Blind to the Danger
over 9 years ago – Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 10:45:29 PM

Hey, everyone! We’re back with looks at another investigator and critter that you will all receive with your pledge! Here we go!

SCARLETT ROMANOV - SPECIAL AGENT

Scarlett never wanted a normal life. Head strong and with a thirst for adventure, Scarlett began survival training for fun as a teenager and undertook deep studies of the martial arts for more than self-defense. Two things all of her trainers noticed was her nearly unquenchable competitive drive, and the fact that she seemed to be almost completely devoid of empathy. She was cold. Calculating. Composed. And up for any challenge. She was the perfect assassin.

Scarlett’s skills were noticed by several less savory government agencies around the world, and consequently she was never short of work. But then the Leng Corporation made her an offer that every other “suitor” vying for her attentions just couldn’t beat. Scarlett found herself overnight becoming a one-company girl.

One advantage of the new arrangement was that she got new toys and fresh training on a consistent basis, allowing her to further hone and augment her skills. But one big problem was that most of her assignments were boring. The occasional theft or surveillance jobs were not what she signed up for. Now, however, they seem to have found a mission worthy of her talents. They are deploying her to the Kadath deep sea mining facility to assess and monitor the situation there. And, if the situation proves to not be to her liking, they have given her clearance to employ her specific skillset with extreme prejudice. This could prove to be the most fun she’s had in months.

BLIND

You hear a soft thump behind you. Yelping, you pull out your plasma torch and whirl around, prepared to light up whatever is approaching. The creature is creeping toward you, its soft steps calculated and measured as it pads across the floor. It is roughly humanoid in shape, but. . . That head. . .

Its head is gone. And in its place is a gently writhing, wriggling tentacle mass. It’s. . . it’s a bit like a frog egg whose pollywog hasn’t quite broken free yet. You can see things moving beneath the translucent flesh, shifting, stirring, flitting. There’s a glow. Yes! There’s a glow coming from inside the bulbous sac, one that flickers and fades and renews as the tentacle whips back and forth.

It’s hypnotic. Almost beautiful in a way. Beneath the horrifying, gruesome exterior, it’s almost like. . . watching. . .

The world has faded around you, the plasma torch dropped to the corridor’s floor by your slack fingers. The creature reaches you, almost timid as it gingerly places its gnarled hands upon you. And as its barbed, razor-sharp tentacle plunges through your stomach, you marvel that your body is bursting with light. . .

Blind is roughly humanoid, except for its semi-gelatinous, semi-bony tentacle- (or tongue-)shaped head. But that head is hypnotic. With its semi-translucent flesh, investigators can see things moving beneath its surface. It’s like there’s another creature living just under the skin, like a fish or amphibian growing in its egg. And the longer investigators watch it, the deeper it sucks them into a trance state. The world around them ceases to be. Slowly, imperceptibly, they come to realize there is only Blind.

When an investigator faces Blind, he may find it increasingly difficult to attack the creature as Blind sucks him into that state of confusion and disorientation. And by the time he is able to recover, it will likely already be too late. Blindness has become his world. And now his world has ended.

PRESENTING THE INVESTIGATORS!

We have another present for you this holiday season: we recently received samples of the Core Game investigators, as well as a couple of KS exclusives! Our manufacturer has created and tested the resin replicas from their sculpted masters. We are ready to make the steel molds for their mass production. We’ll have more details soon, but just thought you’d like to see all of these! Have a great week, and we’ll talk with you again soon!

A Delirious Gift from Husk
over 9 years ago – Thu, Dec 08, 2016 at 09:43:26 PM

Hey, guys! We hope you’ve been having a great week! So, we wanted to keep showing you some of the great stuff that comes in the core game which we never really got around to during the Kickstarter madness. (See what we did there?) Why? Because we think you’re awesome!

Recently we’ve been covering the core game’s investigators. Now here are a couple more of the monsters! With the holidays coming up, too, we thought it would be appropriate to start by telling you about the monster who most wants to give you a gift.

HUSK AND MIND EATER

The lights flicker on and off as you advance down the corridor, casting strange shadows before dousing everything once again in darkness. Water must have seeped into the electrical system here. And it is incredibly unnerving. The lights aren’t even synchronized: each corridor seems to be pulsing to its own beat. Somehow, it makes everything seem more cavernous. More empty.  

A person stutters through the open hatch up ahead, his back lit by flickering overheads as your own corridor goes largely black. The man moans, or maybe wheezes, and stumbles toward you.

