An Orpheum Lofts review by Matthew J. Constantine
Tabletop RPG Review: Orpheum Lofts
An Orpheum Lofts review by Matthew J. Constantine
Category: Blog Post
As Above, So Below (Coming Soon)
as above, so below, Postcards from Avalidad‘s first scenario is almost ready for release. This time James Grim Desborough is not doing the layout nor cover design, Manuel Sousa is taking care of that. Here’s a sneak peek:
YOU CAN PURCHASE THE FIRST *PUNK GAME SETTING, POSTCARDS FROM AVALIDAD, IN POSTMORTEM STUDIO’S STORE, DRIVETHRURPG AND LULU.COM
Hear Heart Was a Locked Room and Nobody Had the Key
This is a short scenario to be combined with Postmortem Giallo: Orpheum Lofts, or even played without it. It’s a clichéd Giallo story, which features several of the tropes associated with the genre and starts with the murder of a Loft’s resident, the jazz singer Stephanie Armitage. The players can choose among a list of pre-generated characters or come up with their own. By default, the scenario uses Actual Fucking Monsters mechanics, but it’s easy to adapt it to any other contemporary horror role-playing game system.
Postcards from Avalidad Teaser #5
HOST: So, what you are implying is that Dr Bentley is a dangerous individual?
THADDEUS KILGORE: I’m implying nothing, I am certain that William Bentley is a criminal. He has perfected torture methods while working for Third World dictators. He should be immediately arrested and led to trial…
[At that moment, a panel opens behind the host and the interviewed. A tall, handsome grey-haired man in a classic suit enters, apparently carrying a gun. He points the gun at Thaddeus Kilgore]
MAN: Mr Kilgore, I was backstage listening to all that drivel and decided to make an appearance. You, sir, are a dirty, rotten scoundrel. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour!
The man shoots the gun. Thaddeus Kilgore grabs his chest in pain and falls from his chair. The audience is in absolute silence.
HOST: My God, I think he’s gone, doctor!
DR BENTLEY: Well, it’s all in the day’s work.
[Dr Bentley takes a bow before the bewildered audience and leaves the stage]
Excerpt from a Talk the Talk show, hosted by Raoul Fontana. Later, it was discovered that William Bentley shot Kilgore with a mere toy gun, and the later died from a heart attack.
Thaddeus Kilgore was the founder of the Democracy Now movement, the most important active political movement in the city, which goal is to put an end to the current state of Avalidad, as a corporate owned city.
Postcards from Avalidad Teaser #4
“Our destiny is constantly changing, constantly shifting. It is the turns we take at every junction that build that thing we call fate, step by step. In that view, there is no such thing as a future to wait for. The universe itself, by definition, encompasses all that was, all that could have been, all that is, and all that could eventually come to be. Everything at the same time. Can you embrace the concept? I think no one can fully grasp it.
Myself, I try to humbly understand and accept that everything we do plays a role. In the end, we usually simply watch in wonder and amazement, and let the wholeness take us where we should go. Yes, because it truly does! I very rarely act, I usually just watch, advise, and comment. To the point of being annoying, perhaps? Well, my apparent inaction comes from understanding the implications and ramifications of the future are vast, and that it is useless to try and use them to our advantage. Or to anyone’s benefit, by that matter. Personally, I simply try to navigate life as best I can, and help those in need to do so as well.
Nonetheless, there are focal points that draw me to them, as if they were magnets within a vast sea of possibilities. Like a whirlpool, slowly drawing within everything that floats around it. Please, do not try and refrain your smile. I know how I am seen from the outside. A nosy and weird meddler who rants about strangeness. Sometimes, a very irritating and imposing nosy meddler.
But, in the end, we all ride the waves of the entirety together. When you take a turn, or go back to your apartment because you forgot your biocomputer, you open up a sea of possibilities and run away from a sea of would have beens. I am simply more aware, and thus I consider my mission to help and improve your fate and mine, present and future. So, now, tell me, do you really wish you knew?
Well folks, that’s what Mr Aziz Crowe, Ka’athryn’s husband and, as you may know, ZoneSec’s director of operations and a very experienced psionic, told me about fate and his work in Avalidad when I spoke with him at Doc Bentley’s latest party. And all I asked him for was advice on a date!”
