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ISSUE 18 WINTER 2014 Protodimension Magazine is a quarterly publication written and produced by fans of the modern, conspiratorial, horror genre of role play gaming. This magazine is provided freely via online download, and intends to follow all rules regarding fair use of copyrighted and trademarked material. No revenue for the writers and publishers of this fan magazine is generated directly or indirectly. Managing Editor : Norm Fenlason Chief Editor : Tad Kelson Contributing Editor : Lee Williams Art Direction : Norm Fenlason Cover: Todd Shearer Protodimension Magazine is a Trademark of Kinstaff Media, LLC. All rights reserved. While Protodimension Magazine is a trade- mark of Kinstaff Media LLC, all copyrights are held by the respective permission. with Used Shearer. © 2013. Todd authors and artists, unless otherwise indicated. The Dark Conspiracy® game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright 1991, 1997 Far Cover art ©2013, Todd Shearer. Used with permission. All rights Future Enterprises. Dark Conspiracy® is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises. Far Future reserved. permits web sites and fanzines for this game, provided it contains this notice, that Far Future is notified, and subject to a withdrawal of permission on 90 days notice. The contents of this site are for personal, non-com- Some artwork © Bradley McDevitt, used with permission. All rights mercial use only. Any use of Far Future Enterprises’ copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this reserved. web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. In addition, any program/articles/file on this site cannot be republished or distributed without the consent of the author who contributed it. Conspiracy Rules is copyright 2012, Kinstaff Media LLC and is used with their permission. As a fan-based publication, Protodimension Magazine is Call of Cthulhu® is the Registered Trademark of Chaosium Inc., and is used with their permission. always looking for contributions by the fan community. Please Chaosium Inc. is the Registered Trademark of Chaosium Inc. see the Protodimension Magazine website at http://www. protodimension.org/zine. Submissions can be sent via email to DramaSystem is an Open Gaming framework available from Robin D. Laws via Pelgrane Press. The [email protected] DramaSystem SRD © 2013 Robin D. Laws by arrangement with Pelgrance Press. Atomic Highway is © 2009 by Radioactive Ape Designs. All Rights Reserved. 2 CONTENTS 4 Dithering in the Dark 25 All I Have Left Is This Lousy 42 The White People Words from the chief A horror story by Tad Kelson Shield Made Out Of a Stop Sign by Arthur Machen Discussion on the post-apocalypse Remembering the Heritage 5 Corrigan's Fury genre A pitch set in the Dark Conspiracy by CW Kelson III (Tad) universe For the GM by Geoff Skellams For the DramaSystem Series 28 The Last Guardians #1 Fey fiction 8 Nazis, Cthulhu and Mutants, Oh My! by Herb Severson Interview with Chris Birch For Inspiration and EnjoyentEnjmoyent by Lee Williams Game Business Insight 30 The Last Man on Earth Movie inspirations 10 The Toll of Madness by Eric Fabiashi A vignette encounter For Inspiration! by CW Kelson III (Tad) For Call of Cthulhu 32 The Rukh Socotran denizens 13 The Mysteries of Vaal-Al, Part 1 by Norm Fenlason Dark history catches up For Dark Conspiracy by Ron McClung For Dark Role Playing 34 The Whistleblower Investigating corruption is a 17 Breshingridge Center dangerous business A mad, mad location by Richard Hayden by Ron McClung Dark Conspiracy Fiction For Dark Conspiracy 39 Dark Seed: The Gin Mill 24 Derrin A liver-challenging proto-dimension A character...A Mouse... by CW Kelson III (Tad) by Tad Kelson For Dark Conspiracy For Atomic Highway 3 DITHERING IN THE ININ THETHE DARKDARK DARKWELCOME TO 2014. years past the Apocalypse of 2012 and we are still here, still putting One part of these Goals and systems is how characters advance and how out Protodimension Magazine, still supporting the horror and modern it changes their character sheets. For me, I often think that a character sheet 2Words gaming from communitiesthe chief with quality and style. Still sharing great content should be more like a resume, showing off what the character has done and with our fans and doing the best we can each and every issue. could do. More a recitation of what the character can do than a list of cool by Tad Kelson gear and big guns and armor they have gotten in the course of their adven- So with this New Year this editorial will get a little bit longer. It is all about turing. This for many players is a main Goal all in its self, with some systems