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Synopsis: Working Group M survived the raid on the compound, but only barely. A new team member has been brought into the fold, to monitor and assist the remaining Teeth of Bast. No sooner than that has happened then the team is activated once more. Their supervisor sends the group into a mysterious mission with few directives. Paranoia soon sets in, as the group tries to figure out why they are on this mission.
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A new episode of God’s Teeth is the best way to end the day!
I thoroughly disagree with Lobstermemories. A new episode of God’s Teeth is the best way to start a day! If you listen to it at work, time flies! Because you lose continuity and develop memories of a hazy skybridge in Indianapolis. Why did Caleb talk? Why did you listen? You can answer neither.
Suggestion for a new episode tag: SECRETS AND LIES!
Being an avid listener of the main podcast, I called it once the surveillance notes mentioned the subject wearing gloves on her legs. Well played, Mr. Stokes.
I think my favorite thing was Ross killing an animal and leaving it on the dude’s desk. It seems a bit at odds with wanting out of the teeth though.
God damn, that was super duper scary. Amazing monster. Caught on that the girl across was the bad thing pretty quickly, but I had no idea how bad it truly was.
Carmodi Arms eh? I, for one, caught the reference to Andrew’s Fortune, I also feel that Mr U is a spiritual successor to Carmodi
that picture is…beyond terrifying. (the secretary at the police station also echoed a feature of Andrew’s Fortune. I didn’t bother to verify this, but back in the first episode of the Brutalists I thought one of the Machine cops’ names might’ve been the name of an officer mentioned in Andrew’s Fortune, taken together, and without my actually going and checking, I take this on absolute and unshakable faith that it means AF, Masticate and Red Markets all take place in the same universe.)
Faust continues to be a gem. “you have ONE power?” “no, I don’t have one power. I have two power!” A SHELL OF A MAN.
it clicked when we saw that note that referred to the gloves as being on “her legs.” immediately remembered Caleb talkin about that short story on the Gen Con panels about horror. eughhh. that was just so completely fucked up. I’m so glad the handler became a real character and wasn’t just an exposition machine, I ached for him even before he was trapped in a hellscape forever.
a thing that would’ve been fun: numbering the texts and saving off the document so you could go “Faust just received text #39 for those of you following along at home.” so much stuff in there we didn’t get to hear!
Great scenario. Kind of weirdly reminded me of the horror movie Unfriended. It’s notable mostly for its gimmick of being presented entirely as one of the characters’ laptop screen (complete with Skype video chat, instant messaging, Facebook, email, Youtube, and even Chat Roulette all seeing use), but it had 1) a mysterious threat interacting purely through weird and not infrequently threatening electronic forms of communication, 2) using said communication to sow dissension and division between the characters and 3) the ability to force them to commit suicide (in frequently bizarre and grotesque ways). Of course, the protagonists were dumbass and thoroughly obnoxious teenagers rather than Delta Green agents, so it was less scary and more “you people deserve this”, but the parallels were surprising.
My mind went to the “Scary Parrots” panel as soon as Caleb said “all her legs” and I mentally shat my pants on the light rail. The only other part that creeped me out even more was when Caleb spelled out the link between the cyclist, the movie star, and their handler–the notion that this thing PLANNED the trap so elaborately made my skin crawl.
What is this “Andrew’s Fortune” you gents are referencing?
Is it the short story “Andrew’s Fortune” by Sarah Orne Jewett?
On a second listen of the episode, good job on the foreshadowing Caleb. I missed some of them early on, but on the second listen I noticed a lot of hints of what was actually going on.
I love head games like this.
My only complaint is that you guys refer to all this cool stuff, like the two short stories, and atlach-nacha and I had to pause and rewind a dozen times to try and look it up. It would be awesome if you could post links (like where does it say that spider god = crawling chaos?).
Seriously though, well done. Every time I think I’m getting desensitized from the mythos, someone at RPPR pulls a rabbit out of their hat… many angled rabbits.
I feel like every so often with these Cthulhu games (Caleb’s content but also others in the group that run them) I get new reading material and new authors from the age of weird pulp writing to look up. So thanks for this new one.
The game was creepy and dark and the team paranoia was thick. At first I thought Carcosa but then realized this was Caleb, not Ross. As much as I like Yellow King material, I love the idea of these different entities and forces having similar abilities or seemingly similar abilities due to the nature of the eldritch, cosmic and supernatural but coming at you from something other than what you expect.
I’m also really digging this campaign’s “the Mythos is just another ecosystem” message.