“Hey!” you cry. “Hey, are you okay? Sir, I’m here to help!”

The lights in your corridor flicker back on. The man has three arms. And his face has been obliterated into a bulging mass of pulsing flesh. But that doesn’t even begin to cover all of his problems.  

Yelping, you scramble backwards, raising your bolt gun. The lights flicker out again, and you hear the man’s body pop. Then you hear the skittering sounds.

The lights flick back on. The first thing you notice is that the man’s chest has split down the middle and gapes like a monstrous mouth, his bloated stomach churning below it. The second thing is the creatures spilling out of the cavity. They pour down the man’s legs as he continues to twitch and shiver and shamble toward you. Once the things reach the floor they fan out, some coming directly for you and some running up the walls. Some of them even skitter up onto the ceiling. A slick, slimy proboscis unfolds from each one’s lower jaw. The horrible bug things screech and squeal as they swarm toward you.  

The lights flicker off again, but you can still hear them coming. Unleashing a feral cry, you begin firing madly into the throbbing corridor before you.

Husk has a present for you. But it’s not one you’re going to want him to open. Churning within his belly is a multitude of Mind Eaters: small, skittering beasts that want nothing more than to hollow you out and make their new home in your gut.  

There is very little humanity left in Husk, but one faculty it still possesses is desire. Specifically, it wants you to join it in its hollow oblivion. It promises you’ll never be alone: you will always have your Mind Eaters to keep you company. When you draw Husk as a monster to battle against in a scenario, you will also draw the Mind Eaters card as well. Mind Eaters don’t count toward the total monsters you will face, either. They’re an extra bonus. And when Mind Eaters are present on the board, their agility and special status as a “minion” monster ensures that they always go first, before any other monster or any player.  

Are you sure you don’t want to open your gift now? Husk is dying to give it to you.

DELIRIUM

“Wait,” Randi says beside you. “Did you hear that?”  

The hatch erupts beside you, sending shards of metal screaming out of their frame and raining through the air. The beast charges toward you with a feral screech, its multitude of long, whip-like tentacle tongues snapping and writhing through the air. Each one is tipped with a giant, viciously hooked barb at the end. And each one is dangerously close to your face.

“Randi, run!” you cry, scrambling backwards yourself. You draw your machete into your hand, wishing frantically that you had something which shot bullets to defend yourself with. How can you possibly kill this thing with only a knife?  

The beast abruptly stops, and its body begins weaving and stuttering listlessly, as if it has become disoriented. You freeze. Perhaps it has lost you somehow. Its tentacles undulate restlessly through the air, and the creature mewls plaintively. (How is it even making noise? It doesn’t seem to really have a mouth!) It stumbles forward, then sinks to one knee. It shudders, as if its whole body is wracked by grief, and then it offers a pitiful wail.  

You lock eyes with Randi, who has also stopped on the opposite side of the creature. “Get ready,” you mouth to her. Then you start inching away from the reeling creature. Maybe you’ll escape this after all, if it will just stay distracted –

The creature’s tortured laments snap off, and it jerks upright. Turning, you run. “Go, Randi! Go!” you yell. Glancing over your shoulder, you see the tentacles cleaving the air behind you, extending out longer, longer, impossibly long. The barbed talons sink into your arms, your leg, your side, and whip you off your feet. The creature gibbers madly as it reels you bleeding, kicking and screaming back toward it, like a fisherman hauling in his catch. Apart from its tendrils, it has become deathly still.

Delirium is an incredibly unsettling creature. At one moment it can seem confused, dumbfounded, even pitiful. But at the very next it can become a vicious torrent of energy, overwhelming you with a whirlwind of its barbed tentacle tongues. It is spastic, manic depressive, and deadly.  

When you think you are escaping Delirium is precisely when it draws you in. When an investigator is on an adjacent tile Delirium’s whirling tentacles can extend longer than should be physically possible and snare her, pulling her right into its reach. It is possible you might be able to break free of it as it reels you in, but doing so will automatically wound you. Once Delirium has its hooks in you, it’s hard to get them back out.  

Hope you liked these closer looks! That’s all we’ve got for today, but we’ll talk with you again soon. In the meantime, have a happy and safe holiday season, and don’t open any gifts marked “From: Husk”!

Meet the Core Part Three
over 9 years ago – Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 11:03:55 PM

FELICIA ARMITAGE – THE DOCTOR

Felicia knows she’s not an easy person to like, but she couldn’t care less. In fact, in her eyes the world is a cold, brutal place, and to survive one must act accordingly. That leaves little room for wasteful softness, or for saccharine sentiment.

