The Tunnelers Campaign Session 4
Played Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025.
photograph by me, 6-4-2025, on an early morning walk while thinking
about this play report
June 4, 2003, just after 4:00 pm, the party is loading into Dennis’s
pickup as he blasts The Eminem Show through absolutely godawful car
speakers. Jel gives Dennis a description of the CIA Occultist the party
encountered, hoping to learn if he is a known local eccentric. Dennis
doesn’t know this guy but does point the party to the Resort (officially
Mossy Getaway Camp Ground and Spa, but everyone just calls it The
Resort), as it is where “rich nuts” tend to stay in town, but warns them
to not go there on account of “Grandad” Colhoun (not anyone in
particulars grandad, he’s just always been called that by everyone,
explains Dennis) takes security very seriously and has the will and
resources to cause infinite grief to anyone who disturbs his rich
customers.
Arriving back at the motel in 0504 around 4:30, Dennis offers to sell
the party some weed. Ash accepts and I find this a good time to
implement my financial
assets rules, with both players opting for cash and as a result
being under active investigation at the behalf of concerned family
members.
The evening is spent reviewing Jel’s camcorder footage, starting with
taking a fine toothed comb to the recording of the CIA Occultist
(colloquially called “the hiker” or “patriotic guy” by the players, who
as a reminder do not know his affiliation). It is determined that:
He definitely vanished by walking into an angle where there shouldn’t
have been anything to conceal him.
The bush he vanished behind bent out of place as he vanished, then
sprung back into place a millisecond after he was gone, but he didn’t
touch it directly.
There is a product tag on the back of his coat, as though he had not
removed it after buying it.
(at this point there was a digression as I explained to one of the
players the aesthetic space in USAmerican culture occupied by LL Bean,
which while finding images to share lead to the discovery of “The
Bootmobiles,” a real thing the company LL Bean has made on
purpose)
The point at which he disappeared, based on what was seen through gaps
in foliage, is the vertical center of the bush.
There is no camera artifacting or distortion around him.
Next they check footage from 0103, where the “yeti” (undertaker)
sighting occurred. The party finds that:
Jel did not get the cloaked arm or shovel on camera.
She did however, while recording the destroyed camp, film multiple
humanoid figures with notable artifacting around them that seemed like
branches in motion until the camera distortion highlighted them. These
figures dart and hide behind trees at a significant distance.
A low whistling can be heard in the recording in between the croaks of
ravens, not a tune any of them recognize. This is the song the
undertaker whistles to command its undead minions to Lurk, as detailed
by the Lowlife zine.
Footage of 0104 seems totally mundane.
A call I made for this film appraisal was that undead specifically cause
distortion and artifacting, but still living magic practitioners do not.
I will likely need to make some additional calls along these lines: one
of the players has a love of found footage (which I share, I often watch
such movies with them) that means they recognize the ability to record
and rewatch something later as both a staple of genre and as a valuable
tool to be deployed often.
For dinner the party visits the Woodchipper. I am struck by a desire to
make a full Woodchipper menu — a nonessential but deeply fun thing to
prep. Ash orders blueberry pancakes and a pepsi, and Jel gets chocolate
chip pancakes with a side of sausage and a ginger ale. The pancakes are
delicious and the sausage is godawful. The decor is PNW-specific
redneck-americana-kitsch. Ash, concerned about the “yeti” climbing the
sign, asks the waitress if kids climb around on the building or sign
often. No, she replies, the kids mostly hang out at “the rocks” (which
isn’t “the rock,” thats a different place in town) and listen to “weird
music” and “play with fireworks” (an aside I had to explain to both
players is that, in my own small town PNW childhood experience, while
fireworks are a valid concern wrt fire safety in forested areas, their
invocation often carries some cultural baggage: an association with
reservations where they can be sold with less restrictions, and thus
some anti-native animosity is implicit in the moral panic of children
acquiring them).
Some final thoughts:
I revisited The Eminem Show as cultural research on guys who sucked in
2003. I still don’t like it.
Encounters for the next ingame day are rolled: 2 instances of 3
blacktail deer, 12 coyotes as agents of a thoughtform-worker with a
positive reaction, and a renegade and hostile thoughtform from 0406 (an
especially deadly possibility for a small party)