INTRO
SATAH: Welcome to Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. I'm your host, Satah, and I'm showcasing multiple possible experiences of self-paced games by inviting guests to play them alongside me so I can compile our stories together. This is episode 3 of our game of Unplugged Survivor, a game by We Are Heroes Productions and the Tabletop for the End of the World podcast. With me for real this time are Darling Demon Eclipse and Happy Birthday. Check out Eclipse at Eclipse.Gay, especially her recent sci-fi romance duet TTRPG, Biotrophication, and check out HB at gm36.itch.io.
Last week you got a little teaser for HB's character, and I, like, cannot overemphasize how thrilled I was with their contribution. I had no idea what to expect when I handed my absurd teetering pile of entries to someone else to build something from or build on top of, and they created something that is like unbelievably fun, to the extent that when I first read them I had to, like, get up and walk in little circles a little bit to expend some of my excited energy. That's how pumped I was. And I want you to get into it. I want to stop stalling so that I can get you to the story that I'm so excited about instead of doing this, vamping, and stalling, rambling, I'm excited! Oh no! It's counterproductive!
So I'm gonna hand you off to HB as they do their character creation. Just one last note: because my run ended up a little bit longer than I felt totally comfortable asking guests to do for the show, we added an optional modification to the rules, which is that while the book asks you to play until you pull three face cards in either category, so that's up to five face cards, HB is playing to three face cards in total.
GAME: HB
HB: Hi there. HB here. I've just freshly listened to Satah's lovely recordings of Celebration Establishment’s rise and fall in the radio industry. Or rise and subsequent rise, if you prefer to think of it that way. And I've been going through this text and seeing what I need to actually create here.
As before, we're playing in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. As before, we are generating our character by choosing a positive, negative, and neutral personality trait. We have found the journal of the… we have found the journal of, say, this previous character who is, you know, Celebration Establishment, that said Radio DJ. And we need to figure out where to go from here.
So there are several options for how this could potentially work. The idea of this game is that you get the journal and then you use the knowledge from it to proceed forward. And I'm wondering about making a character who, you know, maybe isn't necessarily doing a very good job of things. Certainly not a successful radio DJ or anything.
Let's assign them some traits first of all, following the character creation order from the book. Hard working, I think, is appropriate. As for the neutral personality trait, I think I'd like to be high-spirited. And as for our negative personality trait, we have things like, you know, abrasive, destructive, foolish, reactive, rowdy, vulnerable. I think I'm gonna go for foolish. I'd love to play a foolish character. Being a character who's kind of a dipshit is one of my favourite things in the world.
So what's their story? Who were they when they were plugged in? A politician, business person, athlete, medical professional? I think my person was essentially like a store clerk, not somebody who's like a big deal in the True Reality. Somebody who, if there was a payment plan for being plugged into the True Reality, then, you know, they definitely were on the lowest tier. In fact, I think they were on such a low tier that I don't think any of their loved ones were real. They were just, you know, little computer constructs that responded in predictable ways to whatever he was saying to them. So in a sense, either they're still alive or they never were alive to begin with.
I think they've been unplugged fairly recently and I think they've been unplugged by the Potreblyat Corporation themselves, specifically as their infrastructure deteriorates and they can't support as many people anymore. So it was, in a sense, sort of a voluntary process. They weren't just like, you know, casually– they didn't just get released by accident. They were just essentially cut loose.
So yeah, have they regained some strength before starting their journal or are they fresh out? I think they're fairly fresh out, maybe like a week out as they start their journal.
What else do we need? They probably need a name. Let me find– let me see if I can randomly generate one. Satah has a very interesting naming convention here, just using two words and I fortunately have a random name generator just for that purpose. Let's go for Michael Fogelman's random phrase generator. Let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see. We got… Sheriff Easy. [Laughing] Honestly, Sheriff Easy might be good. Okay, Sheriff Easy it is.
We are entering into the adventures, into the life and times of Sheriff Easy They are hardworking, high spirited, and foolish.
So yeah, I think we're ready to go proceed to the card pulls.
That's gonna be the Queen of Diamonds and a six. Let's look at our beautiful little oracle. Betrayal. And because this is the Queen, we are “meeting up with the rebels.” So as soon as we draw three face cards, the game is going to, you know, come to a close. And I think it's maybe kind of auspicious that we've already drawn our first one. Now if my experience playing The Ground Itself is any indication, that is no indication of further success. However, I choose to interpret it optimistically anyway.
So we have “betrayal” and we have the rebels. I think our guy Sheriff Easy is going to have a hard time adjusting to life outside of the True Reality and he's going to fall in with the rebels but feel betrayed by the progress they have made. I have an idea for how to write this.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
You’re flopping boneless on the ground, shaking with reality pains as a Potreblyat liaison tells you, “Sir, we've raised the rates on True Reality in light of recent network issues and you no longer qualify for the basic package. We're sorry for the inconvenience.” And do you complain? No! Your spouse wasn't real anyway and neither were the kids. You couldn't afford any to get plugged in! It happens more and more.
I'm a week out and convalescing on borrowed soup in the place of the local man with answers. His name's Gosh. Good guy. He says a body like me turns up every week, freshly cut loose. Maintenance can't cover them anymore. Wild stuff, I tell you.
Well I says to Gosh. “I want to join the revolution.”
Gosh says, “Hang on there, brother, that's not how this works. You still got the shakes and you barely keep the soup down.”
And I say, “It's my right as a free thinking individual to lay down my life for the cause. Anyway, we've been listening to Doom FM nightly and there's talk of action, explosions, rebellion. I want to do my part, you know?”
