Dear God, what the hell have we gotten ourselves into? Two of us are insane, and at Bellevue recovering. A good chunk of Lt. Poole's men are dead, or just as trapped in a rubber room now. And me? I'm damn lucky to have even escaped with my life. What we found at Ju-Ju House, under that building... it was the stuff nightmares are made of. The stuff horror stories are made of. The kind of thing that makes you want to curl up in fear in your house, with all the doors and windows locked. The very sort of thing that makes you never judge a book by its cover again.
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I'm back. Still a bit emotionally shaken, but back. I hope the others have done well enough in telling the safe-house story, but after what I've heard about their questioning near and in Ju-Ju House, I'm not entirely so sure things are alright with them, either... They're all crazy for what they did if you ask me, but then again, I ended up having a nervous breakdown from seeing a giant dragon-thing. I guess that means I'm just as crazy as they are, doesn't it?
Shaken. I guess that's the word for what the hell just happened to us, for how we currently feel - shaken. We thought we were safe at Erica's hidden safe-house. We thought nobody and nothing could have trailed us there. We were wrong.
It's been a rough couple of days, let me tell you. How rough? Try "We're writing this from a rich woman's safe-house" rough. Try "We're being hunted down by Elias' murderers" rough.
Maybe we should back up a little bit, explain what got us here first. "And in these days when darkness falls early, And people rush home to the ones that they love, You better take a fool's advice and take care of your own, One day they're here, next day they're gone." - Don Henley, "New York Minute" January 16th, 1928. God, how could anyone amongst us forget that day, the day our lives changed forever, the day we lost our innocence and more? But what could we do, huh? What could we do? Jackson Elias... he needed our help. And he needed it now more than ever before.
It began in 1926, two years before any of us had any concept of the darker parts of this world. The truth is, we were called in quite accidentally - some would say it was kismet, some a coincidence. I choose to believe it was predestined. What is to say, after all this time, that even something so simple as our mutual friendship to Jackson Elias was not engineered by the wheels of fate?
We didn't know any better.
That's what they all say when they ask why someone did what they did. Why their mad tale, irrefutable, explains so much. Why we traveled the world and lived dangerously. Why we left the comforting ignorance of home to seek answers we knew we wouldn't like. We didn't know any better. We swear to god we didn't. We swear we just wanted to find justice and peace. We were naive. Foolish people, all of us. We thought ourselves invincible, untouchable... we didn't know any better than you. If we had, maybe we wouldn't have accepted that telegram, or the frantic phone call to meet with Elias in Room 410 of the Ritz-Carlton that faithful January night. Maybe we wouldn't have crossed the globe. Maybe we wouldn't have loved and lost and suffered and seen the light in the darkness or found the restless Chaos beyond the safe threshold of home. We've seen things, horrible things, things nobody should ever have to think about. Things that drive men mad and desperate with grief. But then, maybe we wouldn't have given it up for the world. You think that sounds crazy, that we wouldn't give up a year of living dangerously and struggling for anything? You weren't there, and I doubt our writings here will do much to convince you, but trust me when I say... it was worth it. We started out seeking justice. We ended it as unsung heroes left rather outcast, knowing what we know. Some of us... never made it to the end at all. It was a journey, a dark one yes... but also one of unprecedented light. We lost much, but also gained strength. We learned the true value of human worth, for better or worse, and those who made it... we're survivors. We will try, God willing, to tell the whole story here. The world must know of our journey, no matter how insane it sounds. If we do not learn from our past we are condemned to repeat it, and if we never think to remove the masks we will all always be fooled. Someone must take a stand. As veterans of the secret war, it might as well start with us. The Apocalypse That Nearly Was didn't start with a bang, or even with any noise. It began with silence. It began with a mutual friend, one we had worked with before, one we cherished dearly. But to understand why we would ever come together for this one man, it's important to know where it began... It's time. Nearly time for the plot of the Great Gate. Nearly time for the cults to begin acting. Nearly time for Chaos.
I've never been more excited to run a CoC game in my life, guys. Masks of Nyarlathotep... how far I've come in prepping for this, and how intense it will all be. And I can't wait to share the adventures my players have with you. I'll be blogging the game weekly as we go along, depending greatly on how tired I am at the time of writing. I'll be presenting them as journal articles, as if someone in the gang were writing. These will be long entries, folks, and interesting. It's starting today with the prologue and will continue into the actual play journals. I am running a short prequel scenario, The God of Mitnal, to get everyone acquainted with the pulp-horror feel of this game. Look for that starting not this weekend, but next. Casts of Characters will also be updated as people die, go mad, leave, and join. NPCs that are party members will also join often. There won't be much of a blurb for them, but I will try to have the first set of five up soon with character names, players, and brief summaries of their lives. All of them know Mr. Jackson Elias. But the question is... how many of them really knew him? They all share a common memory of the first time they all met, when Elias asked for their aid in the Yucatan, but nobody would ever suspect things would take such a turn for the strange and horrific as they did on January 16, 1928. It all seemed so innocent then, but of course, such innocence is a mask. And what then, is horror, if not the removal of masks? Keep it locked here, your fingers on the pulse. A hell of a journey's making its way here to Musings 2.0 - and soon! See you all on the other side of the globe... |
About The Blog
Welcome to Musings 2.0, my personal blog here on WordFlow! Here, you can find out what I'm doing now and where I'm going next, as well as get my thoughts on the Cthulhu Mythos, assorted sundry writing topics, and various scientific topics. Archives
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