign where it feels like the players have finally made that progress that they've been desperately seeking. They've made it to Hotel Brattlebin. And we're only halfway through our discussion. So there's a lot left to cover. They make it in and there's a beautiful description

of the interior. It's obviously a place that was once very lavish, but is now just over the countless years, kind of dilapidated and fallen apart. One of the first people they meet is that man, Elmer LaSette that we had heard about. Maybe Wist had sent us on a mission to find out information about him,

but he is the kind of the concierge of the hotel. He is, yeah. And he'll be their first point of contact. You know, he'll give them their keys, make sure that they are, they have their accommodations. I like his description as being somebody who appears both young and old. Yeah, yeah. I actually met somebody just recently that I thought that before reading this and so I

picture that person in my mind. It's a kind of person that they look exactly the same as they may have when they were younger. They just have like more wrinkles now. It's a very strange thing. It speaks to kind of the timeless surreal reality of is that a word? Just the timeless. It is on our show because we've mentioned it at least before once in a while. Yeah, it's you know what I'm saying. But yeah, so Elmer, the old young guy is going to set him up at their rooms and lodging, he's going to give them access to the to the dining room with the tokens

so they can get their their their their meal. And essentially, yeah, he is he is there to just make sure they are they are accommodated. If you have a player who already has the gift of not having to eat, I'm sure they'll enjoy being able to turn down those tokens. But yeah, everywhere you go in this main floor is meant to make you feel at home and welcome. I think there's a mention of when you walk into the dining room, there's a feeling of like a comfort or maybe it's the back bar. I don't quite remember. It is a dining room. Yeah, They feel a sense of relief or comfort.

And that's where they can run into some of the other guests there, familiar faces they may have encountered before, some they may not have. This is really, this is a place that exists out of time and out of place. So really, they could ostensibly run into literally anyone from the history of the King and Yellow to somebody they encountered in this campaign. They can all be here at any given time. Going back to Rorke, you know, Rorke is kind of important in this instance is that he's a possible way of getting down to the Whisper Labyrinth. Rorke has taken on the task of trying to find the Whisper Labyrinth as a lot of the NPCs have.

Very few of them actually know how to get there. But I like that there's an element that Rorke is actually a possible source to get items. In his room, apparently, he has a bunch of, you know, spelunking gear and stuff to travel long distances. So if your players feel like it's important, he will be the one to go to for that. Yes. Yeah. He is he was critical in our play through. He specifically, one of the things he can ask the players to do is collect these these birds that nest in the Brottlebin Lobby and they're active only at night.

He can show the agents the room of a man who knows the whisper labyrinth. They're essentially just sculptures on the high ceiling, but of course they're Mr. Ork's dearest friends now. And he gets something from them. I believe he gets the golden beetle for one of them and eats it. He does, yes, for some much needed clarity and insight into the machinations of the clean the the king and yellow. So you alluded to the the you know getting the little golden birds to have work help you find the whisper labyrinth. Maybe we should talk a little bit about how to get there and some of the other options.

It seems like the most obvious thing is that eventually one of the NPCs and it does list one or two of them that do know of this but the Basement is where the players want to head if they want to find the whisper labyrinth But there's a couple more hoops. They have to jump through to though. There are yeah So so you know nothing is without a price, right? So they either help mark workout. They can help is without a price, right? So they either help mark work out, they can help the elevator operator who is Weedow Antonucci aka Charlie.

Yeah, yeah, Weedow Antonucci. They can help him clear out the rats. A literal rat catcher mission. A literal rat catcher mission. Only they are not rats. Not rats not rats that one was was pretty was was particularly traumatizing for my players oh so they did that one what were they if not rats they were the drowned children the victims of Acer Deribondi crawling around in the events trying to get warm that's right I remember now that's pretty fucked up love Love it. Love it. What else we got? We got they go down to the laundry where we can have that fun moment. Finally, there is the exe and

laundry shoot element. Yes. Yes. Where you know, if they went to the laundry shoot in the same Agena residence, I believe anything they shouted down, they now hear and they realize, holy shit, we were talking to ourselves the whole time. Yeah it's it's a good time. There's gonna be a lot of brains exploding in this scenario for sure. A lot of brains exploding. So yeah they can have dinner with Charlie they can go to the Arboretum. I think the Arboretum is an interesting place it's just kind of a space down in the basement that looks like an Arboretum I think the Arboretum is an interesting place. It's just kind of a space down in the basement

That looks like an Arboretum, which is like a botanical garden Mark Rourke is there because he thinks that's the way in but it isn't actually right. I like that if they screw around in there They can basically get trapped in there forever Yep, because the plancer I believe the plancer alive. Yeah. Oh, no, it's a pile of sand. Yeah, it's it's that the basically if they do anything wild, like shoot off a gun or even if I think they're too loud, the book suggests that the glass above them starts to break and then sand starts coming in. Yes. Yeah.