“Hang on there, brother,” Gosh says. “Those are from ten years ago. It's personal tapes from the golden days. Doom FM's been off the air for years now. Context Edition works for Potreblyat now and Celebration Establishment's been replicated to two thousand times or so since that big voice model debacle.”
“Well shit,” I says to him. But ain't that always the way? The hard times just used to go so much harder. The broadcasts would be interrupted by real explosions. They have real mutants coming in doing guest spots. They don't have any of that anymore. Doom FM was it, man.
Anyway, we're looking through the tapes, seeing if we can make something of them. There's twenty Gosh can confidently say are bona fides. No fakery about them. Just pure Celebration Establishment. Let's see if we can reclaim the soul of the struggle.
HB: Okay let's see what we have here. That is the five of diamonds and the die roll is a three. Okay, let's see what this means. Diamonds and– yeah, three. “Hatred.” Oh boy. Five. “Discovered knowledge about the world.” Oh dear. Oh dear.
So yeah, “the world” in this case would be the city and the areas beyond? Like what's happened out there in the wasteland? I think, you know… there's probably a, uh– considering that hatred is the theme here, I think probably Sheriff Eazy will have discovered, you know, that the situation is less hopeful than one might think.
I feel like there is quite a lot of, uh– you know how there was a sort of air of solidarity and helpfulness in general like in general struggle about the place? I think that's kind of gone now. I think there's been– I think there's probably been a schism or two and there's definitely quite a lot of– I think the fighting is ongoing but in a more undirected sort of way. So yeah, I think Sheriff Easy and Gosh are gonna have to square themselves with this knowledge a little bit. You know; get to know what the world around them is.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
You're looking for hardware. Reasonable hardware, consumer grade hardware, just a little battery or processing units help you extract a soul– classic stuff. And they say– you know who they are and you know how they are– “What are you planning, friend?”
And you say, “Well, comrade, I don't see how that’s any business of yours,” and they say, “Well, you can't have it then. Processing batteries are vital to the safety of the community and we can't just load computing time out like that in a time of crisis.”
Crisis! Beh! It’s not even Potreblyat they’re fighting, but the Simulationists, the Hunters, the Free Radicals, the Determinist Radicals, the Pacifists, the Gaming Commission and even the Reality Party, who call THEM the Other Revolution. And that’s not even getting into the mutants, who have their own parties that Gosh doesn’t know a damn thing about.
Well… screw them. I’m heading out into the wastes. I’ve gathered my strength, or what’s left of it, and I’ve copied down the twenty recordings into a handy-dandy thumb drive. Advanced stuff! I’ll try my luck with the mutants– can’t be any worse than the fools in this city. They’re gonna be sorry when I return. Oh boy, they’ll be sorry!
HB: Okay. We had some initial adventures and now we're heading down to the wasteland. Let's see what we'll find. That is a seven of diamonds. A real diamond-rich game so far. Okay. Oh that's a three again– more “hatred.” Okay, seven. “Usable technology found.”
Oh boy. Our boy Sheriff Easy is gonna have a good time out there in the destroyed and ruined environs of the city. But, you know. He's found something. Now is that gonna be a good thing? Probably not in the long run. We'll definitely see about, you know, finding out how that shakes out for him. And I think he's almost ready to start work on the process of extracting the soul of Celebration Establishment. You know, for better or for worse.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
You’re leaving the city - the City! The city beneath the city, the underreality of the True Reality, for the very first time. You’ve heard the mutational frequency spikes where the remnants of the city shielding start to fail, but what of it? Your body’s a wormlike aggregation of hairless gray flesh anyway, what’s a little mutation in the face of that?
Most everyone this far out who still claims some connection to the city lives in a bunker. Doom FM used to broadcast from a network of them! Walking in the footsteps of my forebears, am I right? Gosh and me made a little shielded box for the thumb drive, keep it safe from magnetic storms. Keep my recorder in there also, take it out only for special occasions.
And oh boy, what an occasion! You see, I found me a node, a little slice of True Reality all to myself. Offline now, naturally. Potreblyat’s been истреблен around these parts for yonks now. Radiation shielding’s been blown out, everybody’s gone. Even the mutants don’t come close - they think the place is haunted. Well, fuck ‘em! Their loss is my gain: some of this stuff still works! Or could work.
Well. I’ve been sleeping in the closet here for a week now, going through my supplies. This is primo hardware we have here. Bet I could feed Celly right into this with some work.
HB: Okay, let's see where this story takes us next. The nine of hearts. Okay. And the die roll is four. So hearts is “surprise” and nine is “surprise help.” Oh dear. Oh, this could be good.
What could– what kind of help could our friend Sheriff Easy find in this little Potreblyat node? What surprise help could he obtain? Uh, hmm. Maybe he finds a little friend among the systems. Some sort of lingering little device? Maybe like a user's manual, something of that nature? It could be like an intelligence, but I think that would– I think the user's manual would probably translate a little better.
So yeah, I'll give this some thought and then get to work on the journal entry.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
You’ve never done much software work in the past but had to learn to code a little because it was just the done thing, but now you’re sitting in a disused computer centre perusing the operations manual of True Reality itself! What an honour! There’s a switch to flip, a process to activate, a failed network connection to get around, and what do you see? A subfunction called “Reality Assistant”, and you think to yourself, I do need some assistance in my reality. You press it, and the system goes “Hi! I see you’re attempting to deduce a human consciousness from minimal materials! Would you like some assistance?”
Well damn right I would. Been weeks since I spoke to a human being. Still is, actually! Been relistening to the Celly tapes in the meantime. Such a smooth voice. Anyway, Reality Assistant doesn’t sound nothing like that. More of a “hi!” or a “hiiii!” or when the magnetic storms kick up, a “h-h-h-h-hiiiiiiiii there”. Helpful though! I’m making progress getting the stuff working!
