"When evening cools the yellow stream,
And shadows stalk the jungle’s ways,
Zimbabwe’s palace flares ablaze
For a great King who fears to dream.
For he alone of all mankind
Waded the swamp that serpents shun;
And struggling toward the setting sun,
Came on the veldt that lies behind.
No other eyes had vented there
Since eyes were lent for human sight—
But there, as sunset turned to night,
He found the Elder Secret’s lair.
Strange turrets rose beyond the plain,
And walls and bastions spread around
The distant domes that fouled the ground
Like leprous fungi after rain.
A grudging moon writhed up to shine
Past leagues where life can have no home;
And paling far-off tower and dome,
Shewed each unwindowed and malign.
Then he who in his boyhood ran
Through vine-hung ruins free of fear,
Trembled at what he saw—for here
Was no dead, ruined seat of man.
Inhuman shapes, half-seen, half-guessed,
Half solid and half ether-spawned,
Seethed down from starless voids that yawned
In heav’n, to these blank walls of pest.
And voidward from that pest-mad zone
Amorphous hordes seethed darkly back,
Their dim claws laden with the wrack
Of things that men have dreamed and known.
The ancient Fishers from Outside—
Were there not tales the high-priest told,
Of how they found the worlds of old,
And took what pelf their fancy spied?
Their hidden, dread-ringed outposts brood
Upon a million worlds of space;
Abhorred by every living race,
Yet scatheless in their solitude.
Sweating with fright, the watcher crept
Back to the swamp that serpents shun,
So that he lay, by rise of sun,
Safe in the palace where he slept.
None saw him leave, or come at dawn,
Nor does his flesh bear any mark
Of what he met in that curst dark—
Yet from his sleep all peace has gone.
When evening cools the yellow stream,
And shadows stalk the jungle’s ways,
Zimbabwe’s palace flares ablaze,
For a great King who fears to dream."
HP Lovecraft 'The Oupost'
Tonight's play through of Wretched Darkness/Wretched New Flesh Post Cards From Alividad adventure has our PC's going up against the discplines of 'the Walking Dude.' The PC's were hanging out in town after getting together and closing down the local bar. The PC's had heard about a series of murders in town & didn't think to much of it. What they didn't know was when they came face to face with a member of The Transmaniacon. And the biker simply stared at the party with cold dead eyes & an unnatural hunger for them.
The party wasn't expecting to be attacked right after that by B/X Dungeons & Dragons spectres and the motorcyclist to vanish right before thier eyes. A whiff of ozone indicating a hyperspacial gateway but they had three spectres to deal with right before thier eyes! And it took a good deal of effort to put these things down. And they took a good ten points of damage. Within our games Zontec has standing orders to put down any member of The Transmaniacon.
Before calling Zonetec the PC's searched the area finding a hand written copy of a page from 'the Flag copy of the Necronomicon. This page was still cold smoldering from the hyperspacial passage and the ozone smell from the fusion engine. One of our psychics scanned the area where the biker had been and got an impression of a run down house just outside of town. And the old iron smell of blood and leather from the biker's cloths. And there was also a touch of total insanity there in the background of the telepathic impression.
Dawn was already starting to come and the vampire PC wanted to get back to thier houses for the dawn and we broke up the game here.
The players have faced down the members of The Transmaniacon biker gang in numerous games of ours and it's ended in two total TPK's. These biker gang of degenerate black wizards and sorcerers should never be underestimated. And even in near future or horror game these guys nothing but bad news in spades. Nothing but death and destruction follows in thier wake!
