Alright, enough faffing about describing the Cthulhu mythos. Most of you guys are already quite informed about the setting, which is ironic, because it\u2019s based around knowledge that man was never meant to know. So, either this taboo voodoo elder god knowledge is overrated, or you guys are all gibbering lunatics at the fringe of sanity. Actually, judging by the comments section, I\u2019ll acknowledge that the two are not mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n
Anyway. Our tale begins in an insane asylum. There\u2019s the typical insane asylum setpieces\u2014walls that look like they\u2019ve been soaked in gravy, grubby lanky-haired prisoners wailing up a storm, and an apathetic warden who looks like he\u2019s contemplating how many baked hams he\u2019s going to have on his lunch break. Then we see an inmate, his cell bedaubed in typical occult mumbo-jumbo scrawlings, preparing to hang himself. He gets in the noose, kicks away the chair, the warden comes in to try to save him\u2014it\u2019s not actually shown if he\u2019s successful or not, but he\u2019d have to be kind of an idiot not to figure out how to rescue a guy slowly hanging himself to death three feet off the ground when a.) he\u2019s light enough to lift and b.) there\u2019s a chair not two feet away.<\/p>\n
The prisoner\u2019s journal falls open, and we zoom in on the text. It is at about this point we assume the role of our protagonist, Jack Walters.
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\nThe game starts on a dark and stormy night, with you, a detective somewhere in the US, being summoned by the local police force. Apparently, you\u2019ve got something of a reputation as a master sleuth\u2014something that\u2019s quite funny to me, given his proven inability to solve 2+2, not to mention ass+both hands. Anyway, the police are camping out outside some creepy cultist house full of heavily armed hostiles, and the cultists have asked Jack to come over and start talking to one of them. The cultist in question is standing in an eerie alleyway between the side door of the house and a fence. My first instinct is, \u201cscrew off, I\u2019m not going over there,\u201d but I acknowledge that my character doesn\u2019t have a whole lot of choice in the matter. It\u2019d seem cowardly not to help out\u2014after all, the cultists just want to talk to you, and they seem friendly enough so far. Now, if they were shooting at you, that\u2019d be another story\u2014<\/p>\n
Oh crap, spoke too soon. Take five steps towards the cultist\u2019s house and they suddenly begin opening fire from the windows. I\u2019m really not certain why this happened, to be honest. I don\u2019t think they wanted me dead, given what happens in a few minutes, and I didn\u2019t do anything terribly threatening. The police stayed right where they were, just as instructed. I guess maybe they got bored of waiting? I dunno. Anyway, the police start yelling at me, and I panic, since I don\u2019t have a weapon or any plot armor or anything. All I know is, I\u2019m getting shot at, and I don\u2019t want <\/em>to get shot at. I run back over to where the cops are. They\u2019re opening fire right back, running around and peppering the windows with bullet after bullet, but nobody seems to be actually hitting anything.<\/p>\n After a minute of having absolutely no idea what to do, I decide that I might as well run towards the side of the house. It\u2019s a stupid plan by all accounts, but what else am I gonna do? There\u2019s nobody still there, but the side door is unlocked, so I shrug and go in.<\/p>\n Gunshots still ringing upstairs, I begin searching the downstairs. There\u2019s nobody there, which is a comfort. I steal some books about cults, comment on the fact that the paintings all look like rejects from Monster Manual #WeDon\u2019tCareAnymore, and then, after making sure there was precisely nothing else I could be doing with my time, I went upstairs.<\/p>\n Now, this is a stupid idea. There are guys with guns up here. They were shooting at me, like, a minute ago. I don\u2019t know where they are, and I don\u2019t know what they\u2019ll do when they see me. If I had any better ideas, I\u2019d GTFO and let the police handle it. In fact, in real life, that\u2019s what anybody <\/em>would do in this situation. I was only doing this because I felt obligated to by the game, and it was starting to cheese me off that my character was such a self-destructive dunce.<\/p>\n Anyway, I find a lot of things upstairs. For one, a room full of corpses. All of the cultists are dead, which is, you know, kinda gross. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s entirely clear what killed them, but it appears to be suicide.<\/p>\n (Now\u2019s a good time to mention the Sanity mechanic. Basically, looking at creepy stuff makes you lose your shiz. Early on, when it\u2019s just dead bodies and such, your heart rate increases and your vision gets blurry. Later, when the horrors grow more intense, you start hearing whispers and hallucinating. You have to calm yourself down by not looking at whatever\u2019s disturbing you\u2014an interesting mechanic, and one that I quite like.)