Excerpt from Dreamachine, presented by Selene Kelyah, covering a William Bentley party, with Aziz Crowe as a guest
YOU CAN PURCHASE POSTCARDS FROM AVALIDAD AT POSTMORTEM STUDIOS, LULU.COM AND DRIVETHRU
Postcards from Avalidad Teaser #3
A single drop of blood fell in the exact centre of the lake. It opened a wound in the crystalline waters. The wound rippled outwards in slow undulating cries of silent pain. Silence. The wound bled and the pond was dark red. An unborn child fell into the thick liquid, and drowned. He raised the weapon and shot the Asian man once, twice. He watched the man die at his feet. The dead lover smiled and lulled herself to quiet peace and forgetfulness. The blood was in his hands. A single droplet fell and hit the cold water. A sudden, blinding light filled all space around him. It wasn’t harsh and painful though, it was warm, comforting, loving. His light. He woke up and his conscious self was suddenly aware of all the small noises surrounding him. It took him a few seconds to place himself. He took a deep breath and tried to ignore the throbbing pain that still numbed his senses.
He was in Avalidad. Aziz opened his eyes and surveyed his surroundings. His belongings were stacked away on a small table in the corner. He got up from the bed, his body completely sore, as if he had been severely beaten over and over again, and walked with some difficulty across the small room.
Aziz quickly found what he was looking for. He picked up a small blue object and held it inside his closed hand. After the biocomputer read his vital signs, it turned on and the image of a green-eyed blonde woman appeared next to him.
– Hello. Finally. What has been happening since yesterday? I have been able to re-establish my up-link to the communications satellite; I have already received… twelve messages from ‘you-know-who’ asking me what has been going on. It is 12.20 now. Please explain…
He stared at the image of a woman talking in front of him, slightly overwhelmed by the personal assistant’s verbal assault. He blinked, and gestured her to wait.
– Please, Nastassja, more slowly, I am still not well.
– I understand. Would you like me to open a communications channel now?
– No, not now, I’m going home. Inform ZoneSec of my present location and relay my audio and visual memories of what happened this last day. Here is the data.
He inserted the small crystalline object into an opening on his biocomputer’s side.
– Relay the data into to my office’s mainframe and to ZoneSec for analysis. Download all the information on the current process. Start a cross-reference of this data with the already gathered information.
– Accessing. Starting download. Estimating time for download and cross-reference. Five hours.
He put down the biocomputer, searched his bag for PainAways and took two. Grimacing from the pain he felt from every movement, he changed back into his own clothes, and hoped the painkillers would work fast.
– Transmission arrived. Sender: Kuan Peng.
His expression became much more serious, and he almost jumped towards his biocomputer, but was stopped by his sore muscles.
– Read it.
– Opening transmission. Text message “Ask me.” End of message.
– Reply. Text. Begin message. “This is more serious than you had told me?” End message. Send.
He paced around the small room and his expression grew more sombre. He glanced nervously to his Personal Assistant’s augmented reality image, anticipating and interrupting her words.
– Transm…
– Read it.
– Opening transmission. Text message. “Yes”. End of message.
He nodded, gathered his belongings, and left the room.
Aziz Crowe exited from the transport that had taken him to the City of Glass district. The streets, seething with life and movement deafened him for a moment or two before he managed to balance himself. He slowly walked towards home, closing his thoughts from all the activity that surrounded him.
‘This must be much more serious than I had anticipated. I made a mistake in underestimating its importance. There are several loose strands that I do not know how to weave together. And these others. The interest in this process seems to transcend ZoneSec.’
YOU CAN PURCHASE POSTCARDS FROM AVALIDAD AT POSMORTEM STUDIOS AND LULU.COM
Postcards from Avalidad Teaser #2
As I exited the lift, still trying to puzzle out which Gershwin tune was remixed with what Cole Porter song in that Lounge Cut-Up version playing inside, I saw this gorgeous woman extending her hand, with a big smile on her pretty face.
