Charles Ryan

CREATOR

10 months ago

Project Update: Statement Begins: A Preview of an In-house Playtest

Hello, backers!

In our last update we mentioned that internal playtesting was underway. We thought it would be fun to share the statement that launched Monte’s most recent playtest adventure. (You may see a very similar statement in the book itself.)

The Resurrection Mound

The following is the statement of Karen Jeong, regarding a pest control issue in her home, made at the Magnus Institute following the standard procedures.

Statement begins.

My name is Karen Jeong, and my family and I live out on Stonecrest Lane, south of town. I’m here to tell you about the thing in my backyard.

About six months ago, we began to notice flying bugs we couldn’t identify in our yard. They were red and green and looked like hornets a little bit. They would give you a painful sting if you disturbed them, but otherwise they left us alone. About a week after we first noticed them, we found a nest in the grass toward the back corner of our yard. It was hard and reddish-brown in color, with little holes for the bugs to go in and out. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but it reminded me of the carcinoma my mother developed before she died. It even had the sort of odor that I remember from her deathbed.

My husband Tom decided right then to call an exterminator. He phoned Beacon and Howe Pest Control but they couldn’t come out for almost a week. We told our son Nicholas to keep away from the nest and waited.

The two men they sent out were strange. Huge, slow-moving men in gray uniforms went straight into the backyard like they knew where they were going. Looking at the nest, which had grown to be almost six inches high with many more of the hornet things buzzing around, one of them asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to keep it?”

What a strange question! We said we wanted it and the bugs dealt with and they agreed. The one that spoke (only one of them ever spoke) advised us to go inside. We did, and they went and got some kind of hinged wooden box from their van. Using shovels, they pried the nest up from the ground as a single piece, put it in the box, and drove off. They didn’t wear any protective clothing, but the insects didn’t seem to bother them.

We went out in the yard, and there was just a shallow hole where the nest was, and no bugs to be seen. We thought we were done with it, although Tom worried that they hadn’t mentioned the charge nor given us an invoice.

About a week later, we started noticing the red and green bugs were back. I checked the spot and the nest was back too. They’d already rebuilt it to the size it had been before. Maybe even a bit larger.

I called Beacon and Howe to tell them the job wasn’t finished. The man on the phone said they’d be out again in a week. I told them we wouldn’t pay unless they were really taken care of. “You need to guarantee your work if you’re going to stay in business,” I told him. He just replied “Uh huh,” and hung up.

While we waited, we kept an eye on the nest, and it every day it grew a little more, looking like a mound or a little tower filled with tiny holes.

Even though I’d tried to keep him away from it, one evening Nicholas noticed small animal bones protruding from it. The nest was almost fifteen or sixteen inches high at this point. The next morning, my husband wanted to take photos to show the exterminators when they returned. When we went out there, though, the bones were gone, and the mound looked disturbed, like something had kicked it. Maybe an animal, we thought, but that was a sure way to get a lot of stings.

The exterminators didn’t show up the following week, and my calls just went to a voicemail. The mound stood about two feet high at this point, and Tom took some photos of the very strange moment when we saw that the insects were all swarming in a bundle. It turned out they were swarming over a dead squirrel. Dozens and dozens of them. And they weren’t eating it like we thought at first. They were dragging it toward the mound. I almost threw up.

No amount of searching on the Internet gave us any answers about what kind of bugs these were. I did find a photo of a nest very much like what we had, from out near the Badlands in South Dakota. It was labeled “The Res Mound,” as it was on a Native American reservation, but there was no further information.

That Saturday, Tom said he was going to drive to Beacon and Howe’s office to talk to someone directly. I tried to get an appointment with a different exterminator, but wasn’t having any luck. While I tried, Nicholas came into the kitchen.

“Mom, something’s weird.” He took me out to the backyard, and we saw a very sick-looking squirrel. Its fur was ragged and it looked emaciated. “I think those bugs have been attacking it,” I said. “Do not go out there. Those things are dangerous.”

But then, as we watched, the squirrel’s mouth opened and one of the red and green insects pulled itself out of it. We both gasped. The bugs were inside it? Was it the same squirrel we’d seen before? But that poor thing had been dead, without a doubt. This one was alive, but not doing well. “It must be a different one,” I said under my breath.

Nicholas said quietly, “It’s the same one. I was just looking at Dad’s pictures.”

The phone rang, and I hoped it was one of the exterminators returning my calls. It wasn’t. It was the police.

Tom had been killed in a hit-and-run accident on the way back from Beacon and Howe.

The next week is a blur. Not a week. Nine days. I won’t go into all of that. I can’t even if I wanted to. I’m sure you can fill in those details yourself. Obviously, Nicholas and I were devastated. Are devastated. I can’t even think straight to write this all down.

The only thing I really remember from that week, amid the funeral, the family, and all the arrangements, was a single moment staring out into our backyard. The squirrel we’d seen that had looked so bedraggled was running up the tree next to the house and it looked… fine. There were some scars in places where its skin was still bare but it scampered about as if nothing was wrong.

I stepped out the back door and looked to the mound. It was at least three feet high now, a crusty tower riddled with dark, finger-sized holes. At the base of it, the bugs were swarming over something again, inching it toward the nest. I think it might have been a dead cat.

It all became clear at that moment. “Res Mound” didn’t refer to “reservation.”

I’m going to sprinkle Thomas’ ashes on the mound tonight.

End of statement.

(Statements for the game are intentionally shorter than those in the podcast and leave things more open-ended or unresolved—so the PCs have more to do.)

Speaking of Playtesting…

Monte and the design team’s early playtests have been focused on tweaking new rules and systems within the game, but if you backed at the Entity level, we're already starting to look forward to providing you early access and playtest materials. We’ll have more info on that in our next update.

In the meantime, large chunks of the corebook have begun moving out of design and into the editing and approvals stage. And we’re working on other rewards too. As soon as we have final designs for some of those, approved by our friends at Rusty Quill, we’ll give you a look.

Thanks again for you support!
—Team MCG

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