goals and systems. On the first of this year, 01/01/2014, I ended up reading more conducive to that than others. an article about Goals (related to New Year’s Resolutions). Rather liked it, very topical at that moment and for me as I am changing some personal So how does this tie in with Protodimension Magazine? We obviously career paths and ideas. we have the Goal of providing the best content for our readers and for the systems we support. Our system to do so is the submissions we get and how The article I read boiled down to the point that Goals (Resolutions) are we put them together to create each issue we put out. Naturally we cannot less important than the means taken to achieve them (the system used). Of do this without the gracious support of our contributors, the Facebook and course for us gamers, system has a very specific meaning. In the context of forum participation, and each other of us on this staff. So as always Thank the article it referred to the steps needed to achieve a Goal. For gamers, sys- You to everyone that helps out and reads Protodimension Magazine. tem is of course that shared ruleset governing the gaming environment; the skeleton so to speak. The rest is the flesh covering the skeletal system. One So here in Issue 18 we have some excellent items for you: useful articles way to look at it is that the game (system) is the means to achieve the Goal for inspiration in any conspiracy-fueled game as well as an assortment of (in game) for the players. fiction and the extended version of a superb article that ran a few issues ago. Another piece of the Socotra puzzle is revealed and some nice art rounds it So the Goals in gaming differ from person to person, player to player, all out for you, our loyal readers. So enjoy and welcome to Protodimension character to character, setting specifics to metagame concerns. From telling Magazine Issue 18. stories to advancing a character as far as it can go, there are many Goals in gaming. Within each game the system defines the underlying reality to the fantastic. From one game to another a player’s Goals can differ. In Call of Cthulhu for example a player Goal could be to get their Investigator access to a new tome and then onto a summoning spell (regardless of the long term viability or actual worth) of that tome. In Conspiracy Lives! it could be a new contact to make access to Dreamland NPCs simpler or easier, or just Good Gaming. a big armored van to drive around in. In other games like Spycraft it could Tad Kelson be the leveling up to get the skill points needed for that cool class sitting in the core rulebook. All of these are Goals that the system can allow for and Editor in Chief facilitate. Protodimension Magazine 4 CORRIGAN'S FURY A pitch set in the Dark Conspiracy universe by Geoff Skellams NUTSHELL leaving behind her boring suburban After they are almost wiped out, a lifestyle. FOR THE DRAMASYSTEM SERIES formerly successful empathic under- It took her two years before she ground cell licks its wounds and tries found her cousin, but eventually she to regroup, while figuring out who they tracked him down to a secret corpo- can still trust. rate research facility in the middle of nowhere. With the help of some her new contacts, she staged a break in and care- SETTING fully extracted Rienes and two others, Helen Corrigan didn’t plan on start- who were all being used as empathic test ing an empathic underground cell, let subjects. The extraction team managed alone one of the most successful libera- to not only liberate the subjects; they tor cells ever. She originally just wanted were able to do it without loss of life, to find her cousin, Jacob Rienes, who without being seen and without leaving had gone missing under what she con- a trace. sidered suspicious circumstances. After But they learned a lot. The conspiracy A NOTE ON TONE the police didn’t do anything, believing theories only told part of the truth. After Corrigan’s Fury is designed to be a dramatic that Rienes had just run away of his own debriefing Rienes and the other extract- series, not a procedural one. The series’ aim is to accord, Helen took matters into her own ees, Corrigan learned that the major explore the survivors’ emotions and see how they hands and started digging. mega-corporations had been subverted Y handle living in a world where they don’t know Along the way, she made contacts in by extra-dimensional forces, forces who to trust, or who is out to get them. Inter-player shadowy circles, people she would have who thought of humanity as nothing UR arguments and drama should be encouraged, with never encountered in her mundane, but cattle.
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