@Twisting H: Andrew’s Fortune is A Dirty World AP: https://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2010/10/systems/ore-system/a-dirty-world/a-dirty-world-andrews-fortune-part-1/
the first game Caleb ever ran and still probably my favorite thing RPPR’s ever pulled off, even, what, five years later? almost six! it’s grim, it’s hysterical, it’s elaborately plotted, and it’s in the best system evar.
Only two hours in, but ‘dead woman in hotel water tank’ brought my mind straight to Elisa Lam, which was properly creepy.
I loved this. I too got had a sort of dawning horror about the “woman” when the “all her legs” comment was uttered. I remember the scary parrots panel which I actually listened to a few times because it was so fascinating. I loved predatory mimicry and as Aaron’s character is a lesbian it worked perfectly. A beautiful woman across the way who is alluring, talks to you and mimics you while your subconsciousness leaks out what she’s actually talking about was great. What really impressed me was that as she’s basically a big, scary spider she started tugging on threads to bring her prey closer. Those threads were the cyclist, the actor and Fitzerelli just to get at the teeth. They were incidental and any other and better thread would do.
I love your work, Caleb. God’s Teeth is my absolute favorite of the RPPR series so far.
‘What does your character do to relax Tom?’
“Guns.”
Does Tom just have Gun written down as his sole relationship for this game? If Toms character loses enough sanity will we get a scene here he has to burn his relationship with Guns to the ground and take up archery or something?
Not just this game. When he isn’t being an octopus with swords.
He’s playing a spec ops murder machine so it makes sense he’d try to keep his relationships out of it so far.
I just realized that murder was on the Cracked podcast. The one with the water tower.
I was thinking about predatory mimicry for unrelated reasons before firing this up.
are you sure they were unrelated reasons? what were the reasons? have you examined your notes on your reasons in every room in your house? do not be overconcerned about these reasons
Hooooooooooboy. Now we see that monster from Scary Parrots in action. It did not disappoint. And well done Caleb, for running a game with massive numbers of secrets and passed notes, without it bogging down or getting unlistenable. It was quite an education in how to arrange a game like this. Well done. And I appreciate you reading through the “rules” for the monster at the end, to demonstrate that there were in fact discoverable elements of the scenario and you weren’t cheating by moving the goalposts. That’s a good move after such a potentially frustrating scenario, not that the RPPR crew is likely to get mad about something like that. But I’ll take it to heart for convention games and such in the future.
A toast for Pizzerelli; from a threat in Episodes 1-2 to a hero’s ‘death’ in this one.
And a toast for Caleb; I too remembered the monster from The Scary Parrots panel and was both gratified I remembered and terrified for the players. I don’t know how the episodes keep topping each other.
Books mentioned in this episode (thanks to Twisting H for assembling this list)
Books mentioned:
The Sloan Men by David Nickle
Story: https://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle/thesloanmen
Free audiobook narration from Pseudopod: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/6/4/f/64fdc003d12f06cc/Pseudo092_TheSloanMen.mp3?c_id=2279861&expiration=1467081587&hwt=35d876a9d54078319dfcc7b4b88372f8
La Morte Amoureuse or Clarimonde by Theophile Gautier
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/gautier/theophile/clarimonde/
The Spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605651.txt
Discussion of HH Ewers work on Eldritch Dark forums http://www.eldritchdark.com/forum/read.php?1,4438,page=all
Also gunfight or STFU is how I’m going to solve any time wasting in my sessions from now on. Even in D&D
Especially in D&D.
I think I know the story this is based on.
I’m not sure if Caleb has read The Witch of Prague by Francis Marion Crawford, but when Tom? Yelled she’s a witch, that story came to mind.
Ross & Twisting H, I thank you
I wont lie, I was happy with just Gods Teeth. Now that its turned into more boy, this is some scary shit. Lol. Great job. Cant wait for more.
it’s kind of a shame that some of the best weird fiction of our time is being told in a format you can’t get the average nerd off the street to listen to. it’s like culture skipped a couple beats and went straight from books to YouTube. people are so resistant to podcasts! I don’t get it!
Man, this was close to a TPK, mentally. A real sanity Deathtrap, didn’t seem like any way to “win” this one, only survive. RIP Pizzerelli.
I got about halfway through and said “Just throw the fucking phones away!”
Bellhop would be like: “Oh, hey. Your company bought you all phones and sent them up.” 😛
Great stuff, Caleb. A little confusing, but great.