<\/p>\n So, room full of dead bodies. That\u2019s great. I don\u2019t suppose now you\u2019d like to get away from the intensely terrifying murder-suicide gun-wielding psychopaths? Of course not.<\/p>\n There\u2019s two rooms facing the front yard. Inside the first one us one of the cultist gunners, who appears to be dead. Apparently, the world\u2019s worst marksmen can get lucky occasionally.<\/p>\n The next room contains a guy still hale, hearty, and firing down at the cops. His back is turned to you, and he seems distracted. Hm. I make a mental note that if I find a weapon, I\u2019ll come back and deal with this guy. Then I close the door and move on.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t find any more rooms available to me.<\/p>\n Oh\u2026kay.<\/p>\n So, now what? I\u2019ve got a house full of dead bodies, a few pieces of stoutly incriminating evidence, and a cultist who seems hellbent on killing all of us. Seems like now would be the time to leave, while I\u2019m still 100% lead-free. Except, of course, you can\u2019t. You\u2019ve apparently got to stick this thing out to the bitter, hemorrhaging end.<\/p>\n After a while, I decide there must be something in the room with the shooter that I missed before. Of course, I have to investigate it without attracting the attention of the wackjob cultist. So I switch into stealth mode, open the door very carefully, and look around. He\u2019s still occupied. I step in very quietly\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026and it switches to a first-person cutscene, in which Jack walks right towards the cultist and introduces himself.<\/p>\n The cultist turns. He says something like, \u201cAh, we\u2019ve been expecting you,\u201d and it is at this moment that the police downstairs figure out which end the bullets come out of and manage to tag the guy. Great.<\/p>\n I find a key on the guy and unlock the remaining door. Inside are\u2026photographs of me. Lots of them. And newspaper articles with me in them. Basically, a little shrine to myself. It\u2019s terrifying, obviously, and Jack is so disturbed by this turn of events that he leaves the house immediately and lets the police carry on with their inquiries.<\/p>\n Wait, no, that doesn\u2019t happen. He keeps poking around. The cops are still firing on the window for some reason, so they\u2019re not around to help or anything. It\u2019s pretty much just you screwing around for no reason.<\/p>\n Eventually, you find a tunnel in the library leading down to the sound of human suffering. Jack comments, \u201cThis tunnel looks like it could collapse at any moment!\u201d He\u2019s right, too. It looks flimsy as hell, and will occasionally shudder, sending up clouds of dust. Really, that tunnel is the last place any sane man would want to be.<\/p>\n So Jack goes down the tunnel, emptying out into a massive foyer. On the opposite wall is an infernal, unheard-of artifice of pain. A massive spiked machine holds captive an injured man, keeping him in exquisite agony. There is the glow of green energy, and it is clear that the spikes are electrified somehow. In front of the man is a massive button.<\/p>\n Jack finally goes back to summon the police, and ask them to call the paramedics. They manage to get the man down, then start a thorough sweep of the tunnels after having them reinforced for safety. Then they manage to\u2026<\/p>\n Wait, no, that doesn\u2019t happen. Jack pushes the button. It kills the man strapped into the device. That part\u2019s actually not a joke. That\u2019s what seems to happen. As far as I can tell, his meddling summons some sort of massive ancient one. The sight drives him mad, and he\u2019s sent to an asylum for 6 years or so.<\/p>\n So\u2026yeah. Jack has now endangered his life too many times to count, meddled recklessly in police affairs, killed an innocent man, and possibly doomed the entire world.<\/p>\n In the very first mission.<\/p>\n We\u2019re in for a ride, folks.<\/p>\n This is a little debatable, since the guy was probably a cultist and might not have been savable anyway, but it\u2019s still stupid of Jack to just push random buttons attached to devices beyond the ken of mortal men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alright, enough faffing about describing the Cthulhu mythos. Most of you guys are already quite informed about the setting, which is ironic, because it\u2019s based around knowledge that man was never meant to know....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153],"tags":[220,224,223],"class_list":["post-1577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play","tag-clod-of-cthulhu","tag-cthulhu","tag-dark-corners-of-the-earth"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nPushing the button frees up a small, green, glowing crystal. He takes the crystal (for no reason), plugs it into a socket in the next room (for no reason), pushes a button near the socket (for no reason), and starts a massive glowing ritual thing that ends up summoning an elder god and shattering his sanity.<\/p>\n
\nInnocent People Confirmed to Have Been Killed By Jack\u2019s Actions: 1<\/strong><\/p>\n