465 : 19.375 - Positions Still Open

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"I find the whole thing rather inspiring. The tablets, I mean."

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"The first time I heard about them I just had to go visit the museum. I just had to see them!"

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"Now that I think about it, it all goes back to then. It really was breath taking just watching how the light played off the lapis lazuli."
"That was when you visited the museum in London? That's when you did these last three paintings? During that Week-In-London trip?"
"Right, that museum in London. The expedition exhibit. What a find!"
"Kamchatka?"
"Right, the Kamchatka exhibit."

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"And this clip? The one you created for the Dresden Short Film Festival in Berlin?"
"Right. Before I got famous. Right before I got famous. Yeah, this one took me three months to pull off. I've really got to thank my university for that one, though. It's been tough. But I had those images in my head and I really just had to ... you know ... get it out there ... show people. I just felt that by doing it I could really free myself, y'know?"
"What did this clip mean to you, exactly?"
"I'm not sure what it meant to me. What do you mean? I mean, it means what it means to everyone who views it, y'know? The hopelessness and the drudgery, and how it's like it's killing us inside, not to know, y'know? So far away from our chance, y'know, to be something special. I mean, these images didn't come from me, they came from outside of me! Y'know? Like I tapped into a collective unconscious or something. Like when I saw that Liltian Tablet I just tapped into something!"

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"A lot of people found this three-minute clip very frightening despite it's overall lack of plot. Professor Hanuda suggested that it was something to do with..."
"Oh, there's a plot to it. It's just subtle. It describes the destruction of modernization through the necessity of answering a call. You know how when a phone keeps ringing you just feel the need to answer it? Yeah, well, it's like that. All of the people in this short film are feeling the call. The blood represents the spilled blood of the innocents trampled in, no, swam in, as represented by the wading figures, in the desire for progress, the greed for furthering one's own ends, the ... potentiality of absolute perfection. That's why the Liltian Tablets inspire me so. They represent a perfect world. A world of absolute beauty. Only what most people don't realize, right, what they don't realize, is what the cost of perfection is. And I think there are some interesting parallels there."
"Fascinating."

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"So is it true what they say about Hollywood approaching you in order to expand on some of your ideas?"
"Yes, they've shown interest in funding a new enterprise. A movie of my own ideas."
"That sounds very exciting."
"Oh yes, thrilling."
"You don't seem particularly happy at the prospect."
"I'm not unexcited. I'm just distracted. Got thoughts on less prosaic things."
"Really? A more important project?"
"Well, there was that finding ... the one the epigrapher made ... that all of the Liltian Tablets say essentially the same thing. Far more interesting."

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"This girl, now she's interesting, I modelled her on my view of Natasha Chaikovskaya, the epigrapher."
"Have you met her?"
"No, but she's coming down to Berlin. Or she's already in Berlin. To do a media circuit. I hope to meet her soon. She's been the only one to translate ... to give us our memories. I mean, our understandings."
"Are you planning on meeting her? I'm sure that would be inspirational."
"I'm in negotiations with Ophidian ... the PR Company involved in the expedition."
"To speak with her?"
"Perhaps be involved. Y'know, with the advertising. And to speak with her. She's the only one who understands the symbolism involved. To decipher it. This figure, I think, it perfectly represents, the duality, of living in two worlds. Ours, and what's written."

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"This is just a personal bit I added on. To represent, y'know, trying to deal with being in a wheelchair and all of that. It's really a struggle, y'know. But everyone's been really helpful. It's been great."
"I heard people got worried about you when you made the trip to the Suicide Forest."
"You mean Aokigahara, a Japanese forest where people come to die. Yeah, I suppose they would be. Though personally I was more worried about San Zhi. It felt worse... I dunno, maybe because they excavated that Liltian Tablet from Taiwan a few decades ago. It has less of an influence."
"Right, the tablet found in Aokigahara was the latest one, wasn't it?"
"Yeah. It's a very moody forest that one. It has signs up everywhere pleading with people to think again on their lives and not just go there to die. People there were very worried for me. A guy in a wheelchair. I mean, who knows what they thought?"

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"So what is this painting about?"
"Oh the film's finished already? This painting means something quite special to me. It's my Forbidden Mountain piece."
"Many of the studio audience find this a fascinating work. It's your top-rated painting."
"Not surprising."
"It sold for quite a lot."
"I'm not interested in money."
"So this is, and correct me if I'm wrong, this is a work on your view of what that particular mountain would look like?"
"No, what the forbidden mountain would feel like. To be there, I mean."
"If I am correct, that particular mountain in the Kamchatka Ranges of Russia has been declared off-limits by the Russian government since 1788."
"That's correct."

[kabukiman]

What is this? New campaign inspired in silence hill? Isn't Ash enouth?

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"It's fascinating, really. The placement of all the Liltian tablets, the way they appear to have each come from the same piece of stone, the identical language found on all the tablets so far. The distance between them."
"True, true. That expedition they're mounting in early 2008 ... that's not just an archaeological search team is it?"
"Well, no, biologists and everything. There's a lot of anomalies there. Just take a look through the scientific journals, not that I have, really, I've been busy. But the rumours you hear... It's interesting that they can't do an aerial survey ... the cloud formation that's always over it ... there's some kind of havoc played with the guidance systems in the planes or something. They always either pass around it without meaning to, flying over a different mountain, or they just don't come back."
"That's what this painting is called, isn't it? The Kamchatka Triangle."
"Yes."
"In reference to the Bermuda Triangle?"
"Yeah, right. But this is the real deal. Actual anomalies... They just haven't had the chance, y'know, to properly look into it. But now, y'know, Moscow University's making some headway with the government... They'll have to go there on foot to see if there's any, y'know, civilization there like the tablets hinted at. But perhaps, y'know, perhaps there might be something, y'know? At least for the biologists or chemists or what not. To excuse some of the, well, some of the rumours."

