A retelling of a short story written by myself for an old Horror fanzine. That story focuses on a particularly eventful evening in the life of freelance photographer Pamela Grey in the world of the Dark Conspiracy RPG. In this story game you take the place of Pamela. 

The world you live in is much like today's, only a little worse.  The rich are richer, the poor are poorer, and the gap between is so much wider. So much is controlled by the mega-corporations and rich interests that large swatches of the ever expanding urban sprawl are marked as "Outlaw Territory, Enter At Own Risk" - where even the police don't go, either for fear or lack of resources.  The middle class has mostly disappeared except for the lowest echelon of corporate execs, and legislative changes have allowed many that would have previously been on the public dole to instead sell their vote to corporate interests in exchange for support. Crime is up, as are disappearances, theft, and violence. Even as bad as the world has become, there are persistent rumors that even worse things lurk in the shadows.  Many neighborhoods have abandoned houses that everyone knows better than to enter, and even in the outlaw where the police fear to tread there are rumors of entire blocks that no one but the mad or the most desperate are willing to risk going into after dark.

You and Susan, your significant other, are doing ok.  Her job with Aprico has afforded the two of you a small place in a small gated community owned by the company. A prized place in the vanishing middle class. Your home is close enough to the gates that you can still easily indulge in your favorite hobby, walking through Chicago with your trusty camera in hand, particularly at night.  The sale of these photos as art pieces to the ultrawealthy, facilitated by Susan's contacts, has helped with sporadic lump sums of money.  Susan pays the bills, but your money pays for luxuries and splurges.

In the twilight one often finds isolated moments of beauty and mystery that would never been seen in the daylight, and you work to capture these moments in the perfect clarity of your lens. You know the risks of being out alone at night outside the gates, but even Susan has had to admit that the last couple of pictures you sold would not have been possible if you hadn't been out there.  To help comfort her (and yourself to be completely honest), you recently bought a large knife to carry with you, just in case.

So, come explore the night and see what waits for you in the dark.

The job listing was simple "Earn 100K » in your sleep!" Having not been able to find a steady job for over a local year and half, you jumped at the chance.

Now, eight months later by the clock on the pod, you have suddenly been awoken from hypersleep to fulfill your role as the emergency backup crew of PrimObs 80085. There is no sign of the regular crew, and even worse, no sign of the rest of the backup crew, so it is up to you to determine what happened and hopefully get a message back to sector command for rescue.

Entry for EndMaster's Prompt Contest 4: Prompt #27) A story involving a space station.

This work is currently being rewritten to include an additional successful ending. If you find a path that appears to dead-end, please come back and try this story again soon.

An entry for MHD's Fairytale contest, this is a retelling of the old Appalachian Fairy Tale "The Little Princess of the Forest".

Come listen to the telling of one of the wildest fairy tales I've ever heard.    This story was originally told by Marshall Ward for a fairy tale collection, and has stuck with me ever since I first heard it.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.  Grab a seat and listen up, as it starts like this...

You have made your way through the city, state, regional, national, planetary, sector, parsec, arm, 64th-, 32nd-, 16th-, octo-, quarter- and semi-finals to arrive with a guaranteed spot in the Finals of the 169th cycle IntraGalactic Culinary Challenge brought to you by Mag King and Gal-actic Robotics held on RecStation 420 in the Lagoon Nebula. When those magnetronics need to sing, 🎶🎶 Call on Mag King 🎶🎶! Do you need a handy robot pal? Everybody wants a Gal!

You face a varied array of challengers and an even more diverse panel of judges to win over in the two round Final. Before each round, you will have time to plan your dish and explore the features of the station. Who knows, you might even find something to help in the contest! Judges and contestants are randomly selected with every read-through, and finding things is done by a random function of your stats, so every new read is a fresh game.

This was originally going to be an entry for EndMaster's Promt Contest 4, but I ran out of time and quickly wrote The Backup

This is a storygame conversion of the Minion Hunter Board Game (and Minion Nation expansion) by GDW, based on the Dark Conspiracy TTRPG by GDW and Dynasty Presentations, with some modernization updates by myself, and is set in the same world as my "A Night in Chicago" storygame.

This is a simulation of a complex boardgame and while I have done my best to add some narrative to the events, it does not have a standard ending that you are working towards.  Every movement is a "round" in the game, and while you are developing your own stats and equipment, the forces of the Dark influences are advancing their plots.  The story ends when one of the main Dark Minion races (ETs, Fae, Morlocks, or Nukids) gains 20 plot points, or you defeat enough plots to run out the plot deck.