“Mr Reed, Doctor Bentley is expecting you.”
The broad looked like a fashion model dressed up as a 1950s pin-up. Probably she really was a model before Bentley gave her this job as secretary. Doc sure knows how to pick them! Except for Veronica… Veronica is a baboon!
I greeted her and followed her scent through a maze of exquisitely decorated corridors. The money these people waste on frills could feed all those miserable wretches out there in the bidonvilles. Well, fuck those mutants… I don’t really give a rat’s ass about them anyway.
A couple of turns later, the pin-up lady stopped by a huge double door, beyond which Bentley’s office stood. As she motioned to the entrance someone greeted me from inside.
“Clayton Reed, please come in.”
I went ahead. Bentley was staring at the cityscape though the glass wall on the other side of the room. The office so wide it seemed the man was a mile away. My boss – that’s Aziz Crowe – was sitting by a desk, in the middle of the room, lost in thoughts, with that sombre, absorbed look on his face. I couldn’t see that fucking purpled-assed Veronica anywhere, but I was on the lookout for her. Those bloody baboons give me the creeps.
“Come closer, but beware of that thing beside the desk”.
At first I thought he meant Aziz, they don’t quite like each other, but then I saw there was something on the floor, wrapped in black plastic. A body bag in Bentley’s workplace… What the fuck had those jokers been up to?
“Doctor why, may I ask, is there a body bag in your office?”
Bentley turned around, a grin on his suntanned, square-jawed face. He was wearing a grey three-piece suit, very fashionable, very retro, most likely by Jean-Pierre GivenXXX. Not that I care about such stuff… But he does, the narcissistic prick! Doc’s probably sixty, but looks younger than me.
“Someone died, obviously.”
I waited for him to expound on that. No point rushing him, Bentley is a weird one. Then Aziz jumped in:
“He was a ZoneSec Officer, Mr Reed. Was patrolling this very street, near the building, last night, when someone – more likely something – attacked him. Another mangled body, just like the other three. Well, not quite the same, this one is in a… slightly worse condition.”
I realized shit had hit the fan. Unsurprising, though, they wouldn’t call a troubleshooter like me to deal with trivialities. Anyway, we’re in Takeda Technologies Headquarters, right in the middle of the City of Glass; people just don’t get butchered in a place like this! And the other mangled bodies… I recalled what he meant. Three ZoneSec employees had been torn apart by some unknown perp sometime last month. Brutal affairs, the killer is likely a mutant, no regular human could possibly do that.
“I know what you’re thinking”, Aziz said.
He probably did, the psionic fricking master.
“Not a mutant. We believe the killer is another kind of… fiend.”“
Fiend, interesting word choice. Kind of what you would expect from someone like ZoneSec’s Chief of Operations. More of a guru than a director, if you ask me… I approached the body bag, knelt and unzipped it. Yup, it was worse than the others, alright! Face mauled beyond recognition, throat and torso torn apart… The chest appeared to have been savagely clawed, but not with those fancy biotech augmentations operatives and bodyguards tend to favour. These were probably nasty looking and organic. But, surely, they knew more than I did already. I looked at Aziz, he was staring back at me with piercing icy-blue eyes.
“So, what do you make of it, Clayton? Those slashes form an uncanny pattern on his chest. Unusual wounds, are they not?”
I nodded in agreement. Meanwhile, Bentley had moved closer.
“There is a war going on, Mr Reed” he said, in his deep baritone voice. “I was expecting a conflict to arise, but not this soon. It is troubling, to say the least!”
The mention of war caught me off guard. I had no idea what he was talking about and I don’t like to be played like a sap. Then a hissing sound behind me got my attention. Veronica had silently approached and was now baring her teeth, menacingly. I hate that baboon, but she despises me even more.
“Be still Veronica, Mr Reed is our associate. Perhaps even a friend. Come here, darling.”
The baboon avoided me and jumped straight into Bentley’s arms.
“War, Dr Bentley? And who is the enemy?”
