Cat People Scientists and The Backrooms Rescue Squad

 

So after the big encounter at the Metroplex Mall with the York Industries sponsored supergroup "Safeguard,' it was time for another two-session arc that would intro the group to an elderly version of an old character of mine and take them on a wild ride into my version of the backrooms, the "Liminal Zones."

So a couple of days after the events at the mall, the group met at the office for a video meeting with Ms. Kyono to go over the encounter. She explains that in the past York Industries, much like she does, tended to occasionally sponsor meta humans (often created by them) to cause all kinds of problems for characters and other NPC's alike. It seems that Safeguard is the latest version of that. 

Seraph, Paladin, Igneous, and Nova, the new member.

During the meeting, a surprise visitor showed up at the office. It was the diminutive Yuri Heisen, also known as "Heisenbrain."

They now knew Heisen as the scientist leader of the "Redeemers," a team made up of runners up to the original Justice Incorporated auditions and the "battle of the bars" sessions. He was there to tell them that the shield and Vita-Ray empowerment projection ability of the weapons used by the mall "terrorists" (prior to Safeguard showing up) had the energy signature of technology he invented (and used on himself and some of his group during the nightclub encounter with Justice Inc a couple of arcs back) and that he already believed was formerly stolen by York Industries. And he told them that the ranged teleportation tech that whisked away the supposed terrorists as they got defeated was NOT his, but they might want to reach out to McAllister Scientific, quantum science specialists who are the foremost experts in teleport and portal tech. 

Kyono, from the wall screen, said that Manx McAllister, founder of McAllister Scientific (despite the unassuming name, it has worldwide fame, at least in the scientific community, as some of the greatest minds of our time) and an accidental cat-human hybrid, was a friend of her grandfather decades ago, but that she does know Manx's granddaughters, 25 years old twins Maxine and Tabitha, and actually saw them at an event just a few days before and even has pictures with them. 

A pair of "whooo!| girls, but also two of the 
greatest scientific minds on the planet. 

So a quick phone call and the group were on their way to "The City of Industry." an area of industry and research compounds some miles south of the city along the Southern Highway.

Sim City eat your heart out

The McAllister campus was made up of a large admin building, and several blocky research bunkers with underground portions spread throughout...

The group were led to the teleportation and portal research building, and within met Manx McAllister's granddaughters, the twins Maxine and Tabitha. See my last post for some info on cat hybrids. 

When first met, the twins were in lab coats in a high ceiling room and playing tag by popping in and out of mini portals projected from units that look like those overhead track lighting things, to the delight of a small crowd of research assistants.

I planned it out like this to show both the playfulness of the cat-human hybrids, at the same time leaving no doubt that these were also brilliant scientists. As it would turn out, though the sisters' great grandparents were pioneering teleport tech in the 1960's, they were sort of activists against pure teleportation tech. Not just because an accident involving it fused their grandpa with his pet cat as a child, but the theory that teleporters actually kill you and recreate a copy at the other end. 

Though the twins don't really seem to have
complaints about being legacy hybrids.

The twins consult with the group and do believe that York Industries in the past has tried to poach their tech, and the teleport technology used in the encounter at the Metroplex Mall may well have been their older tech they are not using much since they personally have been studying quantum portal tech as an alternative to classic teleportation. 

Just an aside, but I base some of these concepts on stuff  from the old Handbooks of the Marvel Universe issues I read way back (and still have actually...they are part of my "Box of Keepers" collection I have refrained from posting on Ebay over the years). I remember the Nightcrawler entry talking about his teleportation ability, and how it essentially is Kurt swiftly hopping in and out of a pocket dimension. Portal, right?  That feels righter than a teleporter just breaking down his being and reassembling it again and again. 

During the visit the girls got a call from the Liminal Zones research building. Apparently grampy Manx and a handful of researchers who were on a standard research hike in level zero (the endless maze of yellow wallpaper) and went off the rails to go down a few levels to the "Red City" where they heard from previously found lost folk in the mazes that a small community of Backrooms victims were holed up. This is known because one of the researchers, "Jenkins." showed up near the gateway into the zones in a near state of exhaustion and stress and said that they made it to the Red City, were chased by creatures including living art dummies (and found the way they came in blocked), and he ducked into a white doorway that sent him to appear near the research vestibule. 