Full rules are detailed within.  Give it a try and see if you can save Dark America from the corrupting influence of the Dark Minions.

It was just supposed to be a quick run down to the bodega. Ten minutes, tops. Then you saw something in the alley, and now everything has been turned upside down.

This is incomplete. Sorry, I just ran out time.

Entry for Sherbet's Summer's End Synergy Contest

Knowing that Bezro was plotting his attack, the plan was to let him draw in closer before we engaged with him. However, as he wandered, RK bumped into him while hunting a deer. The fight was pretty close, but RK came out on top. Lots of wild hairy beast was hauled back to the base that afternoon. The recently converted Suranna also took charge with trying to convert her father, Endmaster.

As was decided in the last update, Fresh removed Shakes from the prison room and released him to find his own way in the world. He wasted no time in exiting the map. Will he be a prostelizing force for us? Will he be eaten by cannibal pirates within a few days? We may never know. Suranna continues to focus on converting Endmaster. It's not totally clear why but everyone that had been previously so focused on converting TCat chooses to take a break on that for awhile, even though her certainty was sitting at around 2% so one more conversion attempt would do it.

As we are simply waiting on TCat to make the switch to shut down the current prison room and officially turn it into a research lab, Bezro is stuck in one of the spare rooms. Milton takes the time to patch him up well, and conversion attempts will start when he regains consciousness. The next morning, the rising sun brought with it a sizable trade caravan from Eastern Emonla.

The traders had a lot of stuff, including a couple of worthwhile new books. By trading some of the drugs and other things, we acquired the books for only a few hundred silver. The other book they had was about a specific tech and the other was a slighltly less effective reaction book than the one we already have.

These new books will help bolster skills that everybody in the group should have. Fresh finally gets around to talking to TCat again, and the other of Endmaster's daughters is converted back to the try Cystian path and joins the group. This will let us drop the "prison" label for this room so researching will be a little more effective. The difference in advancement of anomaly research versus mundane in this story is quite stark. We are at 130 something out of 500 on the Drug lab, but have already finished research into Entity Confinement and Void Provocation and started on Bioferrite Extraction.

As the day draws to an end, Milton is out hunting and stumbles across a grove of Harbinger trees. These strange meaty flora are an example of anomalous entities. We may want to harvest these as they can yield twisted flesh and bioferrite, and another grove is inevitable anyway. Back at the camp the trade caravan packs up an leaves as the sun sets, and Mr. Nobody does the rounds of talking on our potential converts.

Even though Suranna had said she wanted to be the one to finally break through to Endmaster, Mr. Nobody decided to take a few minutes and the conversation is what it takes. Endmaster converts to Cystianism and as determined by Vote 3, was designated as the Mod. His promotion ceremony was attended by everyone and End's speech was well-received by everyone as well. It was a little long, but he made an excellent statement as to his many features that will let him maximize the utility of the position.

All of the positive things that have been going on have really given morale a sky-high boost. Fresh is a good example of the kind of buffs that everyone is currently experiencing. As if in the response to our overall good luck since our appearance in this place, distant moans reach us as a pack of shamblers, little more than rotten animated corpses, wanders into the area. There is no way to tell, but one can't help but think that the monolith some how calls to them. They are slow in movement and not near any resources we are currently working on, so we will ignore them for now.

Life in the colony, especially with our three new members, is busy and gregarious. As the new Mod, everyone is interested in talking to Endmaster. Anthraxus mentions some of the latest theories that he and Milton have been kicking around to End when they pass in the dining room, while TCat talked about dice games. Conversations about cards, dice, backgammon, and other board games is fairly frequent around the base. We also receive notice of a independent farming work camp nearby. They are growing peanuts, according to rumors, so their supplies would mesh well with ours if we ever get desperate enough to raid them.

Amid the other chores and projects around camp, including building an room for TCat, Mr. Nobody always carves out time to keep talking to Bezro, moving him ever closer to conversion, regardless of the strangeness of Mr. Nobody's topics of conversation. As he still has loyalty to his old crew, he will have to be recruited afterwards, unlike End and his daughters who were not wild and feral and not part of a group. Suranna goes out and cuts down one of the Harbinger trees.

Some one out on the east side of the island gathering berries noticed that the shamblers had all collapsed and started to rot. They aren't worth studying at this point, but like the Harbinger trees, more groups of shamblers are inevitable. In talking about that, Milton and Anthraxus realize the there is likely a ritual that could summon them, which might be useful to do if we are raiding a base or something in the future. At the same time as we noticed this threat had resolved itself, the perimeter awareness alerts us that some terrible genetic monstrosities have randomly wandered into the area. Ther horrific beasts are maddened with bloodlust and hunger for the flesh of man! The only saving grace is that they are sickened and likely to die within a few days regardless.