And they can be dodge rolls. They can be trapped. Oh, Yes. Yeah. They can be dodge rolls. They can be trapped. Oh man. Yeah. There are some there are some ones that can go pretty badly in this one. I think for even for example, there was a cleaning house, a cleaning house path to the whisper labyrinth, which they could get from. Let's see. Elmer was set. Yeah, he'll show them if, you know, they go to Lestat, ask for help. He'll say, okay, but you need to do this.

You need to clean out room 830. And then I'll show you the whisper labyrinth. Um, and that's a room where, um, they are subjected to, as the book says, disorientation and psychic attack. Um, they'll replay a familiar scene. Like they're initially you know a briefing for another mission, an airplane flight at night, gathered at a bar for a funeral of after a funeral for a friend or an associate.

Essentially they could they could get stuck there and be consumed by their vision until you know their soul bottle ends up being the only the only indication that they were ever there. Yeah it's basically like a skill challenge of can you survive this this room trying to trick you into the into re believing into the the you know the the fake reality of what is reality. Exactly. Yep. 100%. So that one that one could be could be challenging. And then of course, you have the rats and the walls and then you can even believe, I guess, get assistance from Aesid Daribandi.

Yeah, yeah. Because you can find Daribandi in the drowning room. It's just one of the rooms you can come across as you're exploring the basement. Yes, yeah. The room where he is drowning children forever and in perpetuity in this this one room, he can eventually help them get access to a compass

that will point the way to the whisper lab. And and there's even tracks on the ceiling that they could follow because of all the puppets that are moving around the hotel. Right. That is a big thing. The Marionettes. I do want to touch though on the drowning room, as we mentioned in our first talk, the night floors that had you drawn anything

on the pictures that you see of the drowning room, those items will be there waiting for you. Yes. Yeah. That I believe they were in one of the Macalester building's residences, sketchbooks or paintings. If the players found those and then manipulated them in any way, like say they drew a gun or a knife or something in that picture, it will now,

all this time later, be in that room, which is wild to think about. So the players can explore the basement until, you know, knocking their head against the wall in these different rooms until they finally land on it, or they can kind of do a favor for some of the people that live in Hotel Brodlben. But either way, what they come to find out

is they need to meet the Somalia. Yes, the Somalia, another another marionette, however, one of of considerably higher status than maybe some of the others who, you know, essentially ferries soul bottles back and forth, they can follow him to the entrance of the whispered labyrinth. So they can either just meet him in room 830 once they've defeated the room or they can just see him wandering the halls late at night, but either way like you said he's carrying a soul bottle to the Whisper Labyrinth and kind of in the sense that they

were being chased they now have to kind of chase him into the Whisper Labyrinth. Right, at least to the entrance, because if they decide to go in half cocked, it's not going to end well for them. This is definitely an area where I don't want to say it could derail or stop the campaign, but it could if agents aren't careful, there are definite, definite consequences to not thinking this through. I'd like to hear your thoughts as to why because I know that there is the

the mechanic of they need to roll to find what it is they're looking for. But how can it get worse? Yes. Yeah, they can be separated. They can they will lose sight of the entrance. The entrance will be gone. If they brought a rope, it's going to it's not going to help at all. Physical marks not going to help.

There's really no way for them to keep track of where they are. So it is very important that they stick together. Because then if you split your party, that everybody gets lost. Now you've got to reconvene and gather everybody up again. Not necessarily a deal breaker or a campaign ender, but definitely one of those things that can make an already difficult task

even more insurmountable. I see what you're saying where maybe the players might become frustrated with the fact that they are no longer in contact with each other. But I think you could also make it work in the sense that you are now just targeting each player individually. Okay, you're alone. There's nobody else here. What do you want to do? And maybe each one of them goes in a different direction. Maybe they find their own soul bottle. Maybe they find JC Linz's soul And maybe each one of them goes in a different direction. Maybe they find their own soul bottle. Maybe they find JC Linz's soul bottle. Maybe one of them is running from the Paper Dragon or the Paper Tiger,

which we mentioned was at Dr. Barbuses. It could possibly be down here. So you could have different things happening to explore the different options that you can find in the Whiskwell Averynth, but also to get to the resolution of it where you find JC Lids' bottle. Exactly, yeah. And that's a really, it really is a great point. Like if there are any manifestations you didn't get a chance to use in any of your previous scenarios, now's the time to kind of start throwing them at the players. You know, because again, this is another place that exists

outside of time and outside of place. And so whatever, whatever you didn't get a chance to explore, feel free to use it here. So that, you know, especially if there was like a specific manifestation or event or NPC that really like spoke to you, throw them down here, see what happens. How do you imagine the whisper labyrinth kind of visually? The way it's described in the book,

I get very much like catacombs vibes, you know those French catacombs, but maybe a more dream-like version of that. Maybe there's always a thin layer of smoke on the floor or something. Yeah, I was thinking like, like an actual like cave, almost like a cave system.