The Twins declare they will be going in to save Manx and the scientists, and the Justice inc gang volunteers as the rescue squad. And since researcher Jenkins left his fiancée as part of the lost group, he insists on going in as well after getting some protein bars and energy drinks. So Maxine, Jenkins (both armed with pulse rifles), and the characters enter the Zones, while sister Tabitha maintains radio contact in the command center for as long as she can. So into the Backrooms they go. 

(note: I refrained from using the term "Backrooms" and stuck mostly to "Liminal Zones." The movie had just come out, and since this was my version of the creepy pasta I did not want to stress the name it is known of in our media. Urban myth enthusiasts in the Haven setting might refer to the Backrooms, but to the McAllister's its Liminal Zones and that's that)

Aw, the Backrooms. That moist carpet. That 
moldy smell. Those odd sounds in the distance. 

The first encounter with local Fauna is "Still Life." Mockeries of humanity. If you saw the backrooms film, the creatures in that, including giant Captain Carl, are basically Still life. I gave them not much else other than Mighty 1 for a little oomph in combat. Tabitha detected them on remote cameras set up in level zero and were able to warn the group of them incoming on mass. 

One problem the party experienced in the Zones was my oddly lucky rolls for the foe attacks. Not just here, but all the way to the end of the scenario. Still life was not really all that tough, but they got a bit of damage in. 

A large, old staircase led away from the level and down towards the next territory. The Mall. 

In a narrow hall in the mall the party encountered the "Mall Maven." Basically a 10-foot-tall creature similar to Still Life, but with Mighty 2 and some Sturdy. And big claws.

This ended up being their toughest battle so far in the campaign. At one point Mall Maven was able to hit all three heroes in front of her with a single claw swipe. I got an "ultimate success" which meant a ton of damage but also put the "bleed conditions" on them. Meaning take 5 health damage per round until healed or spend a turn treating the wound. We had to end the session there with them destroying her on the next round, which gave us all time to soak in the encounter for a week. 

(just a note on "health," which is the hit points in this, you have to take double your max amount in order to be killed. But if you have a couple points above zero, and your round goes by without removing the bleed condition, I think that can kill you outright as well. 

When we returned the next week it was no big deal. Looking at the rules (yes we are all still learning as we go) it turned out that having levels of Sturdy countered bleed condition. That and being able to use focus points for some on the spot healing (especially if you have the power "I can do this all day") can save you in a pinch. So, shake it off and onwards down to the Red City

Seems big, but in reality, I had my version of the place be just a few city blocks. So with fliers like Seraph and Nova in the party, they were able to see Manx McAllister and the scientists out on the street, fighting off living, wooden art mannequins. Kind of another form of still life, and though their flame throwers and pulse rifles were pretty much depleted, they were swinging them as clubs while old man Manx was using his claws. 

He's old, but he can still claw you up.

The characters helped Manx and the researchers clean up the mannequins pretty quick, but as the gave a sigh of relief, a giant spider creature with laser eyes climbed over a building towards them.

Reseacher Jenkings knew the White Door was near and pointed it out for the others to head towards. As the team engaged the laser spider, Igneous grew to giant size to carry the exhausted scientists to the doorway.  

Paladin and Seraph engaged the big spider, but it was Nova, the newest member of Justice Inc, who flew up and tapped into his energy powers, beefing them up by basically using all of his Focus (the score you use for energy related powers) to super-blast the bug. He did a huge amount of damage, close to a couple hundred (that is a lot. Average damages for energy stuff is around 40) and blasting its head off. Everybody made it through the White Door and appeared in the level zero vestibule near the gateway. 