“The Devil himself, quite likely…”
Well, that was unexpected, even from Dr Bentley. I looked back at Aziz Crowe. This time the bitter rivals seemed to be in total agreement. I think this is going to be a rough month…
YOU CAN PURCHASE *PUNK AT POSTMORTEM STUDIOS
Postcards from Avalidad Teaser #1
What follows is an excerpt from the show BeatFreak Season Awards, presented by Nassima on Holovision Prime, the number one provider of augmented reality contents:
“Get ready, get safe, and sit down tight as your always faithful Nassima walks you down the great hits and sounds for this year. Well, some of our winners were sure things but we’ve got a few novelties coming so there may be some surprises down the line. We’ll start by announcing our top sales for this month, and then announce our BeatFreak’s spring awards for Best Artist, Best Album, Best Alternative Album – for the handful of you who follow the trends –, Best Look, and this season’s Revelation Album and Artist.I have to tell you that some of my favourite singers are here, we have an excellent selection of talent, and I’ll walk you through our top-fourteen and offer you some personal listening tips from your Nassima. So, without further ado, here we are, BeatFreak’s top ten
Number One: Vorace. Last season’s number one is this season’s number one. All of you know this French singer, of course. And I do mean ALL of you, all around the planet. The true Megastar, there are no surprises here. What’s my listening tip for Vorace? Well, just about anything she has published!
Number Two: Duke Fray. Everyone’s, and particularly Transzendenz’s – his editors – favourite Neocrooner, and still taking his Straight Talker tour to just about anywhere he can play at. Meanwhile we’ll keep buying his works, waiting for the next title, Space Cowboy, coming out just after the tour’s end. Can he keep the second place until then? Well, you’ll have to ask the two ladies that follow…
Number Three: Ka’athryn. Dub Revival at its best, with Transzendenz’s diva darling. I’ll lift the curtains a bit and tell you the Russian-born singer is the author of this season’s Best Album, climbing from last season’s number four after this New Year’s memorable concert in Paris. My listening tip won’t be the obvious latest release, as I know you’ll all be listening to it by now, but I’ll suggest her previous work, Body and Dreams, as one of my personal favourites.
Number Four: Andalusia. Last season’s number three, and Moondog’s Media counterpart to Ka’athryn, lost her third place mainly because she hasn’t published any new works since last year. But those boys at Moondog will be quickly preparing a response to Ka’athryn’s New Year extravaganza, if I know them at all; and trust your Nassima, I do know them! While Transzendenz capitalized on the New Year, Moondog’s marketing boys are probably waiting for the mid-summer season to bring out their star’s new work. Listening tips for now? Pick up an oldie, Screaming Murmurs. Not quite as charismatic and flamboyant as the extravagant and socially energetic Ka’athryn, Andalusia has enjoyed a longer and very steady career with a solid and mature body of work. My opinion? Andalusia is more visual, less musical, more dreamlike, and less physical. Who’s better? Why choose? Enjoy both!
Number Five: Revolution Starting. Another Transzendenz winner bet, the alternative and always socially pertinent – guess what? The average Joe doesn’t seem to care about politics… – Byelorussians of whom we still remember the major hit of two years ago No Time for Goodbyes. Well, it seems us girls have the top five covered with four out of five places… Let’s see what the rest of the charts bring us.
Number Six: Mute Crew. From the Asian Dub Revival music scene comes Mute Crew with their acid-styled sounds. Check out Electric Orgasm, released early this year, hitting our charts hard.
Number Seven: Malena y el Río de la Plata. The Uruguayan stars and their unique Electronic Candombe style are hitting hard not only in South America, but everywhere else, as their place on our tops indicates.
Number Eight: Dual Beat. The standard-bearers of Marrakesh Dub Revival have enjoyed a long, steady career, spreading the sounds and rhythms of Northern Africa throughout the globe, and are quoted as a source of inspiration by several influential figures in the music scene. Check out their latest album, Afrofuturistic, from last year, still holding on to the top ten.