Felicia was ten years old when her parents died in a fire, and it wasn’t long before child services had seized control of her life and thrown her into an orphanage. There she learned to look out for herself, because no one else would. She found herself growing intensely curious about what made people tick, and so she chose a medical major in college where she quickly rose to the top of her class. It wasn’t long before she earned a residency in one of America’s most acclaimed teaching hospitals. Her fervor for medicine cooled, however, when every patient she dealt with began to blur together into one big human lump. It all became so uninteresting. So. . . Bland. She began to see herself as a mechanic cursed to fix an army of homogenous mannequins rather than unique individuals with their own hopes and dreams. Before long she and the hospital agreed it would be best for her to leave as more and more complaints piled up, branding her as “cold,” “callous,” “unfeeling,” or even “a robotic monster.”

Upon leaving the hospital, Felicia decided to get as far away from humanity as she could, determining instead to take up a career in marine biology. It was at this point, however, that she was discovered by the Leng Corporation. Her accomplishments had been brought to the attentions of several of Leng’s top research associates, all of whom felt she would be an asset to the company. Dr. Armitage’s early work for the corporation indeed did prove to be very promising, but when communication was lost with the Kadath mining facility her previous experience as a medical doctor ensured her a front-row seat with the team of first-responders. She should have stayed in marine biology.

SAMUEL SMITH – THE CAPTAIN

There is a big heart powering Samuel Smith’s considerable brawn. That’s why he took it so personally when the submarine he was captaining had a terrible accident, resulting in the death of everyone aboard except himself. Taking a leave of absence, Samuel turned to alcohol to try to drown his regrets and fill the empty void in his chest. They called it survivor’s guilt. He called it his personal purgatory. Why him? Why had he survived? Why couldn’t he save them?

When the alcohol failed to do much more than give him splitting headaches, Samuel turned to something he hadn’t given much thought to since his childhood: his faith. It was here that he finally found the healing he desperately sought. His friends noticed the change in him, and it wasn’t long before they were all calling him “Preacher” – both as a gentle barb and as a marker of the man he’d become.

It was sometime later that Samuel was approached by a representative from the Leng Corporation. They told him that something had happened at the Kadath facility, and they needed him to lead a team down there to investigate. All at once Samuel felt every muscle in his body tighten into knots. They wanted him to lead? But how could he ever do that again? Furthermore, why would they ever trust him to do that again? At the same time, he heard the whisper of a small voice in the back of his mind, provoking him to action. If there were innocent lives trapped down there, he couldn’t just leave them to whatever fate lay in store. In the end, he said yes. He desperately hoped he wouldn’t come to regret that decision.

Meet the Core Part Two
over 9 years ago – Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 12:25:06 AM

Hi everyone, how are our greatest backers doing? Haven't been talking to you guys for a couple of days. Now we are well rested, back to work now!

JARED DRAKE – THE SOLDIER

Jared doesn’t regret his childhood. It would be pointless to do so. Jared’s father and brother disappeared when he was 6 years old, and he was then raised solely by his mother. He was a scrawny, quiet kid, and as such he was bullied mercilessly through many of his formative years.

At some point, though, Jared began to adapt. He started working out, and he started calculating. It wasn’t long before the bullies learned exactly who they were messing with. Jared became known as “The Sergeant” because of his keen mind for strategy, his quiet, humorless leadership style, and his ability to execute precise brutality on his enemies. No one was surprised, then, when he joined the army as soon as he was of age.

It looked like Jared would go career, but a car bomb riddled his body with shrapnel and led to him being honorably discharged. Jared forced himself to recover, and then got odd jobs as a mercenary, a bodyguard, or even once or twice as a hitman. The Leng Corporation learned about his notable skills and hired him as a senior security officer. They were impressed by his ability to keep a secret, and he advanced quickly in the corporation. Then the corporation lost contact with the Kadath facility. Jared was assigned to accompany the team of first-responders for two reasons: first of all, as protection for the rest of the team; second, as a silencer in case things grew out of hand. Jared will not hesitate to carry out either duty.

