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Synopsis: The Brutalists find out the downsides of subcontracting the hard way! Their latest job takes them face to face with a horror they’ve never encountered before. Killing an impossible monster is not their only concern either. The DHQS has an agent placed in an nearby enclave. The leadership of that enclave has designs on Kowloon, regardless of what he wants. Find out how the takers fight back in this nail-biting episode!
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That aberrant did not disappoint.
I THOUGHT I WAS READY FOR ABERRANTS BUT I WAS NOT READY AAAH
rise of the wirebloods
man the DHQS are just huge douchebags aren’t they
Aberrants are creepy, yo. Great job on the descriptions, Caleb. Although when I first heard about the heads, I thought you’d re-emact the crwaling head scebe from The Thing, only en masse.
Good thing Tom reconsidered the fight-response, or we would probably have heard the last of Malleus.
Gotta voice it myself as well, loved the aberrant. Right mixture of terrifying, dangerous and ‘I guess that makes some sense – wait, no, what?’ to keep the Crusaders crusading until they die. Hats off to you, sir.
Also, Big Damn Hero Kowloon, reluctant savior of the day.
I can hardly wait to see the blowback from this job.
Aaron…. screaming “Whats going on?!” while not watching the video feed…
*slow clap*
The more we here from DHQS, the more creepy they seem to me. Like the aberrant is creepy in that “oh god, should not be! NOPE!!!” but the DHQS have this real world oppressive creepiness to them, an inhuman-human horror aspect to them the way Caleb plays them up that, I don’t wanna say they trump the aberrants (Cause, I was literally shaking with dreadful excitement when it finally came on scene) but almost put them on equal footing in terms of doomed horror and threat levels in this episode.
Also that gated community, not as terrifying as either but just that growing creepy the longer the players stayed there, kinda stepford-esque.
Good Job!
Currently listening, 1hr 6min in: “Pulling the ladder up on the roof” I used to work for a roof consulting firm, you would not believe the number of times guys from the inspections department didn’t do that and ended up calling in to the office for someone to come out and rescue them because their ladder had fallen down while they were doing their inspection.
I’m going to gently step off the hype train for a moment. I didn’t really like this Aberrant. I love the idea of non L4D ‘boss monsters’, I really do, but this critter just seemed so foreign and jarring that I didn’t care for the hideous blightform. It was too Akira for me. The good news is that there’s more than one Aberrant out there, so I won’t have to use it myself.
This is hands down the best session, and the best scenario so far. Every word of description dripped with tension and oozed horror. The job site was at first a grave. All they had was rumor and campfire stories and then the signs of death. Then Malleus beheld the shape of the possibly most terrifying thing you could imagine in this universe you glorious bastard Caleb. This was not the climax, only a portent for the horror to come.
When they retreated to the Enclave, it also held an astounding amount of slow horror. The closer they got to wealth, the more unnerving it became.
And THEN there’s the DHQS. Their twisted cold cruel plan to wipe the slate clean and cover their damnable asses. In a way all these things played off one another, a network of sinews forming a net of horror.
This was amazing and I’ve been on the edge of my seat the whole time.
(i wrote that last one as i was listening… and i have one thing to add)
WHAT THE F—! THERE’S TWO OF THEM! Oh my God! You insidious Genius Caleb. This is amazing!
That Aberrant did not dissapoint me at all.
These last two sessions have been great. The tension has been through the roof. I have to say, if I was Ross, I would have let that thing take out those assholes.
Really glad you guys have the IP for Red Markets locked down.
Episode 8 & 9 would make a great stand alone movie. The screenplay is right there. The movie making in jokes are right there. Sort of like The Thing in terms of being thrown into the middle of daily life.
Backed the Red Markets Kickstarter! And loving more Red Markets APs!
The window bit made my spine crawl. I was housesitting for a friend when I listened to this and they have a huge house with a high ceiling, so whenever I walked into a new room I was subconsciously looking up at the corners…
Caloon missed a great opportunity there. Could have retired. All it would have taken was to let a few hundred people die.
Just have the aberrant eat the godly and then call the DHQS and collect his 100 bounty. Wouldn’t even have had to tell the rest of the gang. GILF would have payed them for emptying the retirement home and all would have been “well” Kowloon could have walked away clean. Clean as in “soaked in the blood of the insistent, but rich”
There is actually a few times in this campaign where I have thought. Why not just cut and run. Just take the loot and leave the rest of the party in trouble. The video images of DHQS atrocities probably could have been the retirement fund for IP if he just booked it. Same with the drug score. The Mauve, who got the money into his criptocurrency account could just have booked it before the party split it, heist movie stile.
If I was broken in Red Markets it would probably from finding out some horrible shit the DHQS had done and forming a cult to let casualties into the recession, noone deserves a safe life if this is how the act towards their fellow men, tear it all down.
@Ninjaguiden To quote the great Snake Plissken: “Welcome to the Human race!”
Also that would make for a dark but interesting campaign frame for Red Markets.
The high point for me was that call from the DHQS Steward offering to pay them to murder Ivory Plains. And the Brutalists’ subsequent struggle to try to justify to themselves why they could maybe accept the offer. Talk about grim. Really, what makes Ivory Plains all that much different from Le Corbusier? They’ve got a few privileged wealthy big shots, surrounded by a bunch of impoverished folks clinging together for safety. So the Ivory Plains big shots have a more noxious and hypocritical ideology. That makes it maybe okay to murder all of them, wealthy and poor together? Glad Caleb called for that Self Control check for everybody. Yeesh.
I thought it was especially twisted how Caleb set up Ivory Plains as this absolutely loathsome and skin-crawling place that pushed all of the wrong buttons for the Takers, offered them a huge payday to stand by and let them all be wiped out, and THEN had Ivory Plains’ goons push the envelope by trying to kidnap Kowloon after he had taken a moral stand and refused to let the Ganglia kill them all (And sacrificed their jeep on top of that to kill the thing!)
Did nobody else notice that Caleb basically just made Tac-Net into an aberrant monstrosity?
No. Not until you pointed it out Hooligantuesday.
You are a monster Caleb.
Tac-Net is life. Tac-Net is death. Tac-Net is… gooey? Become the Tac-Net. All praise your new flesh!
Creepy ludwig for the win!
How many bad situations were the Brutalists in this episode? …Lots…
The Aberrant was creepy as fuck. There were two of them. IP with Mrs E. Gotta set off a Ninja Blender bomb that you’re not sure will work. Mr U and his offer. Kowloon and the camera-man possible kidnapping. The camera-man going slowly insane. Aberrant at the gates. Kowloon having to decide to ram Mauve’s Humvee into the monster or possibly let the monster overwhelm Ivory Plains.
I’m genuinely surprised that you guys *somehow* make it out of some of these situations alive. Well, most of the Brutalists. RIP Drift.