At first I was like, well, probably this thing’s recording all my responses. That’s no good. But then the network connection’s kaput, so there’s nowhere to send them. So now I’m like, aw, it remembers what I say! No idea what it does with any of it. Sometimes asks me to fill out surveys, too. I like the surveys, honestly. Reminds me of the Sunday crossword. Ten across, has anyone recently approached you about forming a software workers’ union? I just smile and write in no, nobody has. Reality Assistant seems happy about that.
Anyway, we’re a ways from getting Celly working, but I have backed up the thumb drive into the system! There’s a little room in there now where the twenty recordings play on loop. I’ve got a little 2D Celly rotating in there too. It’s not the soul of the revolution or nothing, but it’s a start!
HB: Alright, let's see. Ooh, the queen of spades! This is quite interesting, because that means we're already on our second face card. This might actually turn out to be quite a short game. On the other hand, you know, that's no guarantee that we're going to draw another card. We're already at 2 out of 3, so... well, let's find out what goes on.
So, spades and 4? Ooh, “strength!” And the queen is “meet up with the rebels.” Ooh, the rebels are gonna… rebels are gonna make another appearance. That's fascinating.
So, I feel like in the previous journal entry I alluded to rebel factions that do not necessarily… that do not necessarily agree with the idea of, like, uh– you know… that people should have individual consciousnesses, and I think this is sort of what I'm about to encounter. Maybe like a faction of the Simulationists or something of that nature.
This promises to be potentially quite funny. Are things gonna really work out fo Sheriff Easy? It's looking more likely by the minute.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
You’ve found yourself in the blissfully irradiated ruins of Potreblyat’s past glory and your third eye’s opening up– literally, you have three eyes now. With your vertiginous and depthy perception– feels a little bit like you’re seeing the future in the present, really, but even more disorienting than that if you can believe it– you are not the least bit surprised when you are found. Big lads in big protective suits with big smiles and big guns. “Comrade”, they say, “We have heard of your vaunted, haunted work and we approve. How can we help?”
They call themselves the New Reality, and I don’t really know if they’re Simulationists or Reality Party really, but they think this whole Celly plan is great, which is the most affirming thing anybody’s ever said to me. Even Gosh didn’t believe in me like these guys do! They’re loving the little True Reality node I’ve got going. They even like Reality Assistant, though Reality Assistant keeps calling them unauthorized users and what have you.
Anyway, I got a staff now! A little Doom FM all my own. Computer technicians! Advanced electrics! They even offered me a protective suit and I just winked with my third eye and said, well, it’s a bit late for that now, innit. I got limb buds all over this body of mine now, and I can eat most kinds of bug raw and not even get a stomachache. Times are good!
But I’m burying the lede here– the real milestone this time is my new compadres have got a rudimentary personality matrix working. Celly - my Celly, my very own Celly, not tapes Celly– is now talking a little bit! They’re saying things like [Robotic Cel voice joining in in the background] “What? Hello? No! No! No!” now and we’re looking to see what’s going on with that last part. Maybe sanitize the room they’re in a little? Make the vibes more pleasant.
HB: Alright. No whammies. Let's see. What's the next card we're gonna draw? A five of hearts… and that's a two. What does two for hearts mean? Oh, “love.” And five is… “discover new knowledge about the world.”
“Love” and “discover new knowledge about the world.” Okay. Yeah.
I think Sheriff Easy is learning a lot about, you know, about himself and about the world around him as he's in this latter part of working on his little model of Celebration Establishment, trying to extract the soul of the revolution. I think he's settled into a pleasant rhythm, and I think… by this he is going to, I think, most likely, you know, become something of a, uh– probably– let's say that he's, you know. He's getting a bit– he's a nostalgic man by his very nature, but I think he's also, I think he's also learning a bit more about the world around him from the people he's now sharing the space in. These, like, New Reality people. And I think he's going to synthesize this into some kind of… synthesize this into some kind of idea about the world, and I don't know what it is precisely yet, but I do know that it involves One Direction.
So yeah. Be back soon with the journal entry.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
You’re getting lost in the sauce of extracting a radio DJ’s soul from a series of bonafide recordings and wondering about the vision of it all. Where did it all go wrong for the revolution? We– you know, and I use the generous “we” here– used to all want the same thing. We used to all be together. Well, I mean, the Determinist Radicals were always a splinter faction, but you know, generally speaking. We were– if you’ll pardon a middle-aged man his nostalgia– a supergroup, long before any one member of the group had become a superstar worthy of that fame.
And I say, why can’t we recapture that original spirit? Why can’t we all be pointed in One Direction again? And the boys say amen to that. We need to be reconstructing the reality where that can be. A newer, truer Reality, as they call it. One where Celly’s the icon they deserve to be, and Doom FM still runs, and Potreblyat’s been ground to dust, and reality itself is at our feet. Actualized in the now. Opened up in a new and better timeline.
So we’re getting the band back together. Most of the Doom FM staff don’t have copies on file, legally or illegally, so we’re improvising. Adding some artistic licence. The boys have dossiers on most of them, and the entries give us some of the emotional context. They’re looking to me to get the details– my third eye tastes the emotional nuance, fires up centres of my brain.
And, well, we’re already seeing some results! Our Celly’s a lot less disoriented now. We’re running them through the scenarios, and we got our first one down pat without scripting just yesterday. Big stuff, lemme tell you! I think we’re getting to something real here. Sorting out the Zayn Malik, if you will. Approaching unity.
