Hank doesn’t know how he knows it, but in the fifth or sixth year of shuffling and shuffling and shuffling–into insanity, if only his brain could please break down, but it ain’t doing that because he’s just mind, no brain to break no more–he knows that some Polack scientist type name of Czepiel figured out how many shuffles there really were in real-life terms.
Figured out. Or will figure out. Or will have figured. Or something.
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(Unique Entity)
It is something left over from the most ancient days. Not plant or animal or fungus but something else. If there were ever others of its kind, they are long gone. It alone survived the cataclysms throughout the aeons by learning and adapting. Now it is less a living thing now and more a force of cold, hungry nature. Its form is never fixed for long, always changing to better hunt and hide, thought it may wear one skin for millennia. In these final days it appears as dried, barren tree, its mouth gaping and desperate. Perhaps even this immortal being is coming to the end of its life.
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We are so, SO excited to today be announcing the first release of Cthulhu Eternal, our all-new, fully-open, anytime ruleset for creating Tabletop RPGs with a Lovecraftian influence.
The first batch of downloadable System Reference Documents (SRDs) is available right now via DriveThruRPG (where they’re technically listed as a Pay-What-You-Want release to allow folks who want to chip in a donation can do so, but we’re 100% fine with people taking the files for free).
Continue readingDan inhaled deeply on his High Point. Tastes sweet, like a cigarette treat! Not the most grammatical sentence in the world, but the slogan was good enough to keep the brand from collapse just after its launch in 1954, when those limey scientists told the world that smoking—a popular and perfectly legal act linked to good digestion and happy families back to the goddamn redskins—caused cancer and other fatal diseases. Fine, no more health claims, but it was undeniably a sweet-tasting smoke and who didn’t like a treat? People appreciated that, and what’s more, people liked to hear it from Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason on their Philco radios and Predicta television sets.
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It forced its way into my sleeping mind, made my soul stand before it. Something like a monstrous slug, with rolls and rolls of blubber covered in a stinking slime that seeped from visibly open, gasping pores. Spikes covered the thing. Some of them dug into its rolls of fat, creating wounds that wept greenish blood. Two tiny, useless arms rested against its belly. It’s face. Oh my god, it’s face. For a moment I glimpsed something so revolting that even in my dream I felt my stomach revolt. But when I looked back, what I saw resembled an immense human face, yards and yards across. Two stalks with eyes emerged from its forehead. Then, it grinned, as it were pleased to meet me.
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As the seconds and minutes and hours and days pass, zip-zip-zip-zip-zip of the tabled riffle shuffle keeps time better than any clock Hank ever saw in his life. And that was good, because there is no day or night here, no sleep or waking or chowtime or … anything, really. No sky, no earth, no sun, so moon, no stars. Just the chair that didn’t hurt his ass or feel particularly comfortable; the table of smooth and shiny wood, like something out of a fancy parlor; other than there’s just whiteness, just nothing blankness without horizon or shadow or any feature at all.
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Beings of pure rage, it radiates from them in palpable waves. They have the body of a great cat, with a head topping an always swaying snake-like neck. The tension in their muscles can be seen through their spotted fur. Their leopard-like faces are contorted, as if driven to an agonizing madness by their unending fury. Slobbering runs from their fanged mouths from their constant roaring and hissing.
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As the seconds and minutes and hours and days pass, zip-zip-zip-zip-zip of the tabled riffle shuffle keeps time better than any clock Hank ever saw in his life. And that was good, because there is no day or night here, no sleep or waking or chowtime or … anything, really. No sky, no earth, no sun, so moon, no stars. Just the chair that didn’t hurt his ass or feel particularly comfortable; the table of smooth and shiny wood, like something out of a fancy parlor; other than there’s just whiteness, just nothing blankness without horizon or shadow or any feature at all.
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You may see a tree where there wasn’t one before, indistinguishable from any of the other conifers in this forest. Except maybe a bit too symmetrical, a bit too full and round. If you look away for a moment, maybe that tree will be gone. If you’re lucky. If you’re not, you’ll see two glowing red orbs opening near the top of this “tree”. And you feel compelled to approach. You want to resist but your feet refuse to listen. Too late, you see the needles of the tree are stiff fur as the arms you mistook for tree limbs unfurl. Then the mouth filled with crooked, flat teeth opens…
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PART TWO
“Ah, I see the issue now. I neglected to fill in the details.” Pip motions for Hank to hang on to the eerie deck rather than hand them back. “What I ask you to do is to shuffle these special cards, again and again, until you have exhausted all possible arrangements. For example, one arrangement would be new-deck order, such as how they lie right now.”
“Wrong, dummy. You just saw me shuffle … um, twice …“ Hank says, but loses the thread as he spreads the cards in his hands and sees that his shuffles either never happened or he accidentally shuffled them right back into twos through aces for each suit. “Heh, would you look at that.”
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