Okay, so like wet walls, unfinished walls. Yeah, like cave, almost like a cave system. Okay. So like wet walls, unfinished walls. Yeah, like black, these black basalt, you know, walls and, and, you know, dirt, rocky floors and, um, if there are alcoves, they're, they're just roughly hewn and chiseled into the walls. Um, just something very. So, yeah, exactly. So something a little bit more, but I like that catacomb angle too. That'd be pretty cool, especially if it like marries up different, you know, catacomb styles or architecture for different kind of like herkosa does differently times and and cultures. Yeah, that'd be pretty dope, especially like if some look like that. Oh, you know that that that church and I think it's like in Eastern Europe and Romania, it's all bones.

That church and I think it's like in Eastern Europe and Romania. It's all bones. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, something like that would be fucking wild There could be a wing of the whisper labyrinth that is is all that why do you think they call it the whisper labyrinth? Just oh, man, that's a good I don't know if there's anything in particular that ever really points that out You know, I wonder if it's because like because of the presence of the soul bottles, because like the implication is that once you pop it, something whispers to you. You hear something. Yeah. And so I wonder if that's that's kind of the underlying motive behind that name. I wonder if you play with that motif more where maybe at this point as a

handler, you only whisper to the players as they come in here. Or maybe if somebody, if they say, I scream looking for the other players, you say, your voice only comes out in a whisper, you know, like always, you know, really playing up this whisper angle. You could even maybe make the Somalia be a little bit of a librarian like character where, if they do make too much noise it comes flying in from the dark and tells them to shush, you know? Yes, yes. In fact, like, yeah, if they do end up, I guess, for all intents and purposes, wishing for the Somalia to come to them, you know, he'll appear and whisper to them, come

and see and take them to any soul bottle but their own. He won't take them to theirs. He'll take them to any soul bottle. So he could. He won't take them to theirs. It'll take them to any soul bottle. So he could be a critical resource to finding the JC Lins bottle. The players have the option of finding a couple of different kinds of bottles. The most important is JC Lins's. Once they have it, it's very, very simple. There's no more exploring. I think as soon as they pick it up, the Alcove itself opens up into a new entrance.

A new passage. And it is through that passage that they inevitably end up on the banks of Lake Holly in Carcosa. Wow. Finally made it to beautiful Carcosa. Beautiful, beautiful sunny Carcosa. Oh man. Yes. Where black stars rise.

Well, here we are at the end of Like a Mat Made of Skin. We even got into a little bit of the Xeon Hotel Brottelman to bring us to Carcosa. Vince, always your advice is helpful. It's lovely to just talk with you, to be able to walk through the complicated campaign and all the different avenues that you can take. Something I'd love to see is for all of you to take an opportunity to submit any and all

questions you might have. We would love to kind of round out our final episode by answering some of your most burning questions about this campaign. You know, it could be about anything, things we liked, things we didn't like, things maybe we would change, or how we handled a particular set piece. Whatever you can think of, feel free to submit it either on social media, in a comment, what have you. Get it to us and we would love to discuss it on air next time we record our next episode.

I think questions will be great, but even just kind of fun anecdotes about running the game. We're getting them in our discord from folks as they run their games, so please keep them coming. Yeah, anecdotes are great. We wanna hear how things worked out for you in some of these, especially if you did the Mall ambush. I wanna know how the hell your players made it out of that if they did.

But folks, we are nearly at the end. Next episode, we will cover the end of the world of the end, the final scenario for impossible landscapes, and we will spend one final episode after that wrapping up all of the exiant materials, like the bookshop, the lost room, and so on. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to like and subscribe. We are covering every chapter of this campaign, so you don't want to miss these final episodes. If you haven't considered it yet, please join our Patreon because you are missing out.

We are still creating unedited versions, long versions of these videos that go into a lot more detail. We're talking about maps, images you won't see, a little minutia about the campaign and the scenarios that you won't get in the 30 or 40 minute version. So please consider subscribing for that content. So head over to patreon.com forward slash madei.rp to sign up where any patron level can get you access to these exclusive episodes. Everyone, please be safe and we will see you next time. Be seeing you folks. Have a good one. you