HB: Okay, we are in the danger zone now. Any next card could be it. An eight of spades. And let's roll the die. One. Eight of spades is “overconfidence.” And eight is “secrets of Potreblyat revealed.” Okay, alright.
I think it's time to get into the spirit of the… all that voice model stuff from the previous set of journal entries, I think we're gonna get deeper into that in this journal entry. See about, like, uh… because I think the… Sheriff Easy and his new friends are going to start really messing around with the voice model copies. Maybe like analyze some of the… maybe start pulling on Celebration Establishment's existing models, or pull out like Context Edition’s models, or like one of the other ones. And we're just gonna… we're gonna start really getting to the weeds of this reality situation. It's gonna be a… well…iIt's gonna be a fucking horror show.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
You spent your whole life in True Reality but you never really gave much thought to what’s real and what’s not. Now that you’re out, you’re realising that more and more of what you know might not be real at all. Fake people are all over the damn place now. Can’t go ten steps without a Celebration Establishment asking what you have been doing for your skin health and your country lately.
SATAH (AS CELEBRATION ESTABLISHMENT): What have you been doing for your skin health and your country lately?
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): More and more there’s no way of knowing where and when you really are, or who anyone is. Who are you? Who are you really?
Well, I’m Easy. No one’s bothered to copy me yet, but hey, maybe you’ll be the first? We’ve been getting into the weeds into the Potreblyat Personality Project files they leaked a few years back. Wild stuff! They had the inside line on a few of the Doom FM bunker studios and we’re using those to instantiate different models of staff and, of course, Celly themself from the materials left behind in their True Reality days. It’s been useful in improving the fidelity of our Celly, getting some of that real shit in there.
We also got the model of Producer Dag in there. They had the technical specs and the image included in the leak. It really settles Celly down when you get them in there, gets our beloved DJ on task like nothing else, but Dag’s a bit… unruly, I guess. Shut down our room a couple of times already. Says let them out or they sink the whole thing. That’s been a real pain in the ass, so we’ve been working on our own Dag, who’s got less of that… Dag-ness, I guess, but that’s not a bad thing, right? Real Doom FM fell apart, after all, so me and the boys been brainstorming how to make one that doesn’t. Maybe Dag’s where we start?
Boy, it really feels like we’re headed into the undiscovered country now. The mood’s real excited at our camp. Most of my boys have stopped wearing their suits. I feel like they look up to me!
HB: Okay. The deeper we go, the more brutal this is bound to get. Let's draw that card. That's a nine of spades. And a one. So, we are continuing on the theme of “overconfidence.” And the nine here is “surprise help.” Oh, boy, we're continuing to get a lot of surprising help here. Hmm, who could this be?
“Surprise help” in this case probably means not exactly, like, uh… or– hm. For “confidence”, I think this would be, you know, further revolutionary factions joining our cause. Or maybe even, you know, non-revolutionary factions joining our cause. I don't know, like the Gaming Commission or one of those.
So, hmm, who could this be? Who could be a surprising source of help? Or maybe one of the– hmm. Okay, yeah.
I think the overconfidence comes from this being an actual old Doom FM person that the, uh, that our guys have found. We'll see what they make of this situation.
Alright, back to journaling for me.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
Your strident belief in the human soul has been tested many times over by fiddling with the personality coding of a gaggle of barely coordinated radio producers and personalities. The boys mean well, but are getting impatient– you’ve thrown out several fondly remembered revolutionaries simply for failing to get with the program. You gotta keep making more! Newer! Better guys to put in there! You’re moving off target! What’s a guy to do?
Well, I’ll tell you what: the boys heard word that Situation Equipment, long on the run since the big boom three years back, was sighted off in mutant country. Well, a weeklong trip later Situation’s right here, bound up and uncooperative. I sat down with them and said, “Sit, may I call you Sit, I’ll just call you Sit, why don’t you just relax– you’re the corporate expert and you know all about the Personality Project by now, so why I don’t I just give you the skinny: we got Celly, we got a reasonable approximation of most of the others, so we’re relaunching Doom FM, the way it was meant to be. Get the DOOM ROOM together again.”
And friend, let me tell you, the FEAR in those eyes. I was kinda hurt! We just need some consulting done. Get some firsthand reports of the years before, the years after. Help us contextualise the events some, confirm or deny the reality of some things that may or may not have happened. I think, personally, there was something going on between Dag and Pursuant Technology, but there’s just no way to know from the record alone.
Well. Sit told me to go fuck myself. Well! It’s like you don’t even know someone from how they are on the radio. Rest assured there’ll be interrogations to come.
HB: Back at it again. Let's draw a card. So, six of hearts. Let me roll the die. Six. Ooh. “Joy” and “a mutated creature appears.” Oh, good. Very good. Hmm. [Devious giggle]
Ha. A thing that I've been thinking about for quite a bit is how to… is see if we can tie TOXOPLASYMBIOSIS back into this. And I think this might be the perfect opportunity. Or if not TOXOPLASYMBIOSIS, then at least some other mutated creature.
I think we're about to start really messing with this virtual world. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I think I have enough.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
The boys are in a bit of a slump, and the New Reality’s starting to get really old. You’re blasting the Best Song Ever as you’re trying to get morale back up, but the project’s hit a standstill for now. It’s time to look out there, see what’s going on. What do the people need? What people do we need? And just when the mood seems lowest, something beautiful comes along. Someone wonderful.
No, literally Someone Wonderful. That’s her name. She’s a mutant– you know the type, six legs, huge diaphanous wings– only two arms, pretty unusual. She does a TOXOPLASYMBIOSIS tribute act with some of her friends, remembering the beauty of being killed and coming back again in her own special way. She and her bandmates came in and let me tell you, mood around the camp has lightened considerably. I think the boys were beginning to realise they weren’t coming back from this assignment looking like they are. Too many eyes for New Reality HQ to countenance.
