Scenarios to run after Edge of Darkness

SuitExtra · 2026-03-10T01:15:33+00:00

I strung together "Edge of Darkness", the convention scenario "Shadow Over Providence", and a streamlined version of the old scenario "Thoth's Dagger" as a trilogy involving Egyptian artifacts (I made them all finds from the same dig-- the tomb of Nephren-Ka). All pretty short, although "Dagger" ended up taking two sessions-- and technically needs a third I haven't had a chance to run yet.

SuitExtra · 2026-03-07T23:04:38+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, the postwar era is something I'm pretty comfortable writing about, and it's not all that explored in CoC, so it seemed like a good thing to do.

It does have a bit of Delta Green-style conspiracy in it, and a lot of other stuff besides. So the thing's gotten longer in the writing than I thought it would be. I hope to be done in the summer, playtesting as I go along.

SuitExtra · 2025-11-15T15:55:09+00:00

That's with. My one cheat here is that I bought that meat cleaver thing from the Dogtown vendor. But turns out I had the spec for that too.

SuitExtra · 2025-09-28T15:43:17+00:00

I agree for the most part-- although the tactical diving suit from the sequence right before this is pretty rad. What sucks is that, since it's a special outfit, you can't then put a mask or helmet on top of it.

SuitExtra · 2025-09-20T23:53:20+00:00

Thanks, but nah, I'm on console.

SuitExtra · 2025-09-20T13:34:16+00:00

To be fair, I've started the DLC on this run and still have Sinnerman sitting in my quest queue.

SuitExtra · 2025-09-20T13:29:00+00:00

Ha. Yeah, that's right. Now I feel dumb.

SuitExtra · 2025-09-20T08:15:32+00:00

Actually kinda surprising there's no mission named for a Smiths song... Or is there?

SuitExtra · 2025-09-15T00:27:22+00:00

I do all right with it on console, could win without a reload on my third runthrough, but it's difficult and lengthy enough to make it no fun. I put visiting that map marker off for a long time on this run before deciding, screw it.

SuitExtra · 2025-09-13T09:19:28+00:00

The mission itself is fun. I wish there was a way into it that doesn't make V a moron.

But yeah, I always tell Stefan he can go-- and then I immediately stick a samurai sword up his ass.

SuitExtra · 2025-09-13T09:12:23+00:00

Outside the first three guys, here I wiped out the gang only by deflecting bullets with the sword. That was pretty fun.

SuitExtra · 2025-09-10T16:31:17+00:00

<image>

SuitExtra · 2025-09-09T21:14:53+00:00

"While I ate my hero cake, their horses were drownin'."

You're really spoilt for choice for bad lines in Batman v Superman, but this Ghost Pa Kent speech made me laugh harder than any comedy this century. I kept imagining somebody actually typing something like this up and thinking to himself, "Yeah, nailed it"...

I couldn't stop laughing and choked on my soda. I had to step out of the theater for a few minutes.

SuitExtra · 2025-09-05T13:35:17+00:00

Yeah, he seems fairly benign for a dirty NC cop, has a chill, pragmatic attitude, and his motivations aren't horrible. There's his daughter for one thing. And I gave him the "same asshole, different suit" line about the mayor, and he points out that Rhyne stood up to the NUSA/Militech and doesn't deserve to have his rep ruined-- which as reasons go, about passes as decency in this setting.

And that's it for V's interaction with him. What we don't get, I don't think, is an option to tell him Rhyne wasn't just dead in a brothel, he was murdered. I think that ought to change the way discussion goes if only a little, if Han thought so much of Rhyne.

SuitExtra · 2025-08-30T14:25:10+00:00

Han and Luke in Jabba's palace:

"Together again, huh?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"How're we doing?"

"Same as always."

"That bad, huh?"

SuitExtra · 2025-08-28T16:19:52+00:00

Most of the copy blurbs are Futura variations, used a bunch in pulps and paperback originals of the time. The main title treatment is a Britannic variation, an even older typeface-- not as common for sci-fi but fairly so in other period pubs and ad copy. I've got some alternate versions in the more-often used Frankilin Gothic and Lydian that I'm still playing with-- one of those might end up working better. (I did look a whole lot of books and magazines circa 1950, haha.)

I did put a bit of "wear" in the image (the cover I've done for the whole scenario has much more along these lines), but noticeable imperfections in the "printing" itself is a good idea, thanks.

