The other pornographic tape that’s got the Underground abuzz. But do you really want it?
So, you know about the Naked Goddess ‘n stuff. But ever hear of Tape 27?
Tape 27’s a kind of–hmm–it’s one of those Nasty Cursed/Blessed Videos, but whichever it is you gotta decide for yourself.
See, there was this subsect of the Sect o’ the Naked Goddess. These guys are convinced that the normal Naked cult stuff isn’t gonna cut it–that you gotta go deep into age stuff. The Sacred Numbers and the like. But, and a big but, the Sacred Numbers include 3, 5, 7, 13, 19, 23… and they decide they’re gonna get ’em all on tape from low to high. It’s fucking sick, they actually got up to 13, and all on tape. But then the FBI busted them up what good and got their tapes, including the aforementioned Tape 27.
According to a Vidiot who blew a little wad to dig the confiscated tapes without havin’ to look at ’em, Tape 27 (the label on the video, according to the ‘mancer) shows a series of girls–from the youngest, 3, to the oldest, 13–being asked a single question: “How do you perform the…?” with the “…” being certain magickal rituals. The youngest does the Purification of the Cup–the old poison-clearing ritual–and the oldest actually gains a medium-size meal with Convalesence of the Skies, that one where you get all greased up with magick craziness.
Mind, these scenes are immidiately followed with the girls being “rewarded.” Which leads to the question of what you’re supposed to do with the stupid thing. If the Vidiot is to be believed, you could learn some rare-ass crap with this. Mind, I don’t need no Convalesence Crud to get my Good and Plenty, but I know some authentic thaumaturgy punk who’d turn his mom into a man-skin rug to get that thing. And who doesn’t need a little poison ward? But the whole kiddy-porn shit, y’know, that’s just messed up.
What would you do, though? If you found it, that is. I’m not saying we go after the FBI, that’s like cuttin’ a diamond out of a shark. But what if someone else did, and he gets took out, and the tape falls into some other guy’s hands? Maybe even yours?
You know, I’d just record the rituals, skip the rest, ‘n burn the master tape when I’m done with it. Use the richies as bargaining chips. Magick is the real deal, y’know, we don’t need bullshit like that gettin’ in the way of our transendence.
…Eh, Pornomancers can keep doin’ what they’re doin’, just keep it 18+, please. Suckers. Like sex leads to ascension. Me? I’m a tumbler. Gotta have a gimmick in this magick game.
…Crap, not sure if this counts as an Artifact or a Rumor. Reshuffle if you can.
Also, I felt rather crawly writing this. Thought it was an interesting idea, but… You know. Ecch.
What does it do? You said it could be good pr bad results, write them in.
The only thing I see is a bunch of woman telling what sort of ritual they know.
Does something happen to the viewer when he watches the program?
This was getting creepy before you ended it.
Cheers,
Chris.
Ah, sure. Sorry about that. I thought it was fine just being an unsavory data source–but let’s go for freaky. How ’bout this…
The tape has been cursed. Quite simply, no single thing was meant to hold this much effective occult magick, and no video was ever meant to capture that many real working spells in the act. It’s overglutted with magick and tries its damndest to relieve itself of the strain.
Those Unclued few who just watch the video, unaware of ritual significance, are aware of strange events happening in the background. The background of every scene is a plain plaster wall, that of the abandoned office building the video was shot in–or at least it starts off like that. What’s strange is that things can be seen happening -inside- it. During the first ritual, hands seem to be pressing against the plaster, which first merely distends and then cracks, though no hands break through.
During the second ritual, Discern Curse of Despiled Blood, there are shapes in the water–they don’t look like the fish the spell needs, they’re more like wads of afterbirth or coagulated blood. There are more hands pressing against the wall, which develops many cracks. At the end of the sex act, a single hand breaks through. It is skinless and leaking a watery fluid.
The seven-year-old girl who casts The Path to the Book Apprehended finds a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica hidden in the floorboards. She doesn’t seem to notice that something that looks like a giant spider made from forearms and stray organs packed into a glass shell is crawling around the wall, pulling out things that look like “eel-rats” and crunching them up.
The final rite, the juicer, plays with the floor utterly normal and the walls transparent, like a stretch of skin, and a terrible Otherspace is visible behind it, crawling with bizarre lifeforms, some seeming to mouth messages.
These all call for Unnatural checks at 1, 3, 5, and 7.
An adept studying the video doesn’t see the background events. But he does take a little piece of the movie with him.
…Continued, cuz I hit the “character limit.”
Basically, he experiences one esoteric moment for every experience point he spends on learning the rituals. The first ritual costs only one XP; the second takes two; the third takes three; the fourth takes five. The first five XP spent gain a “minor charge.” The second five offer a “significant charge.” The final charge is major.
Only the GM can spend these charges. A minor charge calls an element from the video: a hand presses against the wall, a little clot surfaces in his coffee. A significant charge is a worse element: a wall becomes partially transparent, showing something moving in shadow just out of sight; an eel-rat passes by his feet; an arm-spider crawls over the window. All disappear, leaving nothing behind.
When the major charge is spent, everything seen in the video’s background comes true. The armspider is birthed from the wall, along with eight of his friends–five female, three male, itself a hermaphrodite capable of both mating and carrying children. They give birth to swarms of ten children each, at least five of whom survive to adulthood. They love eel-rats (which pour out in the hundreds) and humans. After a few minutes, the Otherspace seals over with a transparent film.
This all takes place in the room where the major charge is spent–often mere seconds after the final piece of understanding is gained.
As the charges are spent, the video gets worse. When the major charge goes down, the video gets eaten by the player. Ideally, the video gets eaten in the player and ejects–and then something starts trying to break through the wall, the adept still in the room after memorizing the last detail of the ritual.
If the adept gives up halfway through (he might), he doesn’t regain any XP spent halfway on a ritual. But the tape fully restores if the current owner willingly tosses it. Destroying the tape is possible–easy as a normal tape–but do you really wanna ditch that good of a Trojan horse?
Holy Crap.
You’ve got some amazing stuff. This almost looks like a Lego set of UA horror.
I don’t know about a tape bursting with occult power – there’s an Ascension caught on tape, after all, but that certainly not need be the only one.
You could take all these elements and build a D-I-Y wierdness kit designed for UA videos and movies.
Very, very cool.
Cheers,
Chris.
Well, re: the tape bursting with power.
If you integrate this, you could say that the Master Tape depicting the Naked Goddess’s ascension is attempting to bleed itself dry as well, hense why those who watch the master copy get a magickal special ability. As more people see the original recording, the tape could begin to “grow weak” until it bleeds out the raw power of what has been depicted.
And thanks for the “very cool.”
I don’t know. I like the fact that magic violates the Conservation of Energy, Causality, and the Laws of Thermodynamics.
The tape is simply there “just because”. There is no single explanation that proves or disproves it.
It’s a quantum event that occurs on our side of the Planck Length.
Cheers,
Chris.
A little question about those rituals. Looks like most of them are “rulebook” rituals under another name – Purficiation of the Cup is Poison Ward, etc. – but I’m not sure what Convalescence of the Skies is. Is it a rulebook ritual or is what it does exactly left for the GM?
Love it. Creepy as hell, and could be quite the effective plot device in a good campaign. I cracked up at the tumbler line, too.