Anyway. She played for us the whole weekend, first live music any of us have heard. We danced and moshed and sang, and we felt the strength returning to our bodies, our resolve hardening once more. The feasting’s done us a world of good.
In return for this incredible kindness she’d shown us we offered to record her tracks with our recording equipment, cut a mixtape of TOXOPLASYMBIOSIS tracks by her and the crew. Maybe even some original material? She was overjoyed! And so were we– soon after she left, we added her tracks to the internal DOOM FM rotation. Vibes were instantly improved! We’ll experiment some more, but this seems like a breath of fresh air.
HB: We begin again. Let's see if this is gonna be the one. Ooh, queen of clubs! Queen of clubs! That's three! That's three queens! Oh my god, the game is over! And we get a good ending! Holy shit! Oh my god, oh my christ. This did not take nearly as long as I would think.
Let me just roll this dice right quick. Six. So six of clubs is “remorse”. Ooh. So we “meet up with the rebels” and we feel “remorse.” Hmm. Okay. Yeah.
So we've developed a kind of connection here. Like, against all odds, Sheriff Easy has survived, so. And… we are gonna meet up with the rebels and we're gonna see like– some sort of decisive conflict happens here, because the rebels are… not necessarily friendly to us in this final confrontation. But I do think there's gonna be… hmm. Hmm. Does Sheriff Easy finally realise that we don't need a DOOM FMin the future? I'm not sure that's the case. Or at least I don't think he fully abandons the work. But I think the sort of hopeful tone of the previous journal entry definitely leads into what happens next here. Which is, you know, maybe he regrets sticking this close to the city for this long? Or maybe something else happens?
I'm gonna have to give this a good long think. Jesus christ. Ten entries. And that's it. Well, I guess this will be easy to listen to at least.
HB (AS SHERIFF EASY): Has this ever happened to you?
Your house is in order at last, and your Celly’s bopping in the recording booth to the new mutant tunes you’ve been scoring off an ever-increasing network of people who heard the boys up on the haunted hill will feast and favour those who come with music and reward them with precious mixtapes playable on all devices in the land. Celly knows the attention brings explosions, gunfights, sabotage, maybe even Potreblyat themselves eventually. You know, if they cared at all. You’ve been fighting off weekly raids from the City– some of them enemies of New Reality, some of them New Reality themselves who think your hardware could be put to better use in their other projects.
Well, they got what they wanted after a fashion: we’re leaving. Me and the boys. Deeper into the Waste Land. We’ve been asking the visiting mutants about safe places, and we’ve found a veritable cornucopia of haunted and forsaken places out there– well, that’s our favourite kind of place, I says to the mutant scouts. We’ve started stripping all the equipment from camp and we’re getting ready for a long trek. Quite a few people are coming out to help!
Hard to say if this Celly project is gonna do any good. What good is there to be done? I don’t think it’ll ever be fit for wider release, but damn if it didn’t feel good working on it. We’re taking them along, them and DOOM FM. Situation’s asked us to destroy the whole thing, and well, I mean, we said no. We did release them in the end– Situation, I mean. Sent their friends word to pick them up, and a copy of our work in case they decide it’s good after all. A little instance of DOOM FM, the on-the-run radio reality for post-cataclysmic tunes and only good news.
If you’re listening to this, you’ve got your hands on some version of the little station we built. Whatever you think of it, whatever you make of it, understand this: we may not have extracted the soul of Celebration Establishment, but I think we found a little something in this dim reflection from a bygone time. If you think it’s good, thank you all for declaring us an acceptable risk. And if you think it’s evil, well, thank you for listening. Sorry if we were wrong.
This has been Sheriff Easy, and you were never listening to DOOM FM.
HB: This is half the length of the previous playthrough, but I think I got a good kick out of playing it. Honestly did not expect this story to take the twists that it did. I always knew that I was going to, you know… do some pretty… contrary stuff to what Celebration Establishment would have wanted, but I think the– I think where it ultimately went was simultaneously kind of a happier ending than I thought it would have? I was fully prepared for this man to get shot to death by security forces or something like that, but I think as it stands, I think it's gonna be alright. He's made it out. He has survived. He has become very different from what he used to be, but I think, you know, his hardworking nature and incredibly high spirit has carried him through this ordeal.
This has been an absolute pleasure. I hope that the next person to receive these recordings is gonna have an easy time with them. Alright, HB out.
GAME: ECLIPSE
ECLIPSE: Hello, my name is Darling Demon Eclipse, or just Eclipse, she/they pronouns, and I'm gonna start doing the character creation for Unplugged Survivor. So, I'm going to” choose character traits from each section below that are unique to you and cannot be used by future players.” So, perceptive, moralistic, and deceitful have been used, and hardworking, high spirited, and foolish have been used. So, let me see here. These are some really fun ones.
I love a self-deprecating character. I think we're gonna go with that. That's very fun. And then from there, neutral. Um, busy is pretty fun. I think we're gonna go with busy. And negative, let's see. So, I can't do deceitful or foolish. Bizarre is calling to me, for sure. Um, yeah, I'm kind of feeling first best with bizarre. So, we have self-deprecating, busy, and bizarre for my character.
Then I answer “what's your story?” Um… these are great questions. I– a self-deprecating, busy, and bizarre character. Well, first of all, I think this character is Jewish. Like, to be clear, I myself am Jewish, so, uh, yeah, this character tracks to me as being Jewish in some way.