Number Nine: The Electro-Acoustic London Orchestra. The classically devoted London based orchestra maintains their seventh place on our charts with their long running series of the classics recorded from live performances in selected worldwide concert halls. My listening tip will be their rendition of Mozart’s Requiem played in St Stephen’s Basilica, in Budapest. That is, if you’re into that kind of ancient stuff…
Number Ten: Winston Magnus Seven. The retro-jazz group Winston Magnus Seven, a permanent fixture on our charts, coming down from last season’s number nine. Always faithful to their improvisational and acoustical style, this jazz septet is the style’s current reference. Watch out for their latest album, the smooth and velvety Night Moods.
And to finish off this edition of BeatFreak, the much anticipated Season Awards:
Best Artist: (who else?) Vorace!
Best Album: Follow into Infinity, by Ka’athryn. The follow up to Body and Dreams, it has much less body and much more dreams. It’s a walk into the wholeness, led by the diva’s hand.
Best new revelation: Oazys. This girl is making it big into the media scene this year and to comment our revelation award we got a statement from our number one dub revivalist, Ka’athryn, about the new starlet:“Good choice, very intense dub! With some more hard work she’ll start to bring out some really good stuff. Still needs to go deeper into her soul though, embrace it without fear… I mean, a pretty face is a pretty face, but art is much more than that. She’s had great media coverage, especially because of that movie starring next to Leon MacArthur – who’s a dear by the way, and I hope the two hit it off! But the future is a building we add to day by day, isn’t it? So we’ll wait and see.”
Best Look: Véronique Lune. We, at BeatFreak, came to a tough choice between Vorace, Ka’athryn and Véronique Lune, but the latter had to get the award as her look is really an intricate part of her art and she weaves herself physically as much as musically. That’s it for now, friends!”
YOU CAN PURCHASE *PUNK AT POSTMORTEM STUDIOS
Please stand by…
After five releases – the Giallo trilogy, Welcome to St. Cloud and Postcards from Avalidad – there will be a pause… No, I haven’t given up, nor have I run out of ideas (not yet, at least). But James ‘Grim’ Desborough has his own game to finish: Wightchester is about to enter Crowdfunding stage. Since he’s the one doing his magic and turning my words into something you can work with, for a while the Red Room will appear to be quiet. Appearances can be deceiving, though. We will keep publishing interviews and some new content for the previous releases.
Meanwhile…
We’re working on a new game setting for *Punk and there are already two Double Features written and ready for layout. The Double Feature scenarios try to emulate the Grindhouse phenomenon of the 1970s in a role-playing framework. There are now four of those short scenarios, prepared to be paired up in two volumes. And perhaps more to come…
Double Features:
Sexual Holocaust: the fictional town of Hammettville, New York, is shaken by a series of gruesome and mysterious murders. The victim are all members of a sadomasochism private club.
Brides of the Vampire: a collection of plot hooks, set in different time periods, introduced along one character’s story: Nikolai Andreievich Petrov, an old Eastern European vampire.
The Devil’s Country: a story within a story scenario about a movie cast and crew about to shoot a spaghetti western based on a cursed movie script. Players start out as movie industry people, later slipping into their characters in a western town outside our own reality.
Resort of the Dead: a George Romero/ J.G. Ballard crossover about a Zombie Apocalypse set in a formerly luxurious – but now decaying – summer resort in Portugal, during the 1980s.
YOU CAN PURCHASE THE PREVIOUS RELEASES AT POSTMORTEM STUDIOS, DRIVETHRU OR LULU.COM
#TTRPG Postcards from Avalidad Released by Postmortem Studios
Postcards from Avalidad is a darkly surreal horror meets Tech-Noir game setting and adventure context for Punk (included) and Actual Fcking Monsters.
Avalidad combines cyber, bio and psi punk to create a Burroughsian nightmare world of decadence, drugs, Libertarianism, violence, glamour and oppression.
You will delve into the strange lives of Avalidad’s celebrities, fiscal royalty and seedy underbelly in this unique game setting.
This is the my fifth scenario published by James ‘Grim’ Desborough’s Postmortem Studios, after the Postmortem Giallo trilogy (Orpheum Lofts, The Memorial and The Sisters of the Seven Sins) and Welcome to St. Cloud.
YOU CAN PURCHASE POSTCARDS FROM AVALIDAD AT LULU.COM, POSTMORTEM STUDIOS OR DRIVETHRURPG