ROMAN ASIMOV – THE BIOCHEMIST

Very little is known about Dr. Asimov, and what is mainly consists of vague rumors or insane wives’ tales. There are stories that he has worked with some of the most controversial doctors employed by the Leng Corporation, though they themselves are little more than ghosts in the company. There are rumblings that he has been able to radically alter his appearance through the manipulation of other people’s consciousness and visual nerve centers. There are rumors that he has spliced together terrible creatures from human bodies, and even that he is a part of some criminal or cultish organization. But that’s all they are: rumors. What is known to be solid fact, though, is that he is not an employee of the Leng Corporation, but instead an outside consultant. And that he comes with the highest recommendations from some of the top executives in the corporation.  

Dr. Asimov joined the team as a biochemist, under the guise that whatever had happened at Kadath might have involved a biological contaminant of some kind. Though even this thin excuse gives some of his fellow investigators pause. After all, why would the Leng executives expect for there to be a contagion or other biological agent at work in Kadath? What do they know that they aren’t sharing?  

It’s possible that Dr. Asimov might have some idea. But if he does, he’s not telling.  

To Be Continued...

Meet Mutilation
over 9 years ago – Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 07:44:32 PM

We’ve said there was more to come. And we meant it. Today we are pleased to introduce you to Mutilation.

MUTILATION

The ground shakes below you. Eyes widening, you turn to your teammates.

“Did you feel that?” you ask.

Their expressions tell you all you need to know.

The ground shakes again. The pounding seems louder now. More defined.

“It’s coming this way,” Drake says.

“What do you mean, ‘it’?” asks Dr. Armitage.

“Well, those are obviously footsteps,” Drake replies.

A thrill of terror runs down your spine. It’s like a premonition. You’ve seen some terrible things, but this feels different somehow. “We need to get out of here,” you say. “Right now. Before it’s too late.”

“I second that,” Samuel says. “Pull back, everyone! Pull out!”

But it’s already too late.

The colossal thing thunders into the room, its myriad mouths screaming and shrieking as it multitude of arms thrash and tear at itself. It is a congealed mass of so many people, each one looking like it has melted into hell. Their expressions –

No, what’s –

You’re back at the beginning. You see the sphere turning slowly in space, a swirling mass of kaleidoscopic madness. Around it you see the staff of the facility. The miners. The doctors. The scientists. One scientist is digging his eyes out with a shard of metal. A woman has cut a man’s arm off with an axe and, unable to free the axe from the metal it has embedded in, picks up the arm to beat the man with it. Another – oh no, what’s he doing –

Shrieking, you close your eyes and clutch your face, trying to make the terrible images go away. You hear your friends all around you doing the same thing. And all the while the mass of mutilated madness is approaching closer and closer. Its arms pull it forward anxiously as its thick, mutated legs thunder across the ground.

You open your eyes, trying to blink away the vile evil that has swelled up before them. You feel arms wrap around yours, dragging you backward. When you can finally see again, you look up to see Samuel dragging you away.

“Wait!” you say. “The others!”

“They’re already gone!” Samuel says. “Look at them!”

You turn your head in time to see Dr. Armitage charging at Drake with a scalpel. Drake raises his pistol and shoots her in the face. All the while the behemoth continues on. Drake swivels towards it and it scoops him up in two of its arms. Drake fires over and over into the writhing mass until his gun clicks empty, and then the thing rips him in half. Drake is still alive, and still screaming as the creature presses his upper torso into itself. You watch, transfixed, as the soldier is absorbed into the shambling terror, the flesh around him spearing him and wrapping around him and sucking him inside until only his head and one arm remains free.

“Get up,” Samuel says. “Get on your feet! We have to run NOW!”

When madness descended on Kadath, the darkest, vilest impulses erupted inside the people trapped in its grip. The people mutilated each other, and they mutilated themselves. The sphere, in another sick twist of humor, then joined these mad, frenzied people together, pooling them into one giant monstrosity called Mutilation.

When investigators encounter Mutilation, they not only see it: they see the hatred and terror and viciousness of the people comprising it. They see a tableau of irrepressible terror. And it is often too much for a mere human mind to handle. Mutilation comes with two separate card decks. One determines his action pool and special moves, and one determines what aura he projects. Each aura card describes the horror and madness that the investigators are currently fighting against.

Mutilation is not just an Epic Monster: it is the Ultimate Epic Monster. And it will be unlocked for everyone when we hit $1,300,000. We have more stretch goals to hit before we get there. Do you want to help us unlock Mutilation? Then now is the time to spread the word! Tell your friends! Add extras if you’ve been holding off! This campaign is just going to get better and better until the clock finally runs out! The time to act is now! Let’s do it!