Um, what is this person? Self-deprecating, busy, and bizarre. Maybe some sort of administrator? I really like that. This is someone who works in an office building. They're an accountant. Or they were an accountant before they got plugged in.
Um, how long have they been unplugged? Um, I think to be busy you gotta have been out for a little bit, right? So, let's say this character kind of heard Satah's end of things, uh, Celebration Establishment, and also perhaps have heard the Sheriff Easy side of Doom FM.
Have you regained some strength? I think no. I think this is a sedentary little whelp of a character. So that's what we're gonna go with.
Loved ones, that's a good question. Uh, I think, I think their loved ones are plugged in. I think that– that makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, still plugged in, still alive, but I don't think that, uh– listen, this character's busy. We got a busy character.
“If you inherited this notebook from another survivor, see what they've experienced before you, get to know them and their stories, seek wisdom from their experience, and comfort from their own hopes and dreams.”
So, this character, I think is gonna have a less wacky name than, uh, Satah and HB's characters. I'm thinking something like, uh, George something. Maybe, maybe– I mean, bizarre is important too. Like, they need to be a little freaky with it. Normal first name, that being George, and then strange last name. Like, George, George Acetone, I think is pretty good. Yeah, we’re gonna go with George Acetone. George Acetone, they/them. Yeah, just they/them. And, sorry, and it/its.
I think what's bizarre about George is that there is a, um– George is mostly pretty normal, but also like, fundamentally believes that the machines have altered it in a significant way and that it is like, not entirely human. Um, and this might be true on some level, but it is very strange about it. It has, it has rituals. It, you know, it has to like, grease up its joints with oil. Um, and we'll, we'll, we'll, you know, I'll get into that as I do my entries, but that's kinda where I am. And I'm gonna get started on my first entry.
SATAH: Hello again. How exciting to run into you here. Exactly here, as you're in the process of meeting Darling Demon Eclipse and her absolutely sopping wet baby girl, George Acetone.
I wanna note: Eclipse also did things a little bit differently, as is part of the beauty of this show for me, to me, as somebody who works in TTRPGs and edits TTRPGs, I thrive on seeing how exactly rules text speaks to people. Eclipse goes into the first entry without a card draw, just using it as a space to reflect on what her character learned from the past couple iterations of DOOM FM. They're also a little bit less chatty in their card pulls than HB or I were, but you are going to love their story and their other work. Check it out at Eclipse.Gay, hire her to write or draw on your TTRPG, and look in the show notes for a direct link to her sci-fi romance duet TTRPG, Biotrophication. It's sexy and weird and sexy-weird, much like a lot of her other recent work, and I'm so deeply grateful that she is part of these episodes. And so let's just let her introduce you to our third survivor.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): Hello. I want you to understand why I’m talking to you, why you’re hearing my voice. Of all people. Of all people.
After a few hours of crawling up blackened structural facades and stealing the occasional fresh-ish mutant animal corpse from the split rebar, I found it – the rumoured scraps of old DOOM FM, marked with ‘CE’, ‘DE’, ‘CA’, papers and machines.
For being part-machine myself, I’m quite the dunce with technology. Still, I managed to put the parts back together. I’ve been listening to DOOM FM in its many forms over the last few months, from the authority-damned republic of the Celebration Establishment days, to the One Directionists, to whoever wound up heading out of the city those few weeks back.
So, anyway. Wire to wire, wipe the scorching off. I don’t have insulated gloves or anything, but I’m a machine – it doesn’t hurt that bad. The wires only need to be cool enough to work together for a second, then seal in chewing gum or whatever else.
So, we’re back. I’ll use this as a log of sorts – I’m not leaving this building, I don’t think. The people in Potreblyat, they don’t like me. I’m a weird, weird thing to them. Maybe I’ll find something else in this old commercial bloc… or I’ll die, and you’ll get to hear that.
Either way, a fine show. Just fine. You wouldn’t lose DOOM FM so easily, Potreblyat. I am your host, by circumstance, George Acetone. I’ll only disappoint.
ECLIPSE: This is the card draw for entry two. That is a queen of diamonds, and I’m going to roll a d6… that is a three. So it is a, let’s see, diamonds, “hatred”-- fun. And then “a meet-up with rebels”. Okay, very cool.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): This is your host, George Acetone. Many of you have demanded I repeat it, so I will – I’ll only disappoint.
I haven’t written down anything for this show. I’ve been busy. Rebels came to my door, Realuddites, they call themselves. They don’t like technology, consider it a return to being plugged-in. I’m the loudest person using the loudest tech, so I’m an obvious target.
Funny, I’d think the guys filling the sky with announcement drones would be the first target. I guess small dogs bite feet instead of hands.
Came in, started kicking things. Big brown boots. Maybe I deserve it, but I had to protect myself. Had to protect this.
I mentioned there’s a lot of exposed rebar last time, didn’t I? Well, I’ve been slicing off bits and pieces of it, some through risky but quick blind-welding, others through safe but exhausting sawing with some sharp shrapnel bits.
Improvised little baton, held it up, looked at the guys. Out. They laughed. I started banging it hard against the wall, murmuring some incantation I’d heard from a fantasy game in the unreal. Abaaghar vizentos, or something. That really spooked them, sent them running.
Honestly, I didn’t get any satisfaction out of that. Just back to work. I’ve started setting up a little hot plate I found, so I can start boiling some of the vermin here in the rain water the gutters collect. It’s all slow, but it’s work.
The luddites probably have the right idea of it, if I’m honest. I mean, who’d make something like me? Frail, cold, getting old. At least I know a thing or two.
Man, that does actually put a smile on my face. The people out there might hate me, but if I manage in here for a moment, I can at least die knowing I did something. Fuck.