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"This one was more fun for anything. This painting was just an idea I had for what they might find at the peak of that mountain. I don't really think it'll look like that at all."
"I'm sure the new expedition will be hoping not."
"Yeah, though the last expedition hardly fared well."
"Though considering the locations of the tablets..."
"Yeah, I mean, Dyatlov's Pass? One was found only a few years later. And then one found in the 1920s from the location of the Tunguska Incident... Can't really fill them full of confidence. "
"Well, at least two of them came from the same country."
"Doesn't mean a whole lot considering how large Russia is."
"But isn't it a little creepy how all of these tablets were located in places of bad luck or mysterious deaths? The Suicide Forest, a town where deaths occured during its destruction so no one lives there anymore, a giant crater surrounded by mystery that was created in 1908, a pass on the so-called Mountain of Death where 9 skiers mysteriously died? Japan, Taiwan, Russia, Russia, where else was it?"

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"Ohmigod, I can't believe you'd show my old photographs!"
"This was what you used to do, right?"
"Right, but I abandoned cute long ago. It just didn't quite ... mean anything. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a cute cat any everything ... but still."
"I understand. I just thought we should mix it up a little."
"Cool, cool, but uh, I can't believe you found that photograph. Wow."
"Yeah, listen to the studio audience, they love it."
"Yeah, wow."

[Laraqua]

"Well, to get you back for that, I should show you my latest and greatest find ... I got it from a video camera I just happened across. It's what's been inspiring me even more than the tablets. Every time I watch it, though, I get these ideas ... yet I can never remember what I've seen."
"That sounds disturbing. Do you have this camera footage here?"
"Yeah, I've got it all set up and everything. Your producer agreed."
"Now, anyone in the studio audience who has a weak stomach, please turn away. We have no idea what's on this footage."

[Laraqua]

Background music.

"Change the music ... there we go. Okay, are we ready?"
"Oh, I recognise this music! You've exquisite tastes."
"First, before we play it, I'll tell you the tale of how I found it. Well, I was sitting in a cafe in London when I heard this god awful racket in the alley next door. Naturally, I came running out to go see what was there. I found this homeless man standing there, holding this box. There was no one else in sight. He offered it to me and there was this look in his eyes ... I just couldn't refuse that look."
"The box contained the film?"
"No, it contained a modern video camera that contained the film. I accepted the box, looked up, and he was gone!"
"Ooh!"
"I checked it in with the police but no one had reported such an expensive camera stolen so they returned it to me."
"And it was from that video camera that you found the clip that we are about to see?"
"Yes. Unfortunately, I can never remember exactly what I saw ... but hopefully, that'll change when we all see it."

[Laraqua]

Through the static that overwhelms your television set, you can hear only screams. Then, the channel cuts to a commercial. What follows are ten minutes of commercials. The deNacy Show does not air again. None of those present at the airing, ever commented upon what they saw. The hostess simply quit. At present, no one outside of those in that room and in the recording room, knows what happened.

[Laraqua]

Who here wants to see what all of the fuss is about? Who wants to go visit Kamchatka? Watch the video? Who here wants to unravel the mystery?

There are four main choices for character options:

The German "Hidden Places" documentary film crew. Presenter, cameraman, mic boy, possibly co-presenter (if two Players are interested in that role).

The Scientific Team who wants to go on the expedition (many disciplines may apply - from zoology to geology to metallurgy to archaeology).

The Bric'a'Brac brought along - Expedition doctor, guide, Russian government adviser. Be aware, the expedition team is small so there won't be dedicated chefs or other such characters involved.

The Desperate - those who will become motivated with a need to join but will have to find their own way - through trickery and deceit - into somehow making their way onto the expedition. You won't need to come up with the motivation (I can do this in-game) but it will be a hard track to follow.

[Mr. Handy]

Ooh! Me! Me!

While I am in far too many games already, I can't resist. I'm not sure what sort of character I'll be playing yet, but I gather there will be some time before this starts.

[Laraqua]

This is a game where people can go off on their own tangents and join again quite easily. There's a lot there so you can always snake in on one tendril or another and there's a definite joining point when the expedition launches, so if it takes time for players to be ready, that's not a problem.

I'm already running this game in RL, but with a very different cast - I'm using Demon the Fallen in the Old World of Darkness out here.

It's certainly not set in the Old World of Darkness. It's not set in the world of Lovecraft, either - there are elements there, recognizable forces, but the world is quite off-kiltre. Unlike The Last Express, Fungal Zombies & Ash - which each use Mythos entities and the like - this one is quite ... different. An amalgamation, if you like.

If anything, it draws most inspiration from Kult...

Though it'll play more like Call of Cthulhu than my other games. If anything, it's play-style will be more like Masks of Nyarlathotep - you'll be swamped with props, clues, leads, locations. The only difference being that even if you run out of time before the expedition launches, you always have that as a verifiable start - a thread that draws it all together. You can never stray THAT far from the path.

Be forewarned - this game will be R-Rated. This doesn't mean there'll be gore and violence around every corner - in my mind, gore is easy to glaze over and rarely hits the right spot. But remember the ambulance scene, Mr. Handy? That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. Worse still, since the reality isn't as in-your-face as Ash, such elements will be more potent for their very rarity.

Those who are squeamish shouldn't join.

[Mr. Handy]

I'm not likely to forget it!

That was an excellent and intense scene - terrifying for poor Sarah, of course, but that's one of the things that made it so great for me as a player. I am so in!