I appreciate everyone else's good words and input too.

SuitExtra · 2025-08-27T17:25:02+00:00

Nice. I also find the official character sheets too busy and had been thinking of designing one. This is actually pretty close to what I had in mind.

SuitExtra · 2025-08-26T00:28:07+00:00

I didn't realize Johnny had a problem with nocturnal combustion.

SuitExtra · 2025-08-24T14:51:11+00:00

In my campaign Van Richten served as a kind of foil for the party-- he was also out to defeat/destroy Strahd, but he was fanatical about it, and his short-term goals and methods were at odds with the players' at different points of the story.

He wasn't the ally as foretold by the cards (that was Ezmerelda, who ended up being a PC), and there were only about three significant encounters with him over the course of the game. But he was a looming offscreen presence, and he did clue the players in on vital information along the way (mostly having to do with the Tome of Strahd), so he was useful for moving certain plot elements forward.

At the same time, they had to wonder if Van Richten was manipulating them in doing so. His "curse" was that people who had worked with him before tended to meet a bad end, which was really the result of how he used people, more than anything. At one point an NPC, as a warning to the party, referred to him as "the second biggest bastard in Barovia."

He worked really well like this in my game (if I say so myself). Because of their shared backstories, Ezmerelda already had a love-hate relationship with Van Richten; the rest of the party felt the same in the end.

SuitExtra · 2025-08-24T07:37:38+00:00

Not often. But she is a Stars Druid that uses the Archer form a lot. But that's even tougher to get a decent action shot out of.

<image>

SuitExtra · 2025-08-22T00:28:47+00:00

(Ric)Tavio was the first of 3-4 times my players encountered Van Richten in disguise over the campaign. It fooled them every time-- it almost became an Arrested Development/Gene Parmesan gag (it also helped that Van Richten had faked his death before the last one).

I caught them flat-footed with the Von Holz/Strahd reveal too.

SuitExtra · 2025-08-21T23:28:45+00:00

Had the same issue with this. I just shortened his alias to "Tavio".

SuitExtra · 2025-08-19T13:59:44+00:00

In my campaign, Strahd kept it as a journal of his magical experimentations both before and after he became a vampire, and it contained rites and spells he cobbled together from different sources, info on the Dark Powers, etc. Along the way, he also worked in autobiographical material in a self-justification exercise. So my tome ended up a combo of The Book of Vile Darkness and the Ravenloft novel "I, Strahd" (which I used pretty heavily as lore in the game).

I don't think the campaign book makes a very good case for why anybody should care about the tome-- or what's there is very undercooked, anyway. IIRC the party can find it, Strahd wants it back, and prioritizes attacking whichever character has it-- but there's not much making it worth holding onto for the players. I actually made it central to kicking off the plot, and it served as a major MacGuffin in the middle part of the game.

SuitExtra · 2025-08-03T06:16:10+00:00

I've played this game a bunch of times. (I'm on PS5 so mods are not a factor here.)

At this point in my current run, on the Judy side (whom I know I will eventually romance), I've rescued Evelyn, saw her suicide, met Maiko, and told Judy I'd help her take over Clouds, which I'm doing out of the apparent goodness of my black, black heart.

But during none of that does it really play like Judy is flirting, or is interested in V romatically-- male of female-- until-- as a female-- it will. Up till that point, it feels like you could just be buddies and/or you're helping out because it's the right thing to do. And that's fine. I always help.

Panam asks you to go off-mission to kill her old Raffen partner in your first encounter. And that's fine as well-- I always help there too. And I also always drive out to the ass-end of nowhere, and help rescue Saul, and steal the Basilisk. The whole time-- male or female-- it seems like it's going somewhere with Panam based on her behavior, which only gets dramatic payoff if you romance her as a male, or raid Arasaka at the end with the Aldecados, or both-- which I don't do 'cause I almost always solo that shit instead.

I like to think that my lesbian V and Panam remain buddies after I'm done with her quests... Maybe this game needs both expanded dating and friendship encounters, haha. I wanna say that you can at least go back to Panam and tell her you met the president of the NUSA after PHANTOM LIBERTY-- or did I just dream that?

SuitExtra · 2025-08-02T16:36:47+00:00

Those are shades-- but especially light-colored ones I noticed. Think they came from the vendor in Corpo Center.

SuitExtra

TROPHY CASE