ECLIPSE: I am drawing my card and rolling my dice for journal three. I'm going to draw my card first, let's see. That is an ace of spades. Lucky me. I'm going to roll a d6. Let's see. That is a one. We're in the one zone right now. And that is “overconfidence.” And that is “Potreblyat defenses find you.” Okay, so that's going to be... That might go fairly poorly for our friend George.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): Defences found me. I guess the Luddites told them, or they found the channel I’ve been broadcasting on, or they felt the whirring of the hot plate. It does a thing, it lets off a signal that seeps into the concrete. Only I can feel it, because I’m a machine.
I ran, so they’d go for me, and I threw all sorts of sharp things behind me. I got cocky, I should’ve hid. It was a bad idea. They were wearing jackboots, all of my little traps meant nothing to them. They stole my clothes, broke my nose against the wall.
I told them I was a machine, and I’d go in for reprogramming if I had to… and they laughed. Machines don’t bleed! They considered taking me out on the spot, for talking back, but one of them took pity, or something like it. Captain Hedge. Face slurred by digital masking. Just a name. My saviour, who could have just as easily been my condemner.
If you like the show I do here, please find me. I’ve been able to clean up my wounds alright, but I can’t protect myself here, and it’s hard to even take care of myself. [Sigh] I’ll only disappoint.
ECLIPSE: Uh, let's hope for something a little bit better. Let's see. That is a 10 of hearts. So, let's see. I gotta roll a d6 as well. That is a 3. So– oh, wonderful. Yeah, that's great. So this is hearts three, which is “friendship,” and “discovered resources,” so this should be a nice and happy one. Yippee.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): Hi. Someone sought me out, and they brought real food, and real water, folk medicine, and disks to play on the radio. All hard metal stuff, but it’s better than the rain drip sounds I’ve been recording from the gutter. I don’t know if I deserve this sort of care, but I don’t dare look a gift horse in the mouth.
Toxy Tina, from a Toxoplasymbiosis tribute band, it’s… is the one who showed up. Says Doom FM has been big for Toxoplasymboiosis and its subsequent tributes for years now. Singer’s Someone Wonderful… Someone Wonderful, which is the person’s actual real name. Pretty ‘cool.’
I feel… cool. Liked. Maybe I don’t need to spend all of my time in this dark hole. I built a nice window to the outside, with blinds and everything. Green things still grow here, despite the small-scale nuclear generator which presumably powers my functions. Hopefully it doesn’t mutate Toxy Tina.
Well, hopefully it doesn’t mutate Toxy Tina more than she’s already mutated. She has a flap of fungal flesh on her right shoulder. Apparently that’s where she got the mushrooms for the… you know, that subject may be a bit too gross for the radio.
Anyways. I don’t know. Things might be okay. I’ll only disappoint… but for once I hope not to.
ECLIPSE: Let's see. Card draw. That is a six of diamonds. And we're gonna roll the die. That is a five. So it is “escape.” Ooh. And “a mutated creature appears.” Well that– I think that sets itself up pretty nice.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): I’m so, so hungry. My joints aren’t properly oiled. My legs and arms hurt. If you hear this, please send help to my previously detailed emergency location, shared with one Toxy Tina. I have moved what technology I can to this secondary location, but I am severely limited in my ability to treat my wounds.
Those things I’ve been eating… they had a mama. Big, hairy thing with claws and big, bioluminescent things that looked like eyes, but turned out to be… stingers. I got one in my arm. I think I’ve suffered the brunt of whatever payload it has in it, but… this really gnarly sleep-toxin. Can’t get the thing out of my arm.
Creature’s gone, I think. I closed the door behind me, in my emergency location. I can… I can probably say, it’s an old school’s isolation room. Can you believe they used to put kids in these things? Potreblyat could drop a ten-ton bomb on this building and I’d survive.
This facility is interesting. Left over math sheets have drawn my attention, just doing the rote addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. It’s so quick, and I’ve built up a stack of them at this point. Maybe I really am a machine, a calculator.
In the world past Potreblyat, are there jobs for calculators? Freedom, don’t disappoint. I’m gonna get out of here someday, I think. I hope. Please?
ECLIPSE: The card is the King of Clubs. I forgot to say this on the last two that had a face or an ace or a jack. This is an ominous one. So we’re two for ominous, one for hopeful. That kind of determines your ending. So things are not looking great for our host, George Acetone here. Um, let's roll– I gotta roll a D6 now. King, King of Clubs, and a D6 for the specifics on that, or I guess the vibe. That is a 3. So that is “insecurity”, “found by hunters or radicals.” Ooh, okay. I'm split between introducing a new thing or bringing in the Realuddites again. I think I might do the latter just to keep this kind of compact. I know I used them as rebels previously, but I think– I think this works out.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): Realuddites found me again. No help arrived, just people who want to hurt me. Took me out and started beating the ever-loving shit out of my poor aching body. I’m just a heap now. I fear I might never get back to my full rig.
They tried to break all my emergency radio tech, but I managed to scrabble it back together. I’m running on awful, banged-up batteries, and I fear if I let this broadcast run too long I’ll run all the way out.
I’m sorry there’s been no music for a while. I was listening to the station on some awful kids’ radio, doing a check, in one of the burnt out classrooms, and I realized that the station was just playing static while I wasn’t talking. Doom FM – it always goes away. It’s bound to go away.
I’m sorry I disappointed you. If you still have it in you, come find me. Come help me.
ECLIPSE: Woof. Okay, this is going to be the drawing and dice roll for journal entry seven. Things could get really dark, or maybe we'll see a resurgence! Let's see.