These terrible beasts prove to be a pair of chickenbears, aberrant fowl with bear like jaws and claw at the tip of each wing. With an ominous and blood-thirsty clucking roar, they charge across the wilderness towards the base. Almost everyone was in the dining room/storage room/kitchen, just chilling, chatting and smoking.

Anthraxus happens to catch one of the monsterous chickenbears just on the other side of the river while out hunting, and Fresh handles the other that actually makes it as far as the camp. "We will feast on these genetic freaks soon!" says Anthraxus, quickly butchering and preparing the chickenbear meat with some freshly picked peanuts. Almost as a mini-celebration, almost everyone hangs out for a while afterwards, watching Anthraxus cook and chit-chatting.

The next day we had two surprising new arrivals. The first is a passive moose that self-tames and wanders in from the south. If we had time to build a pen it might be worthwhile to keep it, but as we are planning a big road trip, we slaughter the nice moose for it's meat. Just a few hours later, Two giant anacondas also self-tame and join the colony. We could kill them as well, but they will stay around without a pen, and are agressive. As they may be useful, we will keep them for now.

The next couple of days are fairly forgettable. Two new rooms get built, some steel gets mined, more meals get prepped, conversion attempts continue on Bezro, and Anthraxus becomes inspired in research. Thanks to this inspiration by the end of this update we will have reached 194 out of 500 research points needed.

Final preparations for the expedition to the Research Post are underway. We have more than 100 meals stocked up. If only our cotton harvest had been a little more bountiful, we might have been able to make bed rolls. Plans are in the works for that, but honestly making some parkers and dusters for the cooling temps are slightly higher priority. We still have a little less than 7 days to get to the post. Our fairly friendly neighbors, the Legua Treaty, notify us of a nearby prison camp that is holding some of their people. They are offering an orbital power beam targeter as repayment for performing a rescue. This is an immensely powerful area of effect weapon, although only single use. The prison camp sites about a day and a half away to the north.

Because the mood is so high around camp. Suranna becomes inspired. What is she inspired to do? Cook up a storm? Research a bunch? Cut down every tree on the island? No, nothing so useful. Instead she is inspired to party and make merry. Jumping on this inspiration she sends out the call for the first Writing Competition. Everyone gathers near the monolith and spends the next couple hours dancing, writing, and pitching ideas.

While no permanent works got written during the party, several rumors were put together to reveal that there is almost certainly a nearby ancient complex that might be worth exploring. We can only carry so much stuff, but depending on how the research post goes, we might be able to stop by on the way back home. Everyone wanders back off to their tasks, still chatting about various topics.

After the party, Anthraxus could not get the whispers and twisting marks of the monolith out of his mind. The motions and mantras of dark rituals churned in his thoughts. Research had already begun on a ritual that should summon a random person from somewhere, and soon Anthraxus will be able to lead the group in executing it. Perhaps once we return from our field trip. Speaking of which, preparations are finally finished. Everyone in camp, including Bezro and the animals, loaded up and headed out for the Research Post. We have nearly four days of food, although much of it will likely rot before then. We are also taking most of the silve and the extra crappy weapons sitting on shelves in case we run into anyone willing to trade on the road.

The first day of travel was uneventful, but as we were only a few hours out from research post we bumped into a sizable Legua Treaty trade caravan. They had several megafauna specimens to help carry their goods. Of particular interest, we negotiate for some pemmican and a nice recurve bow. It's not as good as the pistols, but probably better than the clubs and hatchets everyone else is armed with.

We move on with our new supplies and literal minutes before we reach the Post we receive a surprising message. An AI that calls itself Charlon Whitestone reaches out to notify us of it's location, nearly half a wold away. It promises that if we can find it and defend it while it starts up, we could use it to escape the planet. It's not a return home directly, but perhaps bringing a FTL capable ship back to Earth might be a notable achievement for the staff of the Gazette.

We will leave this update on this cliffhanger, but assuming that we don't all die at the Research Post, we have one course of action worth voting on.

Vote One: Raid a work site. There are three worksites near our base. Should we attack one once we have gotten home and healed up?

1. Don't go raiding. We'll deal with them later maybe.
2. Component Mining site. They have 12 components on hand as guaranteed loot and are hostile, but not part of a larger faction.
3. Red Cliff League Hunting site. They have 62 units of hunting leather in loot and are members of a friendly, although unencountered, faction.
4. Farming work site. They have 339 units of peanuts to loot, and a members of a friendly minor faction.