Everybody got medical treatment, protein bars, and coffee. The twins alternated between shaking and yelling at grampa Manx (for going off the rails in their research hike in the Zones) and showering him with kisses for being alive, then all the characters got a storm of face smooches from the grateful girls for helping save everybody. 

We can only dream.

This won't be the last time we hear from the McAllister's.  Its Manx's 86th birthday party the following week, and you just know the characters are going to get invited. With a big party thrown by quantum scientists, you just know there are going to be surprises! Stay tooned.

Cheers

The late Lou Zocchi - who knew?

 

I have not been known to write about game designers and other such personalities on this blog. The one exception is probably Paul/Janelle Jaquays, who was a big influence on my childhood rpg mindset. You can search Paul Jaquays in this blogs search function for several related posts, but maybe my most significant post about her was here almost 15 years ago. 

But today I read about this guy who passed away last week, Lou Zocchi. In my mind in recent years, I only knew of the guy as a dice designer. But looking a bit into his history, it is a safe bet that I have heard the name since I was a kid. And it rings dim memories from the deep past. Probably saw the name a hundred times in old gaming periodicals. 

Since I am posting about my Superhero gaming of past and present lately, including the first one Superhero 2044, I must have known at some point that Zocchi published the second, full color cover version of Superhero 2044 in 1977. Damn, that should be pretty important to me since that game inspired a lot of my future comic book gaming. 

And as a kid, before I got into rpgs, I had an elementary school buddy, a Korean kid named Michael Yim, who loved Avalon hill wargames, and Zocchi was involved in that early on. And including Star Trek related stuff, he has his hands in various ways in my precious Judges Guild, including printing some of their out-of-print material, which was likely most of what I got my hands on in the 80's. That shit inspired my campaigns for my entire life. 

And of course I knew the name Game Science. Mostly known for dice, he was an advocate for proper dice that truly rolled randomly. I mean, even as kids we suspected dice of being uneven. We all had dice we swore by. That D20 that seemed to get a natural "20" a third of the time. 

He also invented the D100, and I remember how blown away I was by it back in the day. I was still recovering from the D30. He also was the first to make D3, D14, etc. 

I remember we used to joke about what
a D1000 would look like. It would 
probably just roll off the table and 
phase thorough a wall into Liminal Space

So yeah, a revolutionary to be sure. Oh, he also blunted the D4..

I never owned one. I am sure it is less painful. Yeah,
admit it. You have stepped on the regular one
like a hundred times. Like me. 

So glad to read a bit about him, even though its after he is gone. The guy lived to a ripe 97 years old, so good on him!

Cheers!

Backrooms and Liminal Space Horror

 

My parents are European immigrants, and when I was a little kid, before me da' started working for movie studios (mostly Fox and Paramount..I spent a lot of time on those lots growing up) and still poor, he was a painter. Residential and commercial. On some weekends he would often be working in industrial buildings, new office buildings, and such. When I was maybe around six or seven, he would often take either me or one of my brothers with him to watch as he worked, because sometimes three sons were a handful for mom alone. Dad would be in some empty room or hall, and I would go wandering. Some of these complexes were huge, and often empty of furnishings and certainly devoid of people. So I would go off exploring, and the sound of dad and whoever was working with him, and the portable radio they were listening to, would disappear into the distance as I moved on. These were often places in areas like Marina Del Rey near the Ballona Wetlands, where Hughes Aircraft always had these huge buildings. 

I would go through carpeted office areas, down silent stairwells, and into boiler areas full of pipes and machines. I had dreams throughout my childhood of these places, sometimes nightmares where I felt an entity was near, and could hear dad singing to country tunes or whatever in the distance. I would call out and he could never hear me. I may have originally gained my fascination with mythic dungeons from these experiences. 

So when I discovered "Backrooms" and liminal space horror, I was a shoe in. AI search gives this info on Liminal space:

• Liminal spaces are transitional or transformative areas between two states or places.
• They often evoke feelings of unease or nostalgia due to their ambiguous nature.
• Common examples include hallways, airports, and empty parking lots.
• These spaces can symbolize change, uncertainty, or the passage from one phase to another.
• Liminality is often explored in art, literature, and psychology to represent personal growth or societal shifts.
• The term originates from the Latin word "limen," meaning threshold, highlighting the idea of crossing boundaries.

You have probably been in these spaces in your life, alone, as I have. Getting to work in an office building super early. Or going down an airport walkway at 3am. I have often enjoyed the eerie vibe of walking in a long wide corridor between two major Vegas casinos pre-dawn with nobody around with pop music oozing from speakers. 

You can look up the full history of this sublime horror, but it started I believe with this image:

This was a furniture store that was undergoing renovations (I think it eventually became one of those once popular model car racing track businesses). It does seem to kind of go on in an eerie way. As the concept grew, this became known as level 0. The main entrance area of the Backrooms Liminal Zones. Known for drab yellow 1970s or 80's wallpaper, humming overhead lighting, and wet shag carpet that gave off a moldy smell with each step. 

The lore iceberg has it that some old corporation was using some kind of quantum physics science to try and create an extra dimensional space to uses for storage and workspaces etc, and an existing dimension copied inner space areas from the real world to create hundreds of massive levels, often inhabited with twisted creatures whose sole food was people who accidentally "no clipped" into the Backrooms. 

This is based on the video game term "clipping." That is the code that kept you from being able to go through walls or locked doors or the floor.  People who somehow fell into the Backrooms almost always started in the moist carpet wallpaper halls, an endless maze of sameness. 

But other areas and levels were copies of real world spaces, almost always empty and where you might get stalked by something you do not want to meet. 

Empty shopping malls are a fun part
of liminal space fandom

When I first started getting into Liminal space,
I saw this image and was delighted. I recognized it
and had walked these stairs. This is from the 
Queen Mary in Long Beach, where over the years
I performed with my bagpipes at the yearly Highland
game there all over the boat. 

One of my favorite Youtube series is Infographics, which depicts current events, historical events, and fictional ideas in a cartoon point of view. They did one on Backrooms:

Not too many years ago a young man started making short films on Backrooms, sort of making the Creepy Pasta abstract concept more solid, and decidedly his. The films often featured scientists in hazmat suits, who more often than not would meet a horrifying end.

Also was turned into a video game at one point. This stuff just added to the lore and created an actual big iceberg around it. The government sponsored organization exploring and studying it, poor souls randomly no clipping into it, and many of the endless levels explained. The creatures of the spaces described and encountered:

Most of the entities in the spaces seem to be lost victims who one way or another are mutated into these forms. Often due to strange bacteria. Monsters lurk, stalk, whisper, and even sometimes howl as in great pain. Yeah, scary.

So for sure there are similarities to classic magical DnD dungeons, where the laws of physics do not always apply like they do on the surface world. And there is treasure here and there, mostly in the form of drinkable water, edible food, and strangely lots of bottles of almond milk. At least one of the odd creatures can also produce almond milk. Yeah, for sure sounds like something from the mind of a Gen Z'er with progressive, Trader Joe's shopping ideals. 

So lots of inspiration for dungeons. Or even a modern world tabletop RPG where you are lost there and must find your way out or at least survive. 

Half of my does not really like this expansionism. More and more levels, levels with the appearance of towns or even big red hued cities. And in current lore there are areas that are safer and lost people have gathered in little societies. Places with water and food, a quiet misty forest where the lost actually created village societies. Are having babies and growing the population. 

This would all be fine for an ongoing rpg or whatever. But the other half of me wants the horror of loneliness and sameness. Being alone in an endless maze of yellow wallpaper and moist carpet. The occasional stalking from and entity. Hopelessness. "I will never see home again." 

This is all on my mind because I heard last week a movie is coming out based on Backroom lore. It looks pretty good, thought the hero seems to be able to move in and out of the spaces (and of course he has to go talk to a therapist about it). These low budget horror films tend to do  well, so odds are very good a franchise will grow here. It will dull the chilling vibe of liminal area terror. But what the hell, I am all in for the rest of the Backrooms ride. Check out the trailer. Cheers.