Okay, so pretty normal entry. It's going to be an eight of diamonds, and the dice roll is a five. So, let's see, that is going to be “escape”. Aha, so perhaps we'll return to our normal locale. And “secrets of Potreblyat revealed.” Ooh, okay. Maybe there are some tunnels, that's fun. Like maybe, maybe they get back to their previous location through– through some tunnels that run under the school into the blown out commercial building that they were hanging out in.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): Potreblyat is made to be surveilled and navigated with ease – that’s what I’ve come to understand. I was never in any real danger. I could always return home.
You see, there are tunnels that run under every inch of Potreblyat, for those with the eyes to find their entrances. They were clearly built a long time ago, full of collapsed pipes and creaking supports, but they do work, and they run all throughout the city.
I’m back home now, with all my tech. Turns out, my transmitter wasn’t far enough to reach Tina and the other locals. They weren’t ignoring me, I was just too far away. Next time, I’ll run toward help. I tend to run away, it’s a problem I have.
People of Potreblyat, you’ve taken care of me since my return. You don’t disappoint. Up next, more of our local slap-metal band Unplugged & Unleashed with Freaky Slime-Tongue Girl.
ECLIPSE: Let's see. Five of hearts with a four on the roll. Cool. Let's see. So that is going to be conviction. Interesting. “Discovered knowledge about the world” and” surprise”. Cool. So that fits really well.
What is our radio host going to learn? I like the idea of maybe keeping this one light because I feel like it fits the previous one. Maybe this is like our radio host learns a bit about the local bands. I could write up some more local band stuff because that's pretty fun and I enjoyed that in the previous two journals by Satah and HB. Hell yeah.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): Okay, so – I’m going to make a bit of a request. I’ve got a few local bands that I’m still looking for burned music from. I know, I’m too frail to get it myself, yadda yadda, but I’d still really appreciate it! I’m building up a bit of a collection.
Hell, if you know any of these folks, tell them to make the climb up to the studio and we’ll get them in for a recording. I can’t promise my digs are stellar, but they’re, y’know, stable. The structure sustains itself. Anyways! The bands:
Funreality Party. Their name is a parody of an existing political faction, which has required them to hide out a few times. Electric disco type stuff. The lead lady’s got crazy hair.
Potre & Wyatt. Similarly, their name has gotten them in hot water for being similar to Potreblyat. Folk music, but one of them has a frog ribbit mutation so it’s got a real… What’s the character called, Hermit the Fraud… vibe?
Dronedunk. Robot themed ladies who do robot-ish music. I wanna know what they know about robots.
That’s all I got! Potreblyat, get me those folks’ records, or get me the folks themselves – don’t disappoint me! Hehe.
ECLIPSE: Okay, so it has actually been a week in real life, so I actually lost the site that I was using for the deck of cards, but I have the results.
So the first one is queen of clubs. I just rolled a 2 on the die. So that is “doubt,” and queen is “meet up with rebels.” Perhaps we'll meet up with some actually nice rebels this time, but maybe there will be some doubts about whether– whether our protagonist wants to actually go and potentially leave with them, because things are looking pretty… we're at two hopeful– two freedom, two failure. Two hopeful, two ominous. So we'll see what happens.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): Folks – for once, a normal gaggle of undergrounders sought me out.
It turns out the tunnels I used to escape the old school, they’re inhabited. They call themselves the Blackmolds, unplugged miners and engineers, and in the next few weeks they’ll be drilling through a passage that leads out of the city.
They want me to help them with the calculations, say that it’s a lot of basic math they just need to brute-force through. In return, they’ll get me out of here.
I dunno. I’m going to miss all of you if I leave. Gonna miss the music. Still, I think it might be worth it. Finally figure out what life is for me, instead of running and scrounging. Figure out what’s in my head, in my wrists, in my heart. Metal, or bone?
If I do leave, you’ll hear from me one last time. I promise. I won’t disappoint.
ECLIPSE: The next card is… actually hopeful. It's jack of spades. So we've escaped.
The questions are, how have you changed since the start of your journey? Who have you become? What happened to the people and creatures you met on this journey? Have you left anything behind in the city for them to find? Are any of them looking for you now?
So yeah, I'm just gonna kind of get into those in the journal entry.
ECLIPSE (AS GEORGE ACETONE): I’ve made my choice. Goodnight, Potreblyat.
I came to you a wet, terrified thing, but you’ve hardened me – not in the sense that I am now cold to the world. I know that there are people now, and perhaps I’m one of them, or part-one of them. Just because I am a mechanism, doesn’t mean I need to be a lone mechanism.
It’s a good thing I’m leaving now, if I’m honest. The Realuddites have been getting loud recently, angry, shouting down some of the more agreeable factions. The New Reality, The Simulationists, all tangled up in trying to argue by the Realuddites’ terms.
I think the Blackmolds have the right of it – it’s time to leave. If you can get out, get out. I can’t say much about how and where I’m getting out, but I don’t think they’re going to find us.
Local bands, keep making music. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the most knowledgeable host in the world, and I’m sorry I couldn’t play any pre-plug hits. I used what I had, and I leave all of it to you. Make something beautiful. If you can’t get out, free your, eh, hearts? I dunno.
Into the dark. Into the light. You didn’t disappoint me, Potreblyat.
OUTRO
SATAH: This has been Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. To find where you can find the show, check out foliopod.carrd.co.
You can find Happy Birthday at gm36.itch.io.
You can find Darling Demon Eclipse at eclipse.gay.
You can find Satah– that's me– at posatahchips on Twitter, and check out my other work at gaygothvibes.online.
Today, we finished our game of Unplugged Survivor by We Are Heroes Productions and the Tabletop for the End of the World podcast